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The refugee myth: How to make things seem worse than they are

Posted by Claire Connelly in Media, Politics, Religion, Travel

Yesterday various newspapers and websites published a story saying that the government was forced to reveal that of the 6310 asylum seekers that arrived in Australia last year, only 75 were sent packing.

On the surface, I can understand how this statistic may be alarming, but it leaves out two crucial facts.

1) The 6310 people mentioned in the first part of the article are only the people that arrived here by boat.

The majority of illegal immigrants in Australia are the 50 000 illegals that arrived here mainly by plane, and mainly from the UK, (according to the Australian Parliament Library).

“Boat people” make up roughly 12% of that figure.

2) The rest of the 6235 asylum seekers were found to be legitimate refugees according to the UN Refugee Convention (yes, that tricky little document that causes all sorts of annoyance for our government), and Australia’s immigration laws.

I thought the government (and Australia) would be relieved that only 1.18 per cent of asylum seekers are found to have fraudulent claims, (destroying the myth of those dodgy illegal immigrants stealing our jobs and clogging up the queues at Centrelink simultaneously).

Much further down in the article (in the part seldom reached by most people), the article explained that 5105 of the 5646 asylum seekers that arrived here by plane last year were also found to be legitimate refugees.

But once again the statistic was spun and twisted, explaining that the government had sent home “only 541 applicants regarded as illegal entries”.

Even the language is insulting – “regarded as illegal entries”, like some schmo at Border Protection looked at them and said “alright, you look skinny enough, you can stay”, completely ignoring that we have strict guidelines for processing asylum seekers, and the long, arduous, complicated task of processing them to begin with.

Articles such as these reflect the massive chasm between policy, and rhetoric.

Fear mongering articles like this, laced with liberal rhetoric plays on the fears of citizens thoroughly polled and tested to appeal to their exaggerated, irrational, yet easily manipulated paranoia in order to win elections.

Here’s one of the worst kept secrets in Canberra:

The truth is, if the government really wanted tighter immigration laws – they could change laws to create them.

They could rescind from the UN Convention and live by old Johnny’s slogan of “we will decide who comes to this country and the spirit in which they come” – or whatever similar bigoted nonsense he spruiked back in the day.

Even if Tony Abbott had become PM, not an awful lot would have changed unless he was prepared to change the law – which in the current tedious political atmosphere would be unlikely.

And so before we even had time to process what all this really meant, this manipulated statistic made it round the internet, even repeated on twitter by respected journalists such as Mia Freedman.

It really makes my blood boil.

The sole purpose of the “refugee myth” is to associate a false sense of security with the candidate who appears to have the tightest control over our borders.

Never mind that people who arrive here by boat make up less than 1% of the “illegal immigration problem”, if you can even call it a problem.

According to the Australian Parliamentary Library,  “the vast majority of asylum seekers arrive originally by air (96% – 99%). Boat arrivals only make up a small proportion of applicants.”

The irony, once again – is rife.

Moreover, in comparison to other countries, Australia’s “refugee problem” is minuscule.

In 2009 Australia received 6,170  asylum applications while  in the US it was 49,020, France 41,980, Canada 33,250, UK 29,840 and Germany 27,650.

By the end of 2008, there were 42 million recorded forcibly displaced persons worldwide, including 15 million refugees.

Australia’s “influx” represents 4.11 per cent of that figure.

Yet all this still doesn’t address the fundamental issue of why Australia’s refugee policies are, for the most part humane (if you leave out that bit about asylum seekers sitting in detention centres for up to 10 years waiting to be processed… and the exclusion, and bigotry they experience from the community once they are granted protection visas), why the government continues to perpetuate such a publicly inhumane attitude towards asylum seekers.

For this, I really have no answer, and the only “rational” excuse I can come up with is that it’s easier to win elections by creating a common enemy.

I don’t know whether to be reassured by the fact that Australia is actually granting the majority of  asylum seekers refugee status, or ashamed that our government’s spiteful rhetoric is designed to conceal this fact.

I also don’t understand why both sides of our government continue to equate “illegal immigrants” with “Muslim terrorists”, when the majority of illegal immigrants are overstayers, (comprised of about 50 000 people) mostly from the UK.

Australia has a large, thriving community of Muslim citizens (ahhh, yes that small but crucial word – citizen), and yet both sides of the government still seek to marginalize one of Australia’s largest cultural communities.

Aside from the obvious racism, I also find it utterly moronic.

Surely there are votes to be had here?

Any logical politician seeking to win an election would surely want to take as many demographics under their wing as possible (yes, even Muslims).

Votes don’t discriminate.

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