Thursday, 28 February 2013

The right to work

The Coalition immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison's comments cast an unwelcome light on the lives of asylum seekers living in the Australian community. He sought to create fear and paint all asylum seekers as criminals. They're not, but that doesn't mean their lives were easy before Morrison opened his mouth.

Last year the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship brought in changes that mean asylum seekers arriving by boat who move into the community on bridging visas will not have the right to work, possibly for up to five years! I've never been unemployed myself but I have known people who describe boredom and later stress at waking up each morning and not knowing what to do with themselves.

Australian society puts a high premium on working. Go to a bbq with friends and invariably you will be asked how work is going. If it's a new friend they'll ask what you do (for work), or if you've been out of touch for a while they'll want to know what you're up to now. Eight or more hours a day for five days a week our identities are solely defined by our jobs. Hell I've even heard friends competing over who spends the longest overtime at work!

The 'dole bludger' is the natural foil to the hard working Aussie. If we love a hard worker, then we hate someone who does nothing and accepts benefits. Unemployment benefits are set low to encourage job seeking; where relative poverty fails, social stigma takes over.

Why then a policy that entrenches unemployment and forces asylum seekers to rely on welfare?

The effects of long-term unemployment are documented as including social isolation, poverty and loss of skills. Psychological effects described by the American Psychological Association include depression, anxiety and poor self-esteem. These effects are not limited to the unemployed person but impact on families and the community in which they live.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre works to provide aid to asylum seekers as they apply for refugee status in Australia. They report that in 2011-12, 90.8% of asylum seekers were granted permanent protection visas. If the current system had been in place for these asylum seekers they would have entered the community with depleted skills and likely suffering adverse psychological effects.

By denying asylum seekers the right to work the Australian government will achieve little more than entrenching poverty and mental illness amongst thousands of people.

There is no evidence to suggest asylum seekers are 'taking jobs' from other people. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports current unemployment figures of 5.4%. Now economists generally describe figures of around 5% as 'full employment'. That means that asylum seekers enter a job market that can support them, heck even needs them. More importantly they are often filling low skill jobs that most Australians don't want.

Allowing asylum seekers to work also makes good economic sense for those opponents of welfare. Giving a person a job not only gives them purpose, it also gives them an income that they spend in the wider community. No dole bludging here, just productive, contributing members of society.

You can support the right to work of asylum seekers in the community. Read the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre's 'Right to Work Mythbuster' fact sheet then check out their petition. Sign it and take action if you agree that the right to work is important for all people's lives and our community.

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

More 'problematic' use of language...

I'm guessing Scott Morrison hasn't read my last post 'Our Problematic Use of Language'!

The Coalition immigration spokesperson has issued a media release reiterating the false claim that asylum seekers are 'illegal', using the pejorative term 'boat arrival' in favour of 'asylum seeker', calling for a suspension of community release bridging visas and calling for the institution of 'behaviour protocols' for asylum seekers. Morrison's media release was made in response to the news that charges of indecent assault had been made against a Sri Lankan man who is currently seeking asylum in Australia.

Reading through the media release I was immediately struck by the tone of condemnation and the presumption of criminality Morrison is willing to heap on all asylum seekers. In calling for police and community notification, 'behaviour protocols', mandatory reporting and the protection of 'vulnerable' populations the Coalition's policy deliberately invokes the language surrounding the release from imprisonment of dangerous criminals and pedophiles. The implication we are supposed to draw from this is that all asylum seekers are in fact amongst the worst class of criminal and therefore not wanted in our communities. Using this language is the worst kind of political manipulation and must be rejected by an informed community.

Morrison's central conceit is in lumping all asylum seekers in the same 'boat' and condemning them for an as yet unproven crime. He attempts to strengthen this notion of guilt by prefacing his argument with the lie that seeking asylum is somehow 'illegal'.

Let's be absolutely clear, only one man has been charged with any crime not an entire group of ethnically and culturally diverse people that we conveniently lump together based on their claim for asylum. This one man may be guilty of a crime, then again he may not. In Australia we have a Criminal Law and a court system set up to decide these matters. There is no need for a separate set of 'behaviour protocols' with 'clear negative sanctions' to manage this case. Such a set of de-facto laws would be nothing more than racist provisions of the type we are currently trying to stamp out.*

Interestingly while Scott Morrison seeks to have all asylum seekers treated as criminals he makes no mention of how government and Coalition policy confines these people to a bureaucratic limbo that intensifies negative psychological outcomes. In a week that has also seen discussion of asylum seekers in detention attempting self-harm and suicide, Morrison offers no comment on the crimes being perpetrated under a system his party would like to see toughened.

Scott Morrison's media release is a cynical attempt to take advantage of a tragic event and should be seen as such by all Australian's. A young woman has suffered through a horrific event and the matter should be dealt with by the legal system not a kangaroo court established by the Coalition to enforce 'behaviour protocols'. That the young man charged is an asylum seeker does not make him guilty, nor does it mean all asylum seekers are criminals.

This whole episode is an abuse by Morrison of his public profile and a tawdry manipulation of language to tell lies that serve his political ends.

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* See my post on the issue of Indigenous Recognition in the Australian Constitution and the racist provisions of Section 25 and Section 51(xxvi)
** Just a quick shout out; the amazing graphic above, talking about the misconceptions about asylum seekers and refugees is from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Our 'problematic' use of language

There is a conspiracy of misinformation at work in our daily lives. We are all guilty of this sometimes and we all fall victim when the truth is obscured from our sight. Misinformation occurs when the truth is glossed over with convenient catch-phrases, half truths or blatant omissions. Our politician's use these techniques to cloud their political reality and we suffer a lack of transparency about the society we live in. Those who suffer most however are those with the least ability to speak out and consequently to be heard.

I read an article in Monday's Sydney Morning Herald reporting Department of Immigration communiques describing suicidal and self-harming asylum seekers as 'Problematic'. The report goes on to detail other instances of obfuscation such as 'voluntary starvation'. This gem of a phrase details asylum seekers efforts to protest their conditions. Presumably by emphasizing the 'voluntary' aspect of the protest mitigates any blame for those responsible for the conditions being protested.

Every year people throughout the world flee their homes and their homelands because of civil war, internal strife and ethnic differences. When these people flee they travel, sometimes great distances to seek safe haven in countries and claim asylum under international law. They have the right to make this claim and be assessed in a timely manner. One of the countries that extends this right is Australia.

Within Australia the arrival of asylum seekers is not greeted with general approbation, you might say we can be hostile. I think one of the reasons is the way we talk about, and consequently understand who these people are...

Let's start with the names we give to asylum seekers; the one I found frequently repeated in the article above is 'client'. The term 'client' is used by both politicians and those working in detention centers. It sounds rather benign, perhaps even safe to the average reader who is frequently a client of various services. The term 'client' connotes someone who is accessing a service, and straight away we have fallen into the widespread use of doublespeak that distracts clear thought. For asylum seekers and refugees are not 'clients' accessing 'services' they are people fleeing violence and persecution in their homelands. All the name 'client' does is desensitize us when the government tries out the phrase 'access denied'.

George Orwell claimed the purpose of such political speech and writing was "the defense of the indefensible". He felt that some truths were "too brutal for most people to face"*, but more importantly that these truths couldn't be spoken by politicians who wanted to keep their jobs. Hence the use of fancy terms until asylum seekers and refugees become better known in popular vernacular as 'boat people' and 'queue jumpers'. The use of pejorative terms makes it much easier for everyone to look away when people are being locked up, or towed back out to sea on leaky boats.

The use of this sort of doublespeak is not limited to simply classifying a group of people. Half truths and loose terminology is used in describing all aspects of Australia's immigration detention program. In a short survey of Sydney Morning Herald articles dealing with asylum seekers for the month of February I found politicians and government officials quoted on the following:

  • accommodation found wanting by United Nations officials was described by the Department of Immigration as "in line with living standards for local PNG residents"                                       (no description of how these local residents live was provided)
  • in response to claims that children in detention were legitimate refugees the government maintained it was "prudent" to conduct its own checks
  • in responding to reports of hunger strikes, suicide attempts and cutting with razors by asylum seekers, the Department of Immigration described a "significant decrease in self harm incidents" (no baseline or comparison data is offered)
The picture the government is attempting to create is one where they are working toward a solution to a 'problem' and making some progress. What this picture ignores is the significant harm, both physical and psychological, that occurs while inadequate action is taken. Oh and if you think the alternative is better, the opposition repeatedly promise that the government is too soft and that they would 'tow the boats back'.


I am not stating absolutely that all asylum seekers arriving by boat are mistreated and deserve more from Australia. I think many are. What I am telling you is that it is difficult to get a true impression of their treatment through the media.

Before making up your own mind on this issue, or any issue in the upcoming election, it is imperative that we all examine the evidence we are offered and demand more if it is inadequate.** Tomorrow the Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will move amendments to the Migration Act that would allow media into offshore detention centers. Such scrutiny should at least provide some context for the message we've already received on asylum seeker's conditions.

It is important to support these efforts towards transparency and to question anyone who attempts to hide the truth. We are the keepers of our democracy so best we keep these politicians, our public servants, accountable...

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* George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)
** Orwell himself was wary of being guilty of "the very faults I am protesting against". If you find me so guilty, or have any other fault with my arguments please drop me a line. This is not the sort of discussion that ever ends, or where we ever stop learning...