A cruel and ineffective policy

Employment opportunities were limited, including for those who wanted to apply for apprenticeships involving a longer time frame than the term of their visa. Many refugees wanted to study and improve their education level in Australia, but although this was possible for some though the assistance of generous community members and scholarships from universities, colleges and schools, the full fee costs kept further education out of reach for many TPV holders.

Refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan in particular watched the scenes of horror unfold in their homelands on TV each day. Many sunk further into depression as their fears for the future took hold, knowing that they could be killed if they were forced to return to their places of persecution. Their lives were lived on hold, without any guarantee that they would not be sent back when their temporary visas expired. Each day they waited for a change of policy or a change of government that would allow them to move forward.

Enforced family separation has, without doubt, been the most damaging and cruel condition of temporary visas. The Howard government designed the conditions of the visa so that people would be hurt where they were most vulnerable, and for many refugees the separation from family has indeed caused them and their family deep and long lasting pain and suffering.

Fathers were forced to remain separated from children and wives for many long years and some are now approaching a decade without seeing their children. Even when a permanent visa is granted, the wait for family reunion can be long, and under current policy there is little opportunity to ever sponsor relatives other than a wife or child.

In 1999 one commentator noted that Philip Ruddock, in his goading of the ALP to support the introduction of TPVs, had turned the temporary refugee visa issue into, “a smelly little litmus test of whether the ALP is willing to take tough decisions to keep boatpeople away from our shores”.

The sad consequence of years of political manoeuvering between the coalition and the ALP, competing to see who could be the toughest on boat arrivals, has been that thousands of traumatised and vulnerable refugees have been made to suffer greatly and unnecessarily. It must stop now.

It will never be clearer than now that temporary protection visas destroy human beings and they should never again be reinvented as part of Australian policy. I hope both parties are listening now.