[LINK] OT: Making people smuggling illegal leads to death

[David Boxall]

On 27/06/2012 11:21 PM, Kim Holburn wrote:
> While we're on off topic rants, here's mine:
>
> We have made helping people (who are only exercising their legal right to) seek asylum in Australia, an illegal act with mandatory gaol sentences.  This means that desperate people still setting out by boat to Australia are now not able to get people who can sail, handle boats or navigate.  This is why the boats are foundering and people are dying.
>
> (end rant)
>
My view is outlined at: <http://david.boxall.id.au/boats.html>
> Refugees are a global issue. Countries like Australia, on the receiving end of refugee flows, are in no position to control them. History shows that the stated aim to break the people smuggler's business model cannot be achieved without at the same time "breaking" the people smuggled. As Sinclair Davidson said: "Breaking the people smuggler's business model means breaking the people; that is policy design, not some unintended consequence."
>
> Nobody wants to see people take the risks inherent in the boat trip from Indonesia, but we aren't in a position to stop them. Not without doing unacceptable harm ourselves. I'd love to stop the boats, but I'm loath to become a monster in the attempt. We have been responsible for monstrous things.
>
> It could be argued that we have a responsibility to discourage people from risking their lives taking dangerous voyages on unseaworthy vessels. History has shown that our attempts to do so have done more harm than good. In truth, our attempts have been based more on selfishness and intolerance than concern for the welfare of desperate people. Assertions of concern are no more than political spin and self-serving rationalisation. Responsibility in that field rests with nations upstream in the flow of refugees. It could best be argued that our responsibility is to support those nations in discharging their duties. For those nations, the responsibility lies in dealing with the smugglers not the people smuggled.
>
> It is commonly asserted that making Australia more attractive (or less unattractive) encourages people to risk their lives trying to get here. That led me to ask; is death worse than what we've been doing to refugees? I'm reminded of the, probably apocryphal, story of an Australian patrol officer in New Guinea early in the second half of last century. He was talking, it's said, to the head man of a tribe which had recently been through its first contact by white people. One of the head man's duties was to execute felons. The process involved the felon being held down while the head man dropped a heavy rock on their head. The patrol officer countered that civilised Australia didn't execute people any more. The head man asked what we do with the worst criminals. When the Australian told him that we lock them up, sometimes for life, the putative savage was horrified. I guess it's a matter of perspective.

If we really want to stop the boats, we should sink a few. Blow 'em out 
of the water and leave the survivors to their fates. That would 
discourage them.

Alternatively, we could adopt the islander tradition. When Cook made an 
unwelcome return to Hawaii, the islanders ate him. That would really 
send refugees packing.

Either would be more effective, more honest and more merciful than what 
we've done since the Howard years.

My rant will not end until Australia grows a soul.

-- 
David Boxall                    |  All that is required
                                |  for evil to prevail is
http://david.boxall.id.au       |  for good men to do nothing.
                                |     -- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)