How long is this inhumane policy going to continue?

Kids off Nauru
How long is this inhumane policy going to continue?

The Monthly Today  by Paddy Manning
3 Sept 2018

It is immoral for Australia to punish kids to send a message to people smugglers … end of story. Today’s release of a joint report from the Refugee Council of Australia and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre outlines the impact of up to six years of being stranded indefinitely on Nauru on an estimated 109 children: it’s an indictment of an uncaring nation. The federal government is spending an absolute fortune to wreck the lives of asylum seekers, to somehow make an example of them.
“Children as young as 7 and 12 are experiencing repeated incidents of suicide attempts, dousing themselves in petrol and becoming catatonic,” the report reads. Instead of garnering sympathy or support, today’s report was greeted by more victim-blaming. The president of Nauru, Baron Waqa, was quoted in today’s Australian saying [$] that children were being encouraged to self-harm to improve their chances of resettlement. “We tend to think … these kids are pushed into doing something they’re not aware of, and the dangers of … It’s the way of working the system, probably short-circuiting it, just to get to Australia.” It’s like the children overboard saga all over again, and, with both major parties in apparent lock step on the issue, there is no hope in sight.
The report calls on Australia to resettle the children here without delay. The Refugee Council’s Joyce Chia this morning told RN Breakfast host Fran Kelly that while the US resettlement process was the best hope for those remaining on Nauru, there were fears among Iranian refugees that “extreme vetting” would leave them stranded. With every such rejection, the resettlement options dwindle and the crisis gets deeper and longer.
Prime minister and former immigration minister Scott Morrison has already insisted that there will be no softening of Australia’s tough border protection policies. Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, who will attend the Pacific Islands Forum on Nauru today, is reportedly not going to visit the regional processing centre that Australia maintains there. A Guardian investigation today looks at the high price of Australia’s support for Nauru, a nation in “democratic freefall”. As Laura Tingle observed on the ABC’s Insiders yesterday, and as Gary Nunn suggested on Saturday, this diabolical offshore detention policy is even complicating Australia’s ability to go into bat for documentary maker James Ricketson, charged with espionage in Cambodia.
We know where the Coalition stands; Labor is not offering much hope either. Shadow immigration minister Shane Neumann, who has been rightly vocal about Dutton’s au pair scandals, has not responded to the Refugee Council report today. Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese, also on RN Breakfast this morning, raised the plight of the children in detention on Nauru and lambasted Peter Dutton for a “complete lack of compassion”, but stopped short of the solution: bringing those kids to safety, here, right now. At least Neumann has written to Dutton urging the government to accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 asylum seekers. One Iranian asylum seeker, told [$] The Australian she saw New Zealand as her family’s “last chance” to find a new home and appealed to prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
With every far-right outburst, here and overseas, comes increasing fear that an act of compassion would cause a racist backlash.
Yesterday we saw an attempted suicide and riots at the Yongah Hill immigration detention centre in Perth. Today, we hear reports of fears [$] for the health of a baby and her mother in detention in Melbourne. The system is cracking under the weight of its own cruelty. Even for the many people who support offshore detention, and turnbacks, as both major parties do, it is surely impossible to defend the continued harm to children. Is the Australian population so scared of a few refugee boats arriving, that we have to continue to destroy innocent lives? Is the government willing to risk harming these children for the sake of maintaining its tough-on-boats stance?