Why Australia should end mandatory detention

Have you driven across the West Gate Bridge (in Melbourne) lately? You'll no doubt have noticed the suicide barriers that they've been building along both sides of it for the last few months now. These things have cost $20 million and are supposed to prevent people jumping off the bridge to commit suicide, and you know what? They'll no doubt work. Once they're finished we'll be able to say goodbye to the days when every three weeks someone was jumping off the bridge to their death. Mission accomplished yes?

Actually, no.

Some 2,500 suicides occur in Australia every year. So about one in a hundred of them occur on the West Gate Bridge. I can guarantee you that, while suicides off the bridge will stop, suicides off the Rialto, or along train lines, or in someone's garage with a gun or a piece of rope, will take up the slack (no pun intended). That $20 million would much more wisely have been spent on mental health programs or something else that might actually make a difference, and not just appear to be making a difference. You could go so far as to call it a flaw in our democratic system.

So, how's this tie into detention?

Mandatory detention as a deterrent to asylum seekers has historically failed and it wasn't until the Howard government started offshore processing and other even harsher measures that a serious drop in asylum seeker numbers seemed to occur (at the very least its controversial). But basically, if we reintroduced such policies, then that might stop the boats right? So mission accomplished yes?

Again, no.

There are more than 42 million displaced people worldwide. Including 16 million who've fled not only their homes but their home country and are recognised as legal refugees. About one in a thousand flee to Australia. I can guarantee you that building a giant concrete wall topped with automatic lazers, motion sensors and patrolled by man-eating sharks would keep out refugees just fine, but then some other country will inevitably be hosting the few thousand refugees that we've abandoned. The billions of dollars we spend deterring desperate refugees would much better be spent on foreign aid, charity and actually trying to solve the root of the problem, not just creating the illusion that 'stopping the boats' to Australia will actually acheive anything. We are a neighborhood of people lobbying to erect those barriers on the bridge above us, at a huge cost to ourselves, without thinking of the international implications, like what happens to the people living under the bridge the next suburb over.

This is why the UN originally wrote up the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Its a global issue, and just like how individual countries putting tariffs on foreign goods disadvantages us all in the long run and how climate change can only be dealt with if everyone pulls their weight, individual countries having harsh policies on refugees just exacerbates the overall problem. Its a global issue, like how having a central authority to maintain order (the police) or respond to emergencies (fire department) is more efficient and effective in a community than individuals trying to deal with widespread disaster themselves. On an issue like this, we should aim to maximise, not minimise, cooperation, and we should condemn our government for pandering to the selfishness of the One Nation mob just to win elections. Unfortunately, hate sells better than cooperation. 'Stop the Boats' fits on a bumper sticker, while the entirety of the reasoning required to make any major decision doesn't. Asylum seekers in this country are indeed locked up for political reasons, not sensible ones.

But wait, what's that you say? If we open our borders, then people will stream in and take all our jobs, live off the dole (what both at once???) and marginalise our culture?
I basically agree, we need sensible immigration laws, but let us not forget we are talking about refugees. Just as no one wants to grow up to commit suicide, no one wants to grow up to be a refugee. If someone comes here by boat and is found to not be a refugee, than yes, kick them to the back of the line. But if they are, as 80-90% of boat people are found to be, then let them in after a short stay in detention (remember, there used to be a limit of 273 days when the policy was introduced in 1992, but Keating removed it in 1994) for medical checks, then house them in the community and give them the chance to live and work here, maybe even learn English, without being behind barbed wire while their status is verified. Even if they are found not to be refugees, if they behave themselves, then we should at least consider giving them the benefit of the doubt. Every other month we hear of suicides and riots in detention centres, we don't need to stand by and watch this happen.

Also, to put things even more into perspective, as of 2010 there are worldwide about 2,887,123 Afghan refugees alone. Surely a significant portion of them are currently lounging about on Christmas Island? Well if you don't count the 1.74 million currently in Pakistan, the 1 million in Iran, the 30,000 in Germany, the 24,000 in Britain, the 10,000 in Holland, the 8,000 in India and the 6,000 in Austria, then yes, a significant portion of desperate, persecuted Afghanis who've lived through 30 years of civil war are living in Australia, 5,654 to be precise.

But isn't it dangerous for boat people to come to Australia?

Is it particularly dangerous? To return to the West Gate Bridge analogy, do we live under a particularly low bridge from which many people will survive the fall and horribly maim themselves? (ok, so the analogy is starting to get a little flimsy) Surely even the perilous journey to Australia is less hazardous then living in a refugee camp in war-torn Pakistan or in a decrepit migrants camp in Malaysia? I remember Andrew Bolt's rant on MTR after the Christmas Island boat tragedy last December, in which at least 30 people died. According to him, the government had 'blood on its hands' for not going to greater efforts to turn back the boats. But again, this returns us to our earlier point. Nobody wants to be a refugee. This is the rough equivalent of someone running out under the bridge after someone has jumped and survived, and is now in horrible pain, and pointing at them and shouting out 'this wouldn't have happened if the barrier was up there!' Yeah of course it probably wouldn't have, but that would do nothing to solve the root problem. That dying person could just as likely have jumped off another bridge and survived, or shot themselves in the head in such a way that they didn't die. No way of seeking refuge in another country is going to be completely safe, and again this doesn't at all tackle the bigger problem.

So that's my reasoning, that's why refugees should be welcomed with open arms. We are helping desperate people, not dole-bludgers. This really ties back to an old cleche that still rings true. 'Is it theft if a man steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family?' Answer: no (for all reasonable intents and purposes).

Scapegoating asylum seekers by arguing they are somehow ripping us off is politically advantageous to some, just as blaming witches for the plague or a famine sometimes helped people consolidate their power centuries ago (or today in the Central African Republic). Don't forgot that shock jocks are fine with lying and exaggerating if if improves their ratings and garners them fame and fortune. Ask yourself this question, why is Andrew Bolt one of the most famous journalists in Australia? Is he a genius? Is he a brilliant writer or a bold reporter? Not really, he's just more willing to lie than most journalists. Same with Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, L. Ron Hubbard, Richard Nixon, Tiger Woods and Pinocchio. Although in the lattermost's case I'd say he was in fact one of those 'starving people' and so had something of a right to lie.

You can't suicide proof a city and you can't refugee proof the world, attacking the root problems in both cases is all you can hope to do. For let us not forget we are, afterall, all citizens of the world.