Tough talk about a return to the Pacific Solution

If a return to the so called Pacific Solution is truly Tony Abbott’s new policy on boat arrivals and not just an attempt to grab a headline, then we need the details. Are any countries likely to agree to house Australia’s refugees in the future and would the agreements again be brokered in exchange for those countries receiving AID from Australia?

In 2001 most of the countries approached to house our asylum seekers - including Indonesia, Kiribati, East Timor, Fiji, Palau, Tuvalu, Tonga, and France regarding French Polynesia - told Australia to bugger off. Only the impoverished nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea ultimately signed up and it is unlikely they would agree again unless forced to co-operate in exchange for their AID.

We need to know where people would be resettled if found to be refugees. Most of the 1,637 people detained in Nauru and PNG between 2001 and 2008 eventually ended up in Australia (705) or New Zealand (401) and a few more were taken by just a handful of other countries. The rest of the world had no interest in resettling people they saw to be Australia’s responsibility, especially when Australia only ever receives a small number of arrivals each year. Those who were brought to Australia on temporary visas eventually became permanent residents and are now citizens. Temporary visas are a nasty punishment for genuine refugees but they do not deter people from coming to Australia.

Temporary visas were introduced by the Howard government in October 1999 and Senate Estimates figures show that 9,461 people consequently arrived by boat between December 1999 and November 2001. From their inception to their abolition in 2008, 10,359 temporary protection visas and 854 temporary humanitarian visas were granted and as of May 2009 only 379 TPV holders were recorded as having departed Australia - often because they could no longer bear the enforced separation from children - 26 people had died and 9,841 had been granted permanent visas.

A reintroduction of temporary visas would require an increased level of bureaucracy to make multiple decisions on the same cases over many years, more lawyers will be needed to assist refugees with the extra complex applications that will be lodged and litigation will undoubtedly increase in response to decisions made about people who have already been found to be refugees. Most of these people will end up as Australian citizens anyway but only after we have truly made them suffer and paid our own heavy price.

Tony Abbott’s tough talk about a return to the Pacific Solution may provide him with some political capital, it may cut through to those who want asylum seekers dumped anywhere but on our soil, but where is the “solution” component to be found in abandoning vulnerable people on poor Pacific islands? How long will people be left in these countries in our names? Will it be four or five years again? How much will it cost us and who will foot the bill for the mental damage done to the people who will be detained under this policy?

As we continue to clean up the carnage from the last Pacific Solution policy we need some explanations from the current Opposition leader on exactly who would be screwing who this time around.