Immigration Debate...Australian Style

[Lord Jim]

Some clear evidence that my initial impression that the new Australian PM will be much tougher for the Tories to beat than Howdy Doody was accurate:

From Australia to America, the concerns are the same

Debra J. Saunders
Sunday, July 11, 2010

(07-11) 04:00 PDT Sydney -- Even in a country without land borders, border security is a big issue, as asylum seekers - many from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan - have braved the Indian Ocean to reach Australia's shores.

The issue is of such import that Prime Minister Julia Gillard used her first big policy speech Tuesday to announce a change in her Labor Party's immigration policies. Thus Gillard marked a sharp departure from the policies of former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whom Gillard deposed last month.

President Obama should take notes on Gillard's rhetoric. An astute politician who sees the need to move her party toward the center, Gillard understands how to talk about the issue in a way that doesn't demonize people whose votes she may well need.

Human rights attorney Julian Burnside had challenged her to admit that at the present rate, "it would take about 20 years to fill the MCG" - the Melbourne Cricket Ground - "with boat people."

That's true, Gillard responded. She then took issue with Burnside's dismissal of critics of Rudd's policies as "rednecks" for showing "a fundamental disrespect that I reject."

While Obama essentially was declaring war on Arizonans and branding them as racial-profiling zealots, Gillard defended the motives of asylum critics. She objected to the politically correct notion that those anxious about immigration should be presumed to be racists, and even noted that many would-be Aussies are drawn to the continent because of the "rule of law."

The first and last time I was in Australia, August 2001, then-Prime Minister John Howard - of the Liberal Party, which despite its L-word name is the conservative party - refused permission for a freighter carrying 438 Afghan refugees to enter Australian waters. Howard introduced a policy called "the Pacific solution," which called for processing of asylum seekers offshore. It was a pivotal moment that contributed to his 11-year leadership tenure, and, observers believe, discouraged illegal immigration and lethal boat expeditions.

When Rudd beat Howard in 2007, the Labor leader rejected the Pacific solution and removed barriers to would-be boat people. Over time, Rudd's "tough but humane" approach played poorly in the polls and contributed to his demise as Labor leader.

Enter Labor's new immigration policy. As a sop to the left, Gillard resumed the processing of Sri Lankan refugees, but Gillard also promised to deport Afghans who do not qualify as asylum seekers. "If people are not found to be refugees, I am committed to sending them home," the prime minister announced as she declared war on human smugglers.

"There is nothing humane about a voyage across dangerous seas with the ever-present risk of death in leaky boats captained by people smugglers," Gillard explained - which is what conservatives argued during the Howard years.

Gillard went so far in copying Howard's "Pacific solution" that she proposed setting up processing centers, albeit centers run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, outside of Australia - in East Timor.

Big problem: She forgot to clear the plan with East Timor first. Thus the new plan - notable for its lack of planning - smells like a shoddy stunt. If she had been serious, critics note, she would have laid the groundwork for her proposal with the host country.

Conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott dismissed Gillard's proposal as "a pre-election political fix." He told the Australian newspaper, "I do not believe that a re-elected Gillard government will go ahead and build a processing center in East Timor."

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta seems to agree. Or as he said of Gillard's scheme, "What plan?"

If he were in charge, Abbott says, he would turn back the boats. He also advocates refusing asylum to applicants who have destroyed their documentation to discourage them from faking refugee status.

It's always fascinating to watch the same disputes that divide America as they play out in other lands. Australia has its own idiosyncratic geographic issues, but it shared the American left's conceit that conservative immigration policy was mean, while the left's immigration agenda was humane.

That's where the Obama administration is. Rudd was stuck in that gear, too. Under Gillard, the same Australian Labor Party that argued that the right's policies were inhumane bowed to politics and chose to co-opt Howard's Pacific solution. It must be frustrating for Aussie conservatives to watch the Labor prime minister embrace the humanity of their reasonable positions in her own slipshod fashion. It also is frustrating to watch Obama refuse to understand why Americans, like citizens of any affluent country, want border security.

You can e-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/saunde ... z0tQVd7o8g

[Gob]

Can anyone tell me why any of the countries between Afghanistan and Australia, are not suitable for asylum?

[Lord Jim]

I guess because they're closest together in the alphabet....

(If you're headed east anyway; I suppose if they were headed west the "logical" place would be Albania )

[loCAtek]

Can anyone tell me why any of the countries between Afghanistan and Australia, are not suitable for asylum?

Everybody else is more forked than you; you've said so yourself?

[Lord Jim]

Besides, Australia's standards apparently aren't all that high...

I understand they're even admitting Welshmen these days...

[Sean]

I expect an act of parliament to put a stop to that very soon LJ.

Even though stable door, horse and all that...

[rubato]

Can anyone tell me why any of the countries between Afghanistan and Australia, are not suitable for asylum?

I have never seen any data at all about how many people emigrate to Indonesia &c. from the rest of Asia.

Have you? On what do you base the implication that there is no, or less, immigration to those countries? Historically, I thought there were large population flows to Indonesia from India and China.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

"While Obama essentially was declaring war on Arizonans and branding them as racial-profiling zealots, ... "


He should have been pointing out that the hate and fear being whipped up over immigration was an attempt to distract attention from the complete shrieking disaster of Republican rule from Jan 2001- Jan 2009.



yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

Can anyone tell me why any of the countries between Afghanistan and Australia, are not suitable for asylum?

I have never seen any data at all about how many people emigrate to Indonesia &c. from the rest of Asia.

Have you? On what do you base the implication that there is no, or less, immigration to those countries? Historically, I thought there were large population flows to Indonesia from India and China.

yrs,
rubato

That's correct; there is more immigration to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, the United Kingdom and the US et al, than to Australia. According to Nation Masters

[Lord Jim]

Of course Australia only has a population of about 23 million people while all the other countries in that list, (except for Saudi Arabia, which actively imports large numbers of foreign workers to work as servants) have populations far higher than that....

[Econoline]

The listing LoCa linked to gives this list from Wikipedia as its source. With a little fiddling with the sorting criteria on that list (and a LOT of fiddling with the formatting so that I could post it here!) I came up with this list that ranks countries with populations over a million* in order of the percentage of the country's population that consists of immigrants:

State......................#of immigrants...%of total #of immigrants...Immigrant %of national population........(Notes)
United Arab Emirates......3,212,000.................1.722..............................71.4
Kuwait.......................1,669,000.................0.8945............................62.11
Palestinian territories.....1,680,000.................0.9004............................45.38
Singapore...................1,843,000.................0.9878............................42.6
Hong Kong (PR China).....2,999,000.................1.607..............................42.59
Jordan.......................2,225,000.................1.193.............................39.01
Israel........................2,661,000..................1.426............................37.87
Saudi Arabia................6,361,000.................3.409.............................25.25
Switzerland.................1,660,000..................0.8897...........................22.89
Australia....................4,097,000..................2.196............................19.93....(Other sources give higher estimates)
Canada......................6,200,000..................3.272............................18.76
Kazakhstan.................2,502,000..................1.341............................16.88
Austria......................1,234,000..................0.6614...........................14.9
Ukraine......................6,833,000.................3.662.............................14.7
Côte d'Ivoire................2,371,000.................1.271.............................13.06
United States..............38,355,000................20.56.............................12.81
Germany....................10,144,000.................5.437............................12.31
Sweden.......................1,117,000.................0.5987...........................12.3
Belarus.......................1,191,000.................0.6383...........................12.21
Spain.........................4,790,000.................2.567............................10.79
France........................6,471,000................3.468.............................10.18
Netherlands.................1,638,000.................0.8779...........................10.05
United Kingdom.............5,408,000................2.898..............................8.982
Russia......................12,080,000................6.474..............................8.483
Ghana........................1,669,000................0.8945............................7.548
Malaysia.....................1,639,000................0.8784............................6.15
Uzbekistan..................1,268,000................0.6796............................4.768
Italy..........................2,519,000................1.35.....................4.288..(#has risen steeply in recent years,currently past 4mil.)
Argentina...................1,500,000................0.8039............................3.871
Venezuela...................1,010,000................0.5413............................3.776
Iran..........................1,959,000................1.05...............................2.861
South Africa................1,106,000................0.5928............................2.332....(real figure may be much higher)
Pakistan....................3,254,000.................1.744.............................1.984
Turkey......................1,328,000.................0.7118............................1.814
Thailand....................1,050,000.................0.5628............................1.635
Japan.......................2,048,000.................1.098.............................1.599
Bangladesh.................1,032,000.................0.5531............................0.7277
India........................5,700,000.................3.055..............................0.517
People's Republic of China3,852,000.................2.064.............................0.2944....(does not include Hong Kong and Macau)

I found this way of looking at the information rather illuminating. (For instance, the United States has received 20.56% of all the immigrants in the world, and 12.81% of our population consists of immigrants; whereas Germany has received 5.437% of the world's immigrants, and their population is 12.31% immigrants; and Sweden has received less than 0.6% of the world's immigrants, and their population is 12.3% immigrants. And Australia has received 2.196% of all the immigrants in the world, and their population is at least 19.93% immigrants.)

* BTW, without that "population > 1,000,000" criterion, Vatican City comes in #1, since 100% of its population has immigrated from elsewhere. (Andrew D, feel free to chime in with your "Vatican City is NOT a real nation" rant, as long as you don't completely derail the thread. )

[Andrew D]

No rant needed. Your observation that the vatican's population is 100% immigrants proves the point.

[Econoline]

Agreed.

[Lord Jim]

Thanks for posting that Econo...

I too find that list very illuminating...

If you look at it, almost every country on the list ahead of Australia, (with the possible exception of Switzerland) has some specific anomaly involved that explains their high numbers...

Kuwait and the United Emirates have high numbers for the same reasons that I outlined that apply to Saudi Arabia...

The figure for the Palestinian Territories relates to Palestinians from the Diaspora, and other Arabs who are there for "political solidarity" reasons...

Hong Kong of course isn't really a country....it's an international commerce hub maintained by the PRC...

Jordan has a high number because of the large number of Palestinian refugees...

Israel's number is high because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent huge influx of Russian and other East European Jews who previously had not been able to emigrate...

Among comparable, Western industrialized societies, Australia finishes first, despite it's relative geographic isolation....

[Lord Jim]

And here's something else I find interesting....

New Zealand....

A country which most folks I suspect, (Outside of Australia and New Zealand of course... ) would say has a national profile similar to Australia's; similar ethnicity, similar historical development, also an advanced western country located in the same part of the world...

Doesn't even make the list....

I find that really curious....

[Gob]

Immigration and asylum are two different things guys..

[loCAtek]

Inmates have already taken over the OZylum, what's a few more?

[Econoline]

Oops...when I said "countries with populations over a million" I should have said "over a million immigrants."

Jim - If you go to the list at that Wikipedia link you'll find that New Zealand has 642,000 immigrants, which is less than 0.5% of the world's immigrants--and that 15.48% of New Zealand's population consists of immigrants.

[rubato]

The population of Australia is 90% White European.

A few Indians, Pakistanis, and Chinese won't hurt them.

yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

Wow, I couldn't believe that until I looked it up, but really only 2.7% of Australia's population are indigenous aborigines [!].

No wonder, you have a labor problem.