Radio Australia Today Editorial

Sri Lankan Asylum Seekers. Now for Indonesian Politics

28 October 2009

The Australian government is unrepentant.

And on a sympathetic view of Rudd and Co, you might be able to see why.

The government says it was acting humanely, and according to international maritime conventions when it rescued a boatload of Sri Lankan asylum seekers in international waters. The boat was coming from Indonesia, and the rescuing vessel, the customs ship Oceanic Viking, took them straight back to where they came from, ie: Indonesia.

The cry from human rights advocates in Australia and elsewhere was loud. They said that the seekers should have been brought straight to Australia, where they could be assured of humane treatment and proper assessment. Indonesia, they said, was known to have treated some of its asylum seekers less well, and Australia should have taken this into account.

Th Australian Opposition has been highly critical of the government too, surprisingly so, considering that it was in government when the very controversial “Pacific Solution” was put in place, which effectively took asylum seekers even further away from the sight of Australian voters, and landed them on small Pacific islands for an often painfully slow assessment.

In the face of all this criticism, the Australian Foreign Minister has come out fighting today. He says he has no regrets about how Australia handled this issue. It he had his timer again, he would still authorise the rescue. If he had his time again, he would still return them to Indonesia. And he has no regrets about working with Indonesia to find a processing cente for the asylum seekers. He says that asylum seekers have no right to demand that they be taken to any destination of their own choice. The fact that they want to go to Australia doesn’t mean that Australia is obligated to take them. And finally showing a toughness that is rare for the urbane Mr Smith, he answered ‘No’ when asked if there was any chance that the asylum seekers would be brought back to Australia.

The embarassment for the government is not going to lighten, because two things of the red-face variety happened yesterday. The local Indonesian governor said he didn’t want the asylum seekers to land in his province, and would only do so if ordered by the Indonesian president. The second thing was a documentary filmmaker revealed that conditions in Indonesian detentions ranged from okay to filthy. Hopefully the Australian-funded centre in Bintan is in the former category.

But its certain that as has been true for much of the last forty years, asylum seekers are again proving to be a really hard issue for Australian governments, and no matter what the governments do, a whole lot of people here are not going to be pleased.

- Phil Kafcaloudes