Christian values and asylum seekers in an election year

But this is not news. Numerous transfers from Christmas Island have already been reported for people who were in the final stages of processing and who were considered to be vulnerable, and the government has made it clear it will use the onshore detention centres if Christmas Island fills up. This is just not a meaningful story to keep running every day, although it is perhaps not on the same scale as speculation by most media outlets on whether Lara Bingle’s engagement ring was flushed down a toilet.

Under the Howard government many people were regularly brought to the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea and Nauru for medical treatment or to testify in court cases, and these were mostly people whose cases had been rejected. In 2005 four men were brought to a hotel in Melbourne even before they were security cleared and in 2007 only 82 of the 83 Sri Lankans arriving on a boat were taken to Nauru, the other person was taken to the detention centre in Perth where he stayed until he later received a visa. I don’t remember the outcries from journalists at the time.

Most disturbing from The Australian in recent times has been its willingness to give voice to Sri Lankan officials who deny the atrocities in their country. “There is no persecution in Sri Lanka … All citizens are equal before the law” said the permanent secretary to Sri Lanka's Foreign Affairs Minister, Romesh Jayasingha, in one of journalist Paul Maley’s recent articles. But the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary and journalists only need to read the reports. A recent US Department of State report on Sri Lanka in 2009 states:

The government was credibly accused of arbitrary arrests and detentions, poor prison conditions, denial of fair public trial, government corruption and lack of transparency, infringement of freedom of movement, harassment of journalists and lawyers critical of the government, and discrimination against minorities. Human rights observers alleged that pro government paramilitary groups and security forces participated in armed attacks against civilians and practiced torture, kidnapping, hostage-taking, and extortion with impunity.

Former UN Spokesperson in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss recently told Dateline that between 30,000 and 40,000 Tamils were likely to have been killed in the recent conflict and that the government was “masterful at controlling information and in refuting information”.

For a journalist at The Australian to simply keep offering up the Sri Lankan government's claims that no one is a refugee and everything is safe and democratic, without context or analysis, is extremely dangerous. I don't believe that any, or at least most, Australians would support violence or persecution from either the Sri Lankan government or the Tamil Tigers and this kind of reporting does not reflect an interest in Australia's integrity.

It is just too easy for sections of the media and desperate politicians to keep firing off words without accepting responsibility for the consequences. Many thousands of refugees who arrived by boat to Australia under previous governments are now citizens among us. They are Australians. But when Tony Abbott and Steve Fielding talk about the “boat people” through the lens of their own politics they are condemning these human beings to eternal guilt. They are telling these long term inhabitants of Australia that it was wrong to save themselves and their children, that they should never have come here, and they were never welcome.

According to our Christian politicians these people should instead now be sitting at the back of Fielding’s queue within the stench of a refugee camp. But people coming on boats are overwhelming the victims of past violence and sufferers of post traumatic mental disorders and when the calls come again for the boats to be pushed back at sea, the nightmares start all over again.

Both of my grandfathers were heads of Commonwealth Departments in Canberra, one ran the Health Department for many years, the other was Auditor-General. One was a strict Catholic who, like Tony Abbott, had once entertained the idea of priesthood, the other was the son of a Methodist clergyman. In a time of strong sectarianism in Australia the men were divided strongly by their religion - only one of the men was present at my parents’ wedding - and I can only wonder now if this era of division lives on in some of our more rigid-thinking politicians.

If the values of politicians like Scott Morrison are driven by their Christian faith, as he claims they are, then his beliefs can only be derived from a faith of division, one that condones separating families of less importance and judges harshly those who fall outside a chosen box. A faith that does not represent modern Australia. I am not a Christian - the images of my mother burning in hell were enough to turn me off forever - but I know of many Australians who embody the humanity that I believe is the genuine basis of any Christian belief.

Over the years of the Howard government women like Jane Keogh in Canberra and Brigid Arthur in Melbourne, both Sisters of the Catholic Brigidine order, spent long hours in detention centres offering a human hand of support to other human beings. Their compassion wasn’t conditional or divisive, they saw only human beings in need, innocent men, women and children who were suffering behind barbed wire fences, and they didn’t turn their backs. Their actions were mirrored by many of the Christian Churches which were among the strongest supporters of people detained under the past government’s policies and reflected in Australians of Buddhist or Muslim or no religious faith at all.

The elephant in the room is, of course, the current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who is filmed walking in and out of his church every Sunday morning and who has also claimed he would be willing to turn back boats on the ocean. Tim Costello recently remarked of both Abbott and Rudd: “When they have Christian faith I would just ask them, which boat would Jesus tow back out and leave on its own?”