The Turnbull Government’s plan to resettle refugees held captive on Nauru and Manus islands in the United States has already hit a major snag, with a backer of President-Elect Donald Trump claiming the plan is “dead on arrival”. From Fairfax:
At the weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull revealed a “one-off” deal with Washington, under which, for 1800 detainees in the Australian operated detention facilities, resettlement in the US would be an alternative to returning to their home countries or remaining in Nauru indefinitely…
Washington has not confirmed the deal publicly. But, after a brutal US election campaign, in which “illegal” immigration was the most bitterly contested policy, Mark Krikorian, executive director of the influential Centre for Immigration Studies, predicted a “firestorm” of opposition from anti-immigration activists.
“It’s so difficult to justify,” he told Fairfax Media. “I don’t expect any Republicans will defend it. I can’t see a lot of Democrats defending it either. My sense is that when the word gets out on this, it’ll be dead on arrival”…Acknowledging an upside for Australia in the deal, he then said: “I’m not sure why this is a good idea for the US – it’s absurd. I’m not sure why we’d be taking them off your hands.”
The article goes onto state that the Turnbull Government has 68 days to pull the deal off before President Trump is inaugurated on 20 January 2017.
For mine, the whole immigration issue is warped. There are only 1,800 detainees on the two islands. Australia’s total humanitarian intake is only around 14,000 per year. They are a drop in the bucket compared to the 190,000 permanent residency visas handed out each year as well as the 1.8 million or so temporary residents in Australia – 1.4 million of which have work rights.
Rather than cruelly persecuting the small number of boat people seeking asylum in Australia, how about addressing the many thousands of migrant arriving into Australia by plane who are either systematically rorting Australia’s visa system to gain permanent residency, and/or are being exploited by employers, thus undermining overall Australian working conditions?
The sad reality is that the Turnbull Government has cynically resorted to John Howard’s play book of the immigration ‘bait-and-switch’, whereby the Government gives the impression that it is controlling the nation’s borders by scapegoating refugees all the while opening the door even wider to economic migrants arriving here by plane, thus enabling it to proceed in secret with its “Big Australia” plan.
unconventionaleconomist@hotmail.com
