“We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that there remains nothing to be concerned about in our treatment of asylum seekers or that we have not done irredeemable harm to our reputation as a fair and just nation,” writes columnist JON STANHOPE. 

IN a few months it will be seven years since Australia introduced the policy of mandatory and indefinite off-shore detention for all asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat. 

The policy was introduced in July 2013, to my horror, by a Labor government, indeed at a time when Anthony Albanese was Deputy Prime Minister.

I don’t think a single one of us that vehemently opposed the policy at that time thought it would still be in place seven years later or that asylum seekers hurriedly despatched to Manus and Nauru to prove, in the lead up to the looming 2013 election, just how tough Labor was on asylum-seeker policy, would still be there in 2020.

However, as unbelievable as it may seem and as unforgivable as it surely is, there remain all these years later, hundreds of innocent, vulnerable and severely abused and traumatised asylum seekers in New Guinea and Nauru.

To provide some perspective, it would not be unheard of for a person convicted in the ACT for say manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault or armed robbery to spend no longer than seven years in prison.

Which brings me to my point. Why is it that in the main, we the people of Australia, priding ourselves as among the most enlightened and fair-minded people in the world, have given up bothering to protest about Australia’s collective inhumanity to a group of vulnerable and marginalised people who came to us, as they were entitled to do under international law, seeking safety and security and looking for a better life?

Is it that we are not the people we like to think we are? Is the truth that we really don’t have any qualms about treating people in the odious and heartless way in which we have treated asylum seekers transported to offshore detention? Or is it that it is simply pointless to protest because of the unstinting support of both the government and opposition for the policy?

I concede that when I publicly express my views about just how horrible and unforgivable Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is I am probably reflecting a minority view. It is also clear that the level of media coverage and public activism or engagement with the issue has reduced massively. For example, I don’t think the annual Palm Sunday asylum rally in Canberra last year attracted any media coverage at all.

I also understand the sheer weariness of those that have been involved for almost seven years in the campaign against these draconian policies. A weariness undoubtedly exacerbated by the knowledge that the campaign has in the main been ineffective. Firstly, because it has bi-partisan support and latterly because the relocation of a large number of asylum seekers from Manus and Nauru to the US and the introduction of the medevac arrangements, have caused many people to assume, or be led to believe, that the problem has been solved. That it is over. 

There appears to be a growing, if self-serving and convenient, belief that there is no need for us to feel self-conscious or guilty about maintaining offshore detention. 

The narrative is increasingly that the asylum seekers that we have deliberately and knowingly subjected to treatment that is in clear breach of international law as well as Australia’s human rights obligations and any sense of human decency have either already been relocated to the US or that they can in fact leave New Guinea and Nauru any time they like and go home, if they want.

The truth is much murkier than that. There are still in the order of 500 asylum seekers on Nauru and in New Guinea. A large number of them are from Iran and will not be accepted by the US and/or have had their asylum claims rejected or they have not been assessed. 

Enormous pressure is being brought to bear on those remaining to return to the countries from which they fled, regardless of the dangers such a return presents. Irrespective of their formal status Australia is clearly morally responsible for their welfare and their safety. A responsibility we have to our great shame honoured in the breach.

Without wishing to diminish the importance of the deal agreed to by the US to settle asylum seekers from Manus and Nauru or of the medevac arrangements belatedly introduced last year, and repealed in December, we cannot delude ourselves into thinking that there remains nothing to be concerned about in our treatment of asylum seekers or that we have not done irredeemable harm to our reputation as a fair and just nation. 

No matter how we choose to rationalise the way we have treated asylum seekers for the last seven long years on Manus and Nauru and continue to treat those that remain, the legacy of our brutality and inhumanity will never leave us. It is a part of our history as a nation and our identity as a people.