Media Release

Innisfail Advocate column

AS ‘self-smugglers’ once again consume national debate, it is regretful that the only commonsense solution heard in Parliament is a minority of one – a policy of turning back the boats with, of course, fuel and food. This will remove all incentives for self-smugglers to come to Australia.

Quite apart from the obvious obligation to deter human trafficking, we simply do not have the wherewithal to look after the world’s poor.

If they are allowed on to Australian soil then often they can’t be sent home because their own countries won’t take them back.

If processed on-shore, about 85 per cent of these self-smugglers will reportedly become Australian citizens; while about 64 per cent will become Aussies or Kiwis if processed at Narau. If processed in Malaysia, they will have to get in the queue along with 100,000 Buddhist refugees from Burma, and their chances of getting into Australia are about nil.

Meanwhile, the Sikhs, who are not a majority group in India, can make as strong a case as anyone else to come here.

These people are exemplary citizens who, instantly on arriving, are proud flag-waving Australians who fit in immediately and are extremely popular.

They have monotheist religious beliefs much the same as most Australians’. Democracy for some three-quarters of a century. Rule of law for maybe a century or two. Many if not most speak English.

We should be allowing into Australia more Sikhs, and more people from our forebears’ traditional homelands. Instead, these numbers are restricted when their places in the queue are taken by self-smugglers.

I would plead with whoever is the government of Australia to – instead of becoming as usual enmeshed in games of political one-upmanship over self-smugglers – look with sympathy upon the claims of people who will blend harmoniously with the greater Australian population.

If the self-smugglers were genuine, one must ask why they did not flee to any of the 20 countries they passed through between Iran and Australia; where they would easily assimilate and feel at home.

One must suspect that they didn’t go to any of these countries but made a bee-line for Australia may be because a husband, wife and three children are entitled to about $70,000 per year in Australia if they don’t work.

Other governments stop people from coming to their country, and clearly we should be doing something to stop people from coming to our country.

Endeavours to do this have been made by both major parties – but they have fallen well short of proper and responsible government.