In search of Australian values

Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, also interviewed by Neil Mitchell, said "when you look at the numbers we're talking about, the young Sudanese who actually come into custody or dealt with us, only really make up about one percent of the people we deal with ... they're not, in any sense, represented more than the proportion of them in the population."

The Howard Government has always had an unusual approach to refugees. In a rare high point, the Government temporarily allowed Kosovar Albanians in 2000.

Following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Australia joined the so-called War on Terror, joining an international effort to overthrow the Taliban regime.

The Government simultaneously pursued a vicious policy toward Afghan asylum seekers fleeing the regime. These included people who had seen their family members murdered and villages razed.

Asylum seekers fleeing the regime of Saddam Hussein a regime with which our nation was at war were treated in a similarly inhumane fashion.

Australia is not at war with Sudan. However, we have rightly criticised the Sudanese government for its treatment of non-Arabs from the Darfur region. Many Australians are also concerned at the treatment of displaced Sudanese refugees, many of whom belong to Christian and Animist minorities from the south of the country.

Yet the Government would have us believe that it’s all about protecting Australia from queue-jumpers, non-integrators and other undesirables. The September 28 editorial in the Herald-Sun said that primary responsibility lay with the newcomers to fit in with the society that offers them the chance of a new life.

Within 48 hours, two young men with very un-Sudanese sounding names were arrested and later charged with the murder of Liep Gony. Where, then, does the issue of integration fit into this scenario? Or are we to expect refugees to not only avoid committing crimes but also to avoid becoming victims of crime?

No amount of cultural integration could have saved this young refugee. Australians are compassionate people. Kevin Andrew's misuse of one family's tragedy is ample evidence that the only person who needs to integrate and adopt Australian values is Andrews himself.