Open Letter to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton
Felicity Banks
Dear Mr Peter Dutton, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection:
I was a teenager when I first realised there was something wrong with Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. A case was being discussed on the radio of a gay man in danger due to his homosexuality. When I heard the story, he had already been returned to his country of origin on the basis that he was faking homosexuality in order to gain entry to Australia – despite the fact that he was in a relationship with another asylum seeker at the time.
I’m in my thirties now with two children of my own that I would protect with my life – but I still fear for the children and adults who have come to Australia for help only to face an immigration system that is designed to send away as many asylum seekers as possible. It seems asylum seekers are presumed to be guilty of “faking it” – but statistics indicate the majority are genuine refugees1.
I know that as a police officer you have seen the best and the worst of humanity, and have protected and defended the most vulnerable people in our community. You have also seen first-hand that justice requires an open flow of information.
Thanks to the recent Migration Bill, your job includes the power to hide Australia’s legal processes regarding our asylum seekers. You even have the power to knowingly send genuine refugees back to likely torture and death without ever letting the Australian media or the UN find out2.
I do not believe that is the kind of person you are.
There are three things I think you and I both believe in:
1. Transparency.
The Australian government must be 100% transparent about exactly what is happening to asylum seekers who attempt to find a home in Australia (except of course for hiding names and faces of asylum seekers who feel they or their loved ones may be in danger if revealed).
2. Freedom.
No innocent person (particularly a child) should be imprisoned.
a. We urgently need to get kids (and adults) out of detention and into Australia (not Papua New Guinea or Nauru, where they are in immediate physical danger from locals when released into the community3). The Uniting Church has volunteered to find safe homes for all the unaccompanied minors, and there are many other organisations falling over themselves to volunteer to help more people – at zero cost to the taxpayer4.
If sorting out aid organisations is too complex, ask the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre to do it for you.
b. Our legal process is appallingly slow5 and the lack of a firm release date from detention is causing enormous harm6. It is not right to treat asylum seekers as badly as we do7, even in an effort to discourage people smuggling. The “stop the boats” policy looks good on paper, but only because the horrors are happening out of sight8.Our legal process should be weighted accordingly. The purpose of law is to protect the vulnerable – punishing the guilty is a secondary concern.
The fast-track-style legal process would be a good thing if it was used to get genuine refugees out of detention fast. It is not a good thing when it results in genuine refugees getting deported due to a lack of adequate examination of their case.
The needs of the incarcerated children are paramount, and their innocence is clear. But the majority of adults in detention don’t deserve to be there either1.
3. Humanity.
Please formally reaffirm Australia’s commitment to international human rights law, including the Refugee Convention that we helped to write9. Until now, we had a good human rights record. You have the power to make us a human rights leader once again.
Yours Sincerely,
Felicity Banks
Please note this is an open letter that, excluding my contact details, will be shared online.
In 2009/2010, 80% of boat arrivals were deemed to be genuine refugees, and only 3% of asylum seekers arrived by boat (ie “boat people” are an incredibly minor part of the issue, and are usually genuine refugees).
Former PM Malcolm Fraser is appalled at the recent Migration Bill and the powers it bestows upon the Immigration Minister (including secrecy and the ability to knowingly return people to a place where they are likely to be tortured).
Men and women granted refugee status and released into Nauru face persecution and threats, including police harassment when they ask for help. Women are afraid of being attacked and raped in their camps (both in and out of detention, but out of detention is more dangerous).
Unaccompanied children granted refugee status and released into Nauru face persecution from locals including beatings and threats.
4. http://www.mdainc.org.au/sites/default/files/Assessing-the-economic-contribution-of-refugees-in-Australia-Final.pdfhttp://wbttaus.org/better-ways/
Although studies vary considerably in their estimates, all agree that in the long term refugees settled within Australia benefit the national economy.
http://wbttaus.org/better-ways/
Suggestions of better ways to process asylum seekers (especially children).
At the time of writing (30 December 2014) 603 children are in immigration detention in Australia, 186 on Nauru, and the average time spent in detention is 413 days.
6. https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/12/13/taliban-targets-afghan-family-scott-morrison-stalls/14183892001364#.VKF0pfCcC (trigger warning)
A case study of a girl given asylum in Australia after her father refused to allow her to become the concubine of a Taliban chief. While she waited three years for paperwork to process so her family could also be given asylum, her father was killed. Her brother is missing and probably also dead.
An asylum seeker mother details the horrific and unsanitary conditions in Nauru, including a lack of adequate drinking water.
A summary of 2014 for asylum seekers in Australia: “Under Australia’s watchful eye, asylum seekers face an environment of intimidation, violence, self-harm and procedural uncertainty. “
http://theconversation.com/asylum-seeker-code-is-a-rhetorical-tool-with-severe-consequences-35083
The bizarre rules for refugee visas (eg not being allowed to swear in public or they may have their visas revoked) are designed to dehumanise legitimate immigrants and promote racism in the community.
The “stop the boats” policy is putting more people in danger (the most vulnerable are ignored because they are forced to go and risk death elsewhere).
According to the UN, the reason there are less people arriving in Australia by boat is because the “stop the boats” policy is causing more to die at sea. A more effective method of reducing people smuggling and needless death would be to create better legal channels where possible (but for many of the most desperate asylum seekers, there IS no legal path to safety because their own government wants them dead).
Sri Lankan asylum seekers returned to Sri Lanka were immediately (and predictably) arrested.
“Less than two years ago, the Australian government’s own statistics showed that about 90% of boat arrivals, including those from Sri Lanka, were judged to be in need of protection. Yet suddenly, under a secret process on a boat on the high seas, with no legal oversight, only one of 38 is judged to need protection.”
http://www.smh.com.au/national/asylum-seekers-return-to-living-hell-20120723-22kq6.html
Tamil asylum seekers deported from Australia allege torture (sometimes to death) and imprisonment without trial. Their allegations fit into human rights abuses already documented against Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
Australia is breaking international human rights law, and is therefore condemned by the UN.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/australias-position-on-refugees-is-despicable-20141213-124abc.html
Australia is a safe, wealthy country that is not pulling its weight in terms of international responsibility to the poor, desperate, and endangered.
Seven Months
Once again, TJ has chosen a lunaversary to leap forwards in ability. Today he made kissing noises for the first time (very funny!) and when I tried rolling a ball to him, he was catching it!
His crawling is progressing beautifully (particularly considering he rarely lasts beyond five minutes of practice because it’s so frustrating for him). I’m sure he’s taken his first crawling “steps” (shifting knees/hands forwards. . . on entirely separate occasions). He often pushes himself backwards by accident, and other times he actually gets forwards – by getting up on hands and knees, rocking back and forth hopefully, and then face-planting (you gain a bit of ground each time – play along at home!)
He also does something Louisette never did – he puts his head down and uses it as a pivot. And he deliberately uses rolling to get around – it’s more efficient than moving forwards.
Where do your ideas come from?
Any writer will tell you – everywhere.
In 2015 I plan to write slowly – that is, to drastically alter my usual style (I generally finish a book within a month – whether writing for NaNoWriMo or not).
Now that I’ve finished another draft of “Flight of Fancy” (inspired by my daughter’s first fictional story – I literally took her few sentences and made them into a novel) I’m raring to go.
I’m going to STOP and prepare for at least two months, including research and a detailed outline. But I’ve been waiting for inspiration to strike and haven’t had anything to research yet.
The first “hit” was when I was re-watching this video: http://vimeo.com/111547854
I had the idea of having a blind girl nick-named “Cat” because she loves to bask in sunshine. A while ago I read a sad true story of a mum who badly burned her child with spilled coffee because she’d been awake over 24 hours (hence the coffee) and when you’re that tired accidents happen. Although it was clearly not her fault, she had never forgiven herself. I’m fascinated by stories of redemption, so I thought I’d write about Cat’s mother after she’d accidentally blinded her child. I’m also fascinated by blindness, but I try not to write too many blind characters (I have several) because I write in first person and it’s beyond my skill to describe things really well for sighted readers without using visual detail. (Reflecting on my actual capabilities is a definite plus of slow writing – I can spot fatal flaws before the first word is written, and then change them before it’s too late.) So I looked into recovery from blindness. It’s amazing scientifically (http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/zen-photo/b/blindness) and socially (http://io9.com/the-world-that-only-formerly-blind-people-can-see-476400679).
I wondered at this point if I was writing a book for adults, since I could definitely write as a guilt-ridden Mum (writing for adults is unusual for me. . . apart from anything else, the length is quite different and I’m not sure I have a good sense of either the rhythm or the market) and/or something set entirely in the real world (without any fantasy elements).
Neither seemed like a good idea for me (plus it seemed too dark and sad for my liking), so I decided the blindness and recovery had a magical basis. I knew Cat was grateful for her blindness – partly because it changed who she hung out with, but also because it enriched her life in some other way too. I decided that her recovery would be something she kept a secret, in order to appear more mystically impressive than she was (“Wow! It’s like she’s not even blind at all!”) So Cat became a sorceress – a cheerful, smart, sorceress with a flair for drama that could easily make her very powerful.
I still didn’t feel confident about writing as a blind person, even a fake blind person, so I figured (and still figure) Cat would be friends with my hero. . . whoever she is. (Yes, “she”. I’m a girl, which is one good reason, and the world needs more female heroes, which is another.)
I left my complete lack of a main character on the back burner while I thought about the setting. Having a sorceress immediately feels like a quasi-medieval story. There are WAY too many of those – plus, to do a decent job I’d need to do a scary amount of research (and it would still feel incredibly derivative, because there’s just too much quasi-medieval stuff out there – including “Flight of Fancy” although that world is more “fairyland” than regular medieval). It would confuse me utterly to do another steampunk world. So as I was thinking about where to start I decided it should be something future-y. NOT something all computer-y, because I find that very dull. Some other kind of future – something new and interesting and different.
Last night I read Psalm 95, including this bit:
For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him. (NIV)
I finished reading and lay down to go to sleep, but I felt something in the back of my mind telling me I’d missed some vital hook. I got up and re-read it, and the line about “depths of the earth” inspired the idea of enormous epic underground tunnel systems (with windows in the top so Cat had her sunshine). I liked that, and thought about it some more – what would make humanity move underground? Since dirt is a brilliant insulator, I figured it was heat. Australia is the driest continent – more desert than not – so that made sense.
In my thoughts of the future, I’d forgotten about the obvious – global warming. In itself, global warming is a cliché – but it all depends how its handled (for one thing, it’d be nice if it WASN’T post-apocalyptic. . . just different). I figured tunnelling underground was one way to cope with major temperature change. Another was reclaiming land like in Holland or Hong Kong. Another was to adjust existing dwellings – sealing gaps, designing ventilation shafts – which would be delightfully ad hoc – or build new dwellings designed to stay on the sea floor. Still another was to have floating cities – which could be so beautiful, especially if glass and/or spheres were liberally used (to utilise solar power? To float more easily? As a suspension system to deal with wild waves and weather?) And some people would try hard to stay on land – just moving higher and higher up the nearest mountain (which would get easier to live on as it grew warmer).
I’d read something somewhere about buildings deliberately designed to float, and I know there are islands already getting taken over by the sea – plus I’ve seen Hong Kong’s man-made land extension for myself. I had a huge and fascinating place to start my research – laying in magic where I found it best.
I came up with the idea that medieval-style magic really existed in the Middle Ages, and something triggered its return. Don’t know what yet, especially since when we talk “medieval” we’re really talking about Great Britain – and I want to think on a more global scale.
There will of course be major issues with food and water (water might be easy – our ocean is salty because of minerals getting left in there during normal rain cycles. If we melted Antarctica, it would be diluted and might even become drinkable, or close to it), so I’d need to think hard about that too.
I believe human nature is fundamentally stupid in a lot of ways. Here in Australia one government put into place an unpopular “carbon tax”. It was a brave and necessary thing to do. Then the government switched sides, and the new lot threw it out. Arg!
So it will take a LOT before we change the habits that are causing us to head towards potential global crisis environment-wise (I’m writing on my laptop with the AC on, for example). But I think humans also have amazing ingenuity, and when bad stuff DOES happen, we will most likely come up with new ways to deal with it. A lot of those new ways have already been thought of, on the fringes of engineering and science. I’ll look into it and see what makes the best story. I really liked the film “Waterworld” so I’ll have to keep an eye on myself to make sure I’m not stealing from that.
And then there’s the social side of this new world, which will be huge.
Regular readers will know how appalled I am at Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. Unfortunately human history shows that people are generally awful towards refugees (with many beautiful exceptions – including modern-day Germany). . . and if the world changes drastically, refugees will definitely suffer for it.
The likely place for them is on floating cities – literally drifting without a place to call home, and from which they can be rejected from every corner of the globe (while possibly also being the cutting-edge of scientific stuff, due to travel and personal experience). But it occurred to me that if certain weather events trigger major change (I’ve heard of global warming “tipping points” where gradual change becomes sudden change in a heartbeat), a floating city might suddenly be the only form of sustainable life – in which case the refugees would suddenly be the ones with beggars at their door (and they might or might not let them in).
So that’s likely to be some kind of climax, in a world where there is already major tension from both the environment and between the different groups. And something going on for my myserious heroine, too.
I think Cat’s real name will be “Cassandra” and she’ll be the one who first “sees” the next tipping point coming. But she’ll still be a cheerful, relaxed sort of person.
Feel free to help with my research by directing me to theories about what will happen to the Earth physically (and when), and what kind of food/water/housing solutions people are talking about/inventing so far.
Felicity Banks 