by ANDREW THOMAS
Boats full of asylum seekers keep arriving. A fortnight ago, the detention centres on Christmas Island burned after riots over application delays and overcrowding; hundreds of detainees temporarily roamed loose.
Opposition parties used the images to claim policy towards asylum seekers was broken. When I saw the images, I was reminded of the five days I spent on Christmas Island in the wake of the sinking of a boat, just off it, which killed around 50 in December last year.
…
This is what Julia Gillard said in the wake of the disaster: “The people smugglers who ply this evil trade, who seek to profit on human misery with callous disregard to human life … are responsible” she said, “The government, of course, is responding to this evil trade”.
But wait a moment. Like all industries that turn a profit – and people-smuggling by boat to Christmas Island is a growing one – business sustainability depends on a ready supply of customers.
Representatives from the department of immigration and from charities on Christmas Island were all quick to tell me how potential customers were misled: how the marketing for these voyages was false: passengers “cruise” to Australia on sophisticated vessels, goes the pitch, (not lurch across high seas in wooden buckets, liable to tip at any time).
Friendly Australian navy boats meet, then escort passengers to their new home (not line them up in rows and make them sit cross-legged on a barge), asylum applications are processed quickly – and always favourably – with customers ready to start their new lives Down Under in days (not wait months in cramped detention camps, in 30 degree heat, and 90 per cent humidity, deal with endless bureaucracy and agencies before facing the very real possibility of being flown, minus savings, from whence they’d come).
“Australia – a sophisticated land of dreams and we can get you there” … for just $5,000, or $25,000, or $50,000. No one quite seems to agree on the going rate.
“Life savings” seems the established price. But who wouldn’t jump at that? If only customers knew the truth, is the mantra.
If only the evil smugglers were frank about their trade. But just consider for a moment if they were.
Here are some stats. For the financial year June 2009-June 2010, 118 boats made it to Christmas Island carrying a total of 5,592 people to shore alive. Two boats did sink killing 17.
Nevertheless, 99.7 per cent made it in one piece, just three in every thousand drowned.
For 2010 as a calendar year, including the December sinking, around 140 boats made it to shore carrying around 6,500. Even taking into account the 50 who died so horribly, around 99 per cent survived.
And what rewards for those who do. Over the last decade between 70 per cent and 97 per cent of those arriving by boat to Christmas Island have ultimately been assessed as valid refugees and been granted full protection visas – the first step to citizenship, and all the benefits of a new life in Australia that that brings.
Alzajeera for more
via Bargad