New Aussie Government Drops “Pacific Solution” for Refugees

The new Australian government of Kevin Rudd has started winding down the “Pacific Solution” policy on refugees that John Howard’s center-right government adopted six years ago. Essentially, asylum-seekers were dropped behind razor wire on Pacific Islands for months, and for years, while the Australian government slowly decided that, yes, these people were really refugees needing protection. The end of this policy makes Australia a better country than before.

The Howard government in 2001 adopted this policy because, in that year, some 5,000 people arrived from nearby countries by boat. This, said the Howardites, was “a flood,” with which Australia couldn’t cope. In 2001, 95,000 Britons moved to Australia, but they did not apparently constitute a flood.

On Monday, Prime Minister Rudd started fixing this by granting 7 Burmese Muslim men asylum in Australia. They will be resettled in Brisbane before Christmas. They had been held on Nauru, a small island nation that took millions from Australia to build a detention center. Mr. Rudd promised to resolve the cases of 82 Sri Lankans also on Nauru soon.

Chris Evans, the Immigration Minister, said of the 7 Burmese gentlemen, “in my view, they should have been processed some time ago.” At the same time, he has said that the Royal Australian Navy and civilian government ships will continue to intercept boats of refugees at sea. He was adamant that getting rid of the “Pacific Solution” did not represent a softening of Australia’s immigration policies.

By and large, there is nothing odious in those policies. What was appalling was seeing a nation dedicated to freedom treat the weakest in the international community so harshly. Paul Power, chief executive of the Refugee Council, called it, “a failed policy that created great psychological damage and undermined Australia’s reputation on human rights.” The Rudd government has started shining that reputation up a bit. Good on 'em.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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