Denial is not effective

Suppression of legitimate aspirations and grievances by less than well intentioned governments in the region, toward minority groups, will eventually lead to asylum seekers. Failure to address the loss of habitable and productive land as a result of climate change will force the movement of people, as will the inequitable distribution of wealth.

Australia cannot address these issues through the maintenance of fortress Australia, unless of course it does not care for the human consequences of vessels sunk, the warehousing of families or their enforced removal to further danger and suffering.

Australia needs to take a lead within the region and establish a forum where issues of the current and future needs of people can be discussed openly and clearly. The region needs another Colombo Plan, perhaps a Canberra Plan, where issues of agriculture, fisheries, conservation of rain forests, nurturing the increasingly scarce resource of potable water, as well as support for economic and political reform, all within the context of climate change and other positive and negative changes taking place in our neighbourhood.

The CSIRO should have a major role and Australia should return to a program of providing scholarships to the bright and needy, rather than rely on the dubious benefit of privately run education programs.

The Plan should be genuinely altruistic seeking a frank discourse and genuine co-operation to help ameliorate the end result problem of refugees. The appointment of veteran diplomat John McCarthy as a special representative to Sri Lanka was a good move. McCarthy has extensive regional experience and brings intelligence, problem solving and lateral thinking to the art of diplomacy. He might be considered suitable to establish a regional program of confidence building and mutual assistance.

The Australian Government needs to begin an education program within Australia on what it means to be an asylum seeker and refugee. It needs to act with maturity to take the hysteria out of policy and decision making. It needs to provide leadership because the issue of asylum seekers is not going to go away.

It might seek to put boat people on planes by addressing claims at source, i.e., the camps in Sri Lanka. It might crack down on illegal over stayers arriving by plane and the corrupt issuing of business, student and travel visas. It might take more refugees and fewer economic immigrants.