Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Stop The Boats" with Dr Kim Huynh

Transcript

"Stop The Boats" with Dr Kim Huynh · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Good day humans. Do you ever feel that the pace of change is a little faster than you might like
• 0:06
  that the direction of the change is a little more chaotic than you might like? Do you ever feel
• 0:11
  somewhat destabilized and maybe even that if you articulate your concerns or your frustrations or
• 0:18
  your fears there'll always be someone right there to jump down your throat and tell you that
• 0:23
  that's an inappropriate thing to say or that you might have just devalued someone else's feelings
• 0:28
  by expressing your yearning for things that are comfortable to you. In the conversations
• 0:34
  around immigration and refugees and what we should do about the fact that we live in a globalized
• 0:39
  world on a single planet where all of us are just striving to get by and help one another and
• 0:44
  create a better future that that is inherently destabilizing that is inherently discombobulating
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  and we can have this conversation alone in the privacy of our own brains fearful of triggering
• 0:58
  trip wires that are going to anger other people or of saying things that we're not supposed to say
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  or of coming across the wrong way or of not seeming like we're allies we can hide in our own
• 1:08
  heads jumping at shadows or we can take a maximally expensive idea of what conversation is supposed
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  to be and we can articulate ourselves and try to not judge each other and try to muddle our way
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  through all of this because the surest way to inspire a backlash, a bigoted,
• 1:31
  small, petty-minded insular, parochial backlash against the kind of globalisation
• 1:38
  that I'm saying is something we should embrace. The surest way to provoke that backlash
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  is to stymie conversation and make people feel too afraid to be able to articulate their legitimate
• 1:50
  concerns even if those concerns tiptoe up towards demographic or racial or ethnic or religious
• 1:56
  fault lines we need to have conversations about things and one of the big elephants in the room
• 2:02
  is migration refugees immigration policy the ethnic make-up of Western democracies
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  it's a conversation we need to have it's not an easy one it's a tough one it's a conversation
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  that sometimes yes I'll say it. Uncomfortable.
• 2:30
  A terrific conversation for you today about a third rail of political conversation
• 2:36
  in the Western world certainly in the Anglophone world immigration border walls borders skilled
• 2:43
  migration asylum seekers refugees I mean this is a conundrum that goes back generations centuries
• 2:55
  and yet it has come into such stark relief in recent years with Trump and his big border wall
• 3:00
  and the caravans of migrants approaching the southern border and the recognition on both sides
• 3:05
  of American politics that the immigration systems completely broken when you've got millions
• 3:08
  and millions and millions of undocumented workers in the United States living there
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  in this second-class citizen well not citizen status something has gone completely wrong whether you
• 3:20
  want those people to stay or you want those people to go the status quo is clearly broken
• 3:26
  and it wasn't just Trump voters who know it then on the other side of the point you got Brexit
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  which in its own way although pro-Brexitiers will talk about it being non-racialized and non-ethnic
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  and it's not a small little vision of Britain it's a big with vision of Britain and we're doing
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  to be like Singapore in Europe and in face to the world when you reach out we all
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  want to strike up our own bilateral relationships with us despite all of that the majority the
• 3:55
  average Brexit voter just wanted a smaller more hobbit-like life less inundated with strange people
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  who don't seem to come from your terroir who don't seem to come from your neck of the
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  woods and it took like you and looked like you so what do we do with all this
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  Australia has had a particularly brutal trade-off where it has basically said that as long as we
• 4:24
  can secure the borders the maritime borders and ensure that people do not come here by boat and
• 4:29
  get resettled in a chaotic fashion as long as Australian voters can feel like they're in control
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  then they will go along with politicians who allow very high rates of immigration and of refugee
• 4:42
  resettlement from refugee camps but it's a bit of a faustian pact because you end up with a
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  situation in which desperate people are being turned away on boats or perhaps worse still or perhaps
• 4:57
  better still being rounded up by the Australian Navy and placed on essentially desert prison camps
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  in God forsaken flyspec Pacific Island nations no offense norra sure you're a lovely place
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  with all of your bird poo and desert rocks I wanted to talk to somebody who can see both sides of
• 5:22
  this issue and who can maybe chart away forward and have the conversation that is so uncomfortable
• 5:30
  in Australia and in many other countries as well that it's the kind of it's a barbecue stopper where
• 5:35
  it causes no end of fights and disagreements around the family dinner table so let's have it out
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  in a way that can model a way of talking about this even between people who are on the extreme
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  sides of the pro-war anti-refugee question my guest is Dr Kim Hoen he is a boat person himself
• 5:54
  arrived when he was a toddler with his parents from Vietnam after the Vietnam war and he's written
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  books which are which have been very well acclaimed the main one being where the sea takes us which
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  was a biography of his own of his own parents but his main job is that he teaches from politics and
• 6:12
  philosophy at Australian National University in Canberra he also happens to be a reporter and
• 6:18
  presenter on ABC radio Canberra it's a fascinating conversation I hope it helps expand your mind
• 6:24
  about the positions on both sides of the pro-war anti-refugee camp enjoy this chat with Dr Kim Hoen
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  my mum my mum's my drinking partner we have a beer almost every night she gets
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  probably a third of the bottle and I drink two thirds that's our start I must say I've had some
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  nights with old Vietnamese women who've drunkly under the table she's not they're not you know
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  I wouldn't say she drinks a lot or any of it I drink more than most people in my family but
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  even then it's not very much but they drink with gusto you know yeah is what hey bar yours
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  it's very simple one two three chug it in it's great and the beer's a lower percentage in a lot
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  of the place drunk so you can just drink for ages it's very helpful can you give us a let's start
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  with a part of the history of Australian immigration when when foreigners think about Australia if
• 7:31
  they don't know much about Australia they sometimes just think of it as being a white crocodile
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  under the land of of outback you know originally English stock without realizing that it's one of
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  the most enthusiastically multi-ethnic countries in the world now but it wasn't always the white
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  Australia policy was in place until the late 60s can you just give us a rundown of what changed
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  after the Second World War after World War II Australia is in a bit of a dilemma isn't it because
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  it's still wedded to this idea of white Australia and the idea that it was basically a white
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  supremacist idea that that really white people were better and they belonged in Australia it was
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  a haven for white people it wasn't of course only Australia that had these ideas but it was the
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  institutionalised part of our politics and our immigration policy but the dilemma that it had
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  is that we'd been almost been invaded we're in a war and there was this ongoing fear particularly
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  proud fear of people taking over Australia to our north yellow people so what we're going to do
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  about how we're going to get people in here we couldn't get enough white people in here so the
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  the racial compromise the immigration compromise was to get the beautiful bolts people from
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  Eastern Europe we had to sort of promote that that these people even though they weren't English
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  they weren't American that they were beautiful and they were white so did you say that was beautiful
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  bolts the beautiful bolts that's what they were referring to the beautiful bolts they're coming
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  so they had to plug it right these people these people were beautiful people they deserve to be
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  in Australia and of course they did too they've made a great contribution I suppose that
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  Labour Party followers in the post war era were probably besotted by communism anyway and we
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  had probably seen all of the Stalinist propaganda of these beautiful muscular men with
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  sides in the field harvesting wheat and these bucsum ladies and wentches with little newborns
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  bouncing on their knee and they probably thought we want a bit of that who doesn't like those
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  murals you have squared your beautiful bolts I think a lot of those from being from Vietnam too I
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  got to say but oh yeah of course the communist iconography of communist Vietnam yeah beautiful
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  and so the alright so they start opening up the the the country to not just people from England
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  and Ireland but to Eastern European that went pretty well actually I'm reminded that our first
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  immigration minister Arthur Callwell the Labour fellow too he was a great he's a great figure in
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  many ways opened up Australia he's had a massive interest in China but I mentioned that it's
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  always it's always a bit wrought and a bit conflicted because he's also famous for the lion
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  they're saying that the two wongs don't make it a white two wongs don't make it a white
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  in public like that wasn't it imagine when people say that we are like an erudemably white
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  supremacist society and that things have never been worse for people of color I just wish I could
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  put them in a time machine and go back just what was it maybe 60 or 70 years when a senior government
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  minister is saying two wongs don't make a white yeah absolutely I mean but whiteness is a very
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  sort of malleable sort of movement and and sensibility and psychology it does sort of change
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  but if certainly far more explicit in the past and we're seeing that I sort of find that a really
• 10:57
  intellectually interesting and a period right now after Black Lives a Black Lives Matter is as
• 11:03
  burgeoned in many ways there's seen this reckoning of racial politics and it's broad an incredible
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  awareness and and you vote vocabulary particularly to Australians you know contrasted with Americans
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  whatever our racial problems are in both countries they're quite pronounced but but Australians
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  seem to me to have a less refined vocabulary and awareness of race you know obviously it's
• 11:29
  different person but anyway we're starting to to build it's just not thought though because I
• 11:34
  think that's interesting what can you give me an example of the less refined vocabulary of race here
• 11:38
  well I've got a great example I'm sort of interested in sports and your American listeners too
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  would know the the case of Colin Kaepernick right the pillar who who put his knee down the NFL
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  football player and started all sorts of debates 2015 2016 in America and it's put his knee down
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  in Neil during the national anthem that explicit act of protest on the field the same
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  I met all the Australians with no at around the same time there's an issue in Australia with Adam
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  Goods Adam Goods and what did Adam Goods do he he responded to to to a crowd member a young a
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  young girl who was calling him an ape in the crowd he responded the most dignified way and said
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  that hey that's not acceptable can you get that person off the field he was very generous
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  to the young lady afterwards as far as I could see but that causes a national uproar to in Australia
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  about the same time but note that the differences in in what black men do on the sporting field
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  in America it's an explicit act of protest kneeling down during the national anthem so that
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  causes a great amount of debate here it was a fellow reacting to someone who was calling him an
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  ape and that's debatable in Australia that that leads to him retiring early with massive mental
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  health issues people booing him for over a year tens of thousands of people hundreds of thousands
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  of people watching people boo him that's what I mean by the differences in sensibilities of
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  awareness and vocabulary in Australia that's enough to spark great unbridge and a national debate
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  someone calling out someone for yelling at them and calling them an ape and you know what I mean
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  that's what I mean that's what I think the difference is yeah that's interesting I mean the
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  I think that there was also a tinge there of of a sense among people who who hold sport to be very
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  very important in their lives which I don't that there's that there is a certain ruff and tumble
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  that you have to go along with in sport and especially in Australia with its tradition of
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  slidging on the cricket pitch and and sort of overt offensiveness that there that you have to
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  sort of give and take and there's a ruff and tumble aspect to it and there was a sense that maybe
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  goods had stepped out aligned by being by carrying himself with a certain amount of swagger and
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  arrogance and doing these things of sort of every time he'd he'd be successful on the field he'd
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  he'd he'd play actors if he was throwing an aboriginal spear into the audience at people who'd
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  been shouting out at him but there was a certain playfulness and then the moment he called out
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  a young girl who obviously didn't know what she was doing and it had inherited this offensive
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  language from her parents or whatever there was a sense that he was being a little bit precious
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  when it suited and not precious when it didn't did you feel that well this is where there's some
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  parallel between America and Australia that the the black man who who stands up for himself
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  is viewed in in radical is particularly threatening in both societies and here I mean it's interesting
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  here about you know goods was called a penalty puller which is on an American on Australian
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  sporting field is a is a terrible sin that you somehow faking to pull penalties right but that's
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  racialized too in many ways I mean that that speaks this idea that that black people are somehow
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  playing the system getting all this welfare and that sort of thing I suspect and if memory
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  recalls right stats were done on how many penalties he got and all that sort of thing sportspeople
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  love their statistics and really it was no difference but it was perceived as radically different
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  that the black man is cheating the system somehow there's a slight link to to to both people too
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  that they're somehow coming through the back door in Australia they're looking to get our stuff
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  they're looking to undermine our our immigration system speaking of being conscious of the the
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  racialized racialized words and how to use them correctly I think you're right they're absolutely
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  right that there is a greater racial awareness and certainly tiptoeing in the states and when
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  I know the states is a very big and complex place so I'm not talking about a saloon in Alabama
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  necessarily but in amongst a lead opinion as you find it on the coast of of the states then there
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  is in Australia and yet you know I just I have used a term that you just used in the states
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  boat people and the entire table stopped like it was like the piano player stopped in an old
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  western and the tumbleweed going flying past in the saloon doors swing eerily because they were
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  like you can't say that yeah that's a great point isn't it and not you know they're boat people
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  that's like offensive so there's a whole kind of hierarchy of offendedness in the states that one
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  has to be aware of and one has to navigate that aren't isn't obvious to the outsider which is why
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  the recommendation for any non-american in the states is just don't talk about race at all because
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  you're right with the nuances you can't ask you know oh I understand that you know blackface in
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  boardville was really bad and you know when you were mocking black people that was terrible but
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  why exactly is it that you're not allowed to dress up as Michael Jackson at a Halloween party like
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  that's the kind of question that will you excluded from polite company and uninvited from parties
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  in Brooklyn yeah yes I wonder whether you think that's always a good thing or whether because I
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  do think there's a I've spoken to African-American friends who come to Australia and have found it
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  somewhat relaxing to feel like their white friends were a bit more blunt in talking about racial
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  problems or I don't know comparative crime statistics between indigenous communities and white
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  communities in ways that they feel nobody talks about in the states because everyone is
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  treading on egg shells and you know the only people who do talk about them are racists
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  yeah there's a there's a casual racism in Australia a casual sort of people that I'm very proud of too
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  I think it's just I put it this way again the it's difficult to talk about race in both countries
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  because of the history because of the politics but the Americans have a far more detailed
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  vocabulary and a framework for discussing race where the casualness of Australians
• 18:02
  mean that we don't so that we might be comfortable and casual with it but in some ways I'm trying
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  to find ways to talk about race more to talk about both people more this is a topic very very close
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  my heart and my mind right now the question of both people I'm writing a book about Australian refugee
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  politics it's massively overdue but I'm quite enjoying it actually but and also I'm a boat person
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  myself so I have to figure out what term to use there's lots of different terms we can use for
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  boat people I'm I'm I'm leaning towards and I'm discussing with my editor and she'll probably not
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  like this I'm trying to reclaim boat people I'm a boat person myself I came here as a young fellow
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  when I was two on it on a boat I stopped in Malaysia for a fair time in 79 and and I feel like
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  it can be a word that can be reclaimed and used by not only boaties ourselves but quite a few people
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  I I'll say to you now Josh I've never said this before I love boat people I'm a huge fan of boat
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  people I think about boat people all the time I'm sitting in my bedroom there's there's
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  above my bed I framed a picture of this of the little yellow shirt with all crap all over it
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  that I wore on that journey from Vietnam to Malaysia with 500 and two other people there's
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  little pictures of boats above my computer screen my son and I made three boats representing each
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  of the generations that we have in our household for our 40th anniversary here I love boat people I'm
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  so you know I've spoken to many of them many of them are households too refugees are often
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  ourselves but the creativity the courage you know let's define boat people because you know a lot
• 19:44
  of people again abroad may not realize that more than half of the Australian population has arrived
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  since the Second World War you know we are an extremely migrant heavy country now most of those
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  people who are coming in the 50s and 60s they weren't flying in they didn't have any money
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  you know my dad was a boat person as well my dad came in as refugee at the age of eight and
• 20:05
  they sailed all the way from Europe but is it a are you a boat person if you like is anyone who
• 20:11
  arrived who arrived or a boat person or is a boat person a person who pays who pays people smugglers
• 20:18
  to come on a leaky vessel illicitly that just lands on the on the shore is that the connotation
• 20:23
  that we're going with yeah that's a great question like I'm thinking on the run here but I think
• 20:27
  I think I'm going to affection for all sorts of boat people affection for people who who have to
• 20:34
  remake their lives incredible courage and creativity that that takes to remake your lives the Hutzba
• 20:40
  to just end up in a new place and said I'm going to make something of myself here I'm going to take
• 20:45
  those sort of risks I even philosophically I'm quite interested in one boat journeys and and
• 20:52
  relationships to the sea you know it's a big thing in eastern philosophy but also in
• 20:56
  Hemingway writing and all that you get a sense you know to to to risk your life in particular
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  but not necessarily risk your life but but but it means you never look at yourself the same
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  if you've been on a boat and you've faced almost certain death you know because you realize the
• 21:14
  insignificance of your life you realize the precarity of your life and then you realize what you're
• 21:20
  made of you know I'm doing an interview series with it's called well we call it hailing Ali
• 21:26
  it's not his real name it's with a Rahinga refugee I've been doing it all year we thought we just
• 21:30
  do it and talk about what's it like for a rideshare driver to survive during the pandemic so it started
• 21:37
  a bit more than a year ago and then I just asked him where you're from and he's a Rahinga and it's
• 21:41
  the most persecuted minority in the world we've been following him hailing him down ever since and
• 21:46
  he talks about it's only 15 years old he's on it took him four months to get to Australia almost
• 21:51
  died just countless times but particularly on the sea he said you know the last trip to Australia
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  is in a storm he says he was almost he was vertical all night he's sitting in the back he went to
• 22:02
  the toilet hanging on this little boat and he says every point was interesting in that journey
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  every point was interesting it helped me realize who I am what the world's made of how you can
• 22:15
  how I can deal with pressure you know that's 15 years old mate he was 15 years old at the time he's
• 22:20
  24 now and incredible poise that he has it's about all the things going on the pressures in his life
• 22:27
  now he's on a temporary visa his family's all stuck in Bangladesh suffering you know how did he get
• 22:33
  here Kim if it was only if it was less than 10 years ago Australia has had the pacific solution
• 22:39
  which will get to you know of mandatory offshore processing of people who arrived by boat did he
• 22:45
  arrive by boat or did he manage to to get to a refugee camp and then get admitted he's full on
• 22:51
  booty he's full on he couldn't be more booty arrived by boat derived in Darwin in 2013 but it
• 22:58
  was before luck yeah they were mostly intercepted around that time yeah yeah he made it through a small
• 23:04
  15 meters long 71 people he was intercepted he was taken to
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  coca-silenties and I don't want to give too many details so that's enough
• 23:18
  no no he got he got here and but he came here importantly he came here before July when Kevin
• 23:27
  Rudd said that no one who arrived by boat or without a visa would would ever risk settle in Australia so
• 23:34
  he's on a temporary visa he's on a temporary visa he's still far from certain his future but he's
• 23:40
  on a temporary visa in before yeah right and yes the complicity of the labor party in this policy
• 23:46
  is something that we'll get to as well but I like that you I like you're waxing lyrical about
• 23:50
  safety over the water and traveling over the the water I've actually my mums a kiwi and so
• 23:56
  and we've got Māori ancestry on that side of the the family by marriage and so I've got a tattoo
• 24:05
  actually when I was traveling a lot in my 20s I've got a Māori tattoo which which is the which
• 24:09
  is the Māori symbol for safety over the water yeah nice like a sort of a talisman for for safe travel
• 24:16
  which I think is beautiful which is touching yeah yeah the Pacifica and Ireland have an amazing
• 24:21
  relationship with water yeah and as I understand I've read some stuff on it and it's totally
• 24:27
  different this is important for Australia too Australians got a thing with land and controlling our
• 24:31
  land that's what hasn't changed from all our multiculturalism the idea that we control this
• 24:36
  continent that we've got this unique place in the world that demands a certain amount of unity
• 24:43
  homogeneity and control and and and that the sea is somehow threatening and all beyond that is
• 24:50
  threatening we have to control that as much as possible to Pacifica and Ireland as I understand it
• 24:55
  have a totally different approach to a sensibility and ontology a sense of being with the sea that
• 25:04
  most Australians don't have well this is their home as well I mean the and you're right that the
• 25:10
  Māori used to control in fact the Tongans the Tongan Empire and the Māori's if you go back you
• 25:17
  know many centuries into the thousands of years they they control whole swathes of the South
• 25:22
  Pacific I mean they were and they were an empire in their own right and had incredible navigation
• 25:27
  in canoes that were able to get them across these huge swathes of of the ocean and I think you're
• 25:33
  totally right that that since European settlement Australians have felt like they're a chunk of
• 25:39
  Europe that's adrift in a very very hostile and lonely part of the world on the far side of the
• 25:45
  moon essentially and the borders of of our land are the only thing that protects us from this
• 25:51
  vast swarming heaving mass of Pacific Islanders and nations all around and that runs deep.
• 25:58
  I'll cheapen the discussion but I'm reminded of watching Moana twice with my
• 26:04
  yeah twice I don't know it's a great movie it's a great movie and it gave me a sense of that
• 26:11
  that relationship with the sea that many islands has and it's worth considering if you're a land
• 26:16
  based person by like myself even though I'm a boaty yeah so let's talk about boaties you didn't
• 26:22
  answer my question about what a boat person is oh yeah I said I incorporate a whole bunch of
• 26:27
  people come by boats of anyone no but I have a particular affection for illegals and erregulars
• 26:34
  simply because as a defensive canard cruise to Australia I think it's different because I was
• 26:41
  philosophically interested in in facing death and realizing what your life is all about and what
• 26:49
  the you know what I mean so you could come on a cruise that that's fun and I've respect
• 26:53
  for people who go on cruise there's even despising how much poisoning there is at the buffet
• 26:58
  giardia crew I do miss the buffets I do miss the buffets
• 27:03
  component let me inject this into your possible definition I'm not sure that you need to
• 27:08
  actually be risking your life at sea but I do think a critical component of my definition of a
• 27:12
  boat person would be a person who is leaving behind everything and is coming is sailing towards
• 27:19
  the new land which is an open a blank page and an open book with an attempt to create a new life
• 27:26
  like you can't just be you can't be popping in for a couple of years of work in Australia before
• 27:30
  you go back to you know to somewhere else it has to be this is a new chapter and in that sense
• 27:35
  Australia is full of the kinds of people who occupied the the kind of historical cultural
• 27:41
  consciousness of countries like the United States and Canada as well this frontier spirit of
• 27:46
  people who've come from all over the world and who've who've settled here to try to make a new start
• 27:53
  tell us what your parents background was and who they were in Vietnam and how they came to
• 27:58
  to be dragging you onto a boat yeah I like those bodies and your characterization of them too it's
• 28:04
  far more positive but I have a particular affection and political interest in people who've made
• 28:11
  irregular and what the Australian government called illegal journeys come here without a visa
• 28:17
  because in part because Australia hates them so much and I love Australia so much it's a great
• 28:23
  conflict in me I love boat people and I love Australia Australia hates both people so decades
• 28:29
  and decades of evidence and experience of being fearful of and demonizing both people
• 28:35
  people just like my parents and me we left in 79 from Vietnam my parents had tried for several years
• 28:45
  not several years probably a year to get my brother and myself out of Vietnam I was two he was four
• 28:55
  we've as was a relatively easy journey but it was it was harrowing it was packed especially if you
• 29:02
  have kids you think of what I think about it all the time now since I've had kids would I do that
• 29:08
  with my son I really think about that hard would I do that I don't know if I would and even though
• 29:13
  I know there's circumstances I was sorry places in time here the Vietnam war has ended and your
• 29:19
  parents are in peril why they're not they're in peril they're in there was all about me my brother and
• 29:25
  I they're in they were they were sort of senior public servants my dad they're in the electricity
• 29:30
  authority they weren't put in concentration camps like others but they could really they could see
• 29:37
  that there was no future in Vietnam for my brother and for my good self you know and and they decided
• 29:46
  you know that they were copying shame every day people came into their house and and took all their
• 29:52
  stuff camped out in there watch them surveilled them for for having a couple of the Americans
• 30:00
  not for having cooperated with the Americans for being petty bourgeoisie for being small business
• 30:05
  people so I mean that's how widespread it was there was a saying at the time often quote that
• 30:12
  if lamppost could walk then they would go to but at the same time I'm quite you know quite open
• 30:18
  about this there's a there's a great you often there's a great um a certain pressure and understandable
• 30:26
  pressure amongst refugees to say that they're political refugees they weren't economic refugees
• 30:32
  right but it's hard to they had to differentiate in all honesty like as I said people came into our
• 30:37
  house and took all our stuff that's an economic thing but you can understand why you'd want to flee
• 30:42
  after someone's done that there was a threat of being sent to the hinterlands to a re-education camp
• 30:47
  but um you know refugees were generally and wise they always say that um that they fled for freedom
• 30:54
  but freedom is means a lot of things and there's economic reasons tied up on that but you don't
• 31:00
  want to be referred to as an economic refugee right because then you're greedy then it's all
• 31:04
  like real refugee are you you're just sort of looking for a better life and yet as you say a lot
• 31:10
  of people who we think of as being uh easy slam dunk cases of legitimate refugees are if you
• 31:17
  sort of really interrogate it not strictly speaking political refugees i mean my grandparents
• 31:23
  my grandmother fled europe because she'd been hunted by the Nazis her entire
• 31:29
  youth but then uh when at the point at which she was coming to Australia in i guess it was 51 or
• 31:38
  something there was no well-founded fear of political persecution uh it was just that she was
• 31:42
  totally penniless and had no future for uh for my dad and his sister so they were allowed to come
• 31:48
  here as refugees even though strictly speaking they weren't fleeing imminent political oppression
• 31:56
  absolutely and and that's the start of a period um after world war two and during the cold war
• 32:02
  we're defining refugees is relatively easy um because there's there's there's them and there's us
• 32:09
  there's the there's the Soviets and there's the liberal democracies right so uh and refugees are
• 32:15
  scientists their ballet dancers their artists and their ideological trophies to say that that
• 32:21
  people are fleeing authoritarianism um to seek us to seek freedom but uh but that all after 89
• 32:31
  and after and into the 90s that all becomes more furry why are people um what are people what are
• 32:37
  people fleeing and what are they coming um to let's say industrialize countries um in search of
• 32:45
  and and there's lots of different types of people fleeing that that aren't highly qualified scientists
• 32:50
  or wonderful ballet dancers and and that's sort of why we're in the situation but were I mean
• 32:56
  were were people who were people fleeing Soviet communism ever a large proportion of the Australian
• 33:02
  refugee intake uh no that they weren't but that's why it also it's easier to uh to take the
• 33:07
  red there's not as many of them um so uh and as I said they've had ideological value um but in part
• 33:15
  that's evident these are interesting because they're sort of at that film point aren't they um so
• 33:21
  so there's still a sense that they were fighting on our side and this is great challenge of course
• 33:26
  as we were the first really non-white um um uh struggle to use wave or phase of of uh of asylum
• 33:35
  seekers and migrants coming to Australia but ideologically um other than the brief
• 33:40
  Whitlam period in in the 70s ideologically the Vietnamese were still uh evidence that is
• 33:46
  that of Australia being a freedom loving place um where where and and we were still ideological
• 33:52
  allies uh with Australia since then it's harder to talk about refugees as being politically allied
• 34:00
  to you you know and often that they're religiously and ethnically um seemingly quite different
• 34:06
  to your society if they're comfortable both so what you're saying is that the in terms of the
• 34:11
  the sales pitch to the broader heartland of middle-Australia it's easier to sell them on the
• 34:17
  refugee project if the refugees are all brilliant Soviet scientists who are being expelled by the
• 34:23
  the evil empire than if they're a rag tag team of rather suspicious looking middle eastern uh
• 34:30
  Muslims absolutely and there's other things going on there too there's some people one of the
• 34:34
  uncomfortable questions that sometimes asked um of of globalization and and irregular migration
• 34:42
  refugees asylum seekers that sort of thing is why is it that at a time in the 90s when everything's
• 34:49
  opening up in the world people think when money's and people some people are moving
• 34:54
  freer than ever and when technology's burgeoning allowing us to communicate it with each other
• 35:00
  that the that there are countries particularly rich industrialized countries that are putting up
• 35:06
  higher and harsher walls than ever what's going on there you know that a lot of people have
• 35:10
  spent a lot of time trying to figure out that that seeming contradiction uh but it strikes me
• 35:16
  in discussing it with students that it's it's not that tricky in some ways and Australia's a great
• 35:21
  way to figure it out you know we've had the the the great Howard era uh from 96 to 07 was a period
• 35:29
  of incredible economic liberalization and also incredible borders uh up we're putting up incredible
• 35:35
  borders um particularly against uh both people and the rational is that Australia is a pretty
• 35:42
  conservative place and people are generally conservative speaking in my Australian politics mates
• 35:48
  in Australia you know we don't pass many referendum we don't change our constitution very often
• 35:53
  and and that means that if you're going to change things radically in an economic sense
• 35:59
  if globalized have is globalizations happening we're rubbing up against different sort of people
• 36:04
  like we never have before then you've got to offset that somehow with some sort of social
• 36:09
  conservatism and that explains a lot of the the governments throughout the 90s and the early
• 36:14
  90s and a key uh a key example of your social conservativeness and your idea that you can protect
• 36:22
  ways of living that you can protect um the actual the type of people that are coming to society is
• 36:28
  through borders it's interesting that that's your analysis and you also said earlier
• 36:34
  that Australians hate boat people i don't i don't see any evidence for that i see evidence for
• 36:42
  successive administrations uh making political hay by activating a certain flank of the Australian
• 36:48
  population with fear mongering messages about unauthorized immigration into Australia and
• 36:55
  and boat people being the target of that kind of uh crude rhetoric but when you talk about the sort
• 37:02
  of cultural conservatism and social conservatism of Australians and their suspicion of boat people
• 37:09
  i balance that against the fact that we are one of the most successful multicultural countries
• 37:15
  in the world now sometimes that gets said as a bit of a punchline without people really knowing
• 37:18
  what they're talking about but if you do break down the statistics of like the median put how
• 37:24
  how close does the median person live to how many different ethnicities like Australia is second
• 37:30
  to almost none i mean most Australians live in big multi-ethnic cities most of us don't we don't
• 37:37
  have a rural heartland the way that the United States does with with millions and millions of people
• 37:42
  who live in uh fairly homogenous white suburbia most of us live within stones throw of dozens and
• 37:50
  dozens of different ethnic communities have all arrived in the past generation or two when you
• 37:55
  poll the Australian people as we did on things like the gay marriage referendum you get overwhelmingly
• 38:01
  progressive uh social outcomes so if if Australia is conservative and bigoted towards boat people
• 38:09
  i would just say in comparison to who yeah well in comparison to to just about anyone else in many
• 38:16
  ways like all of i agree with all of that i love Australia but that's based on control
• 38:20
  places like the states is much more hostile towards uh towards unauthorized migrants than it is here
• 38:28
  i think it's hostile among certain um uh uh certain actors and and our large and and
• 38:35
  purport people in the population but i'll give you an example recently uh admittedly of course
• 38:41
  it was an activist and a politician for um uh for immigrants coming to america but in america
• 38:51
  i'll often hear people who are advocating for um for people in central and and latin america
• 39:00
  coming to america that there's at least within the discourse and discussion there's a sense you
• 39:05
  sometimes hear of uh an understanding of the push factors that are that are driving people from
• 39:12
  central america right now coming into the states um and and and you almost rarely hear that in
• 39:18
  Australia what what is driving people to come to australia in the same way and and even and i'd say
• 39:24
  in america too remember a lot of these people that there but a lot of people in america accept that
• 39:29
  their refugees even though technically they're not political prisoners in the same way that the 51
• 39:35
  convention would define them but generally even those that they'll refer to those people as refugees
• 39:40
  and and and now and then from advocates quite commonly actually i'll hear they'll they'll say
• 39:45
  that these people are coming to are being driven to australia to america's front door front door
• 39:52
  meaning uh the southern border of america obviously in australia it's you never hear about push
• 39:58
  factors so much or you won't you'll hear it sometimes but very rarely and you'll always
• 40:01
  post the back door from politician reason why you don't hear the argument so much is because
• 40:06
  we've reached a better consensus about the importance of having a high refugee intake
• 40:10
  yeah i think the consensus though is the consensus is not it's um firstly the high one
• 40:18
  it should be the high refugee intake is we can talk about that but firstly i'd say
• 40:24
  all of the wonderful multiculturalism in australia uh is based on an idea of
• 40:31
  very very strict control and there's there's uh australia has even in a normal immigration program
• 40:38
  you feel in those forms when you come to australia and you feel it when you leave if it's
• 40:43
  i live in canberra so i know that there's uh some of my university students will sometimes work in
• 40:49
  this uh if for this company that that that enters all that data it's a wonderful thing but it's
• 40:54
  incredible amount of control we know almost exactly who is in australia at any moment uh and and what
• 41:00
  they're doing uh most most countries don't have that ability and don't have that disposition
• 41:07
  to have such tight control over their borders and it's because of that i mean i'd phrase it at
• 41:13
  almost Freudian senses that australia has a sense has a desire to almost throw a chastity
• 41:19
  built over the continent and the boat people are the invasive spermatoid that want to get through
• 41:26
  that that chastity built you know what i mean so so it's not cement of course it's not all people
• 41:31
  who hate boat people but but every government um since um certainly since indochinese has been
• 41:38
  deeply concerned firstly uh about boat people and they're deeply concerned about boat people
• 41:45
  for all sorts of reasons but particularly uh that it will incite all all sorts of nastiness
• 41:51
  in australia and that's sort of what i mean by australia having a consistent fear of what
• 41:56
  unauthorized um maritime arrivals will do to australian society yeah i think that is absolutely
• 42:03
  the correct way to put it but that's different from saying that australians hate boat people
• 42:07
  because i think i think having a year of what unauthorized immigration is going to
• 42:12
  is going to mean uh i think it's in it's inconsistent to me to say that australians hate boat
• 42:18
  people but on the one hand but on the other hand i have been perfectly comfortable with one of
• 42:23
  the largest rates of non-white immigration into this country of any country in the world over the
• 42:27
  past half century like if the hatred of if the if the antipathy to wards boat arrivals was motivated
• 42:35
  by racial animus you would expect that racial animus to show up in much larger ways than just eight
• 42:41
  percent of the population voting for right wing parties like Paul Enhanceon you know you'd expect
• 42:45
  much more widespread and for australians to be voting for for governments that really
• 42:50
  significantly reduce the overall migrant intake which remains very high and the overall
• 42:54
  asylum intake which whilst lower than historical levels is is the resettlement intake in Australia
• 42:59
  is is very high compared to most most countries i mean the this thing question about control
• 43:04
  is really interesting and i like the i guarantee of the chastity belt but i would just add to it
• 43:10
  Australia wears a chastity belt and keeps out the the stray sperm that are about people whilst at
• 43:17
  the same time every night ripping the chastity belt off and going a town with all of the other
• 43:24
  other people who who Australia has eyes for which is lots of other people from all over the world
• 43:28
  in other words there's a very high immigration intake in ways that Australia can control and an
• 43:34
  extremely brutal approach towards immigration that it can't control but you mentioned earlier
• 43:40
  Kim Arthur Caldwell the first Australian immigration minister after the world war two and he
• 43:47
  had an idea and we can perhaps disagree on whether this was a savvy and genius idea or a barbarous
• 43:53
  one that the only way you're going to sell a fairly conservative white population that stranded on
• 44:02
  the opposite side of the world than where it feels like it belongs on high rates of immigration
• 44:08
  is by retaining the control that you're talking about over the border and that is a guiding
• 44:14
  principle that is essentially informed Australian immigration policy ever since and has been ramped
• 44:20
  up by some people like John Howard the prime minister throughout the the 90s and noughts where there's
• 44:28
  a sense that if you're going to keep if you're going to sustain the immigration the high levels of
• 44:33
  immigration that that we want to sustain then you have to give people the sense that we know exactly
• 44:38
  who's coming in and that we're doing the choosing and that we're in control of it because the
• 44:41
  moment the average voter feels like it's out of control you're going to get the kind of backlash
• 44:46
  that we've seen in the states so what do you think what do you make of that argument that maybe
• 44:50
  this paranoid control over the borders is a prerequisite to avoiding a Trump like or Brexit
• 44:56
  like backlash against this the sense of powerlessness that what the white working class has
• 45:02
  felt in the UK and US yeah I think that's a great analysis of of what different administrations
• 45:08
  in Australia have tried to achieve over time and how they've justified it I just think there's
• 45:14
  nothing I'd say overall there's nothing I think it's it's true but it's that that unhindered
• 45:22
  immigration can certainly cause problems not only to the integrity of your into
• 45:27
  into immigration system but to social cohesion but at the same time I mean the other side
• 45:34
  those aren't somehow laws of physics that can't be changed it's based on like it's social
• 45:41
  cohesions based on our attitudes it's based on our political leadership now they're not easy to
• 45:47
  but people change them to make them harder and to make people more fearful all the time
• 45:52
  and now efforts should be to change than the other way to make us more secure to make us more open
• 45:59
  to make us more understanding of others that's what I'd say about that it's a tough fight in
• 46:03
  Australia I love Australia I love both people in love Australia that's the great contradiction in
• 46:07
  my political life you know I don't think that those two things necessarily get on but I don't think
• 46:12
  it's set in stone I think it's just a long hard fight to make people to help people to be more
• 46:19
  understanding for their own benefit but obviously the costs of Australia's border security mindset
• 46:27
  have been huge not only a bit particularly for both people in a regular migrants and it hasn't
• 46:36
  often we'll go straight to it often the justification is it saves lives at sea less people are
• 46:40
  making the journey and less people are drowning but I think those arguments are often made
• 46:47
  in in earnest sort of ways but really it only defers problems it's not like people are suddenly
• 46:54
  happy and go off with their lives if they don't make the both journeys to Australia there's arguments
• 46:59
  about whether they're responsible for them or not but you can't be a serious humanitarian and think
• 47:04
  that somehow stopping people from making that journey that somehow thank you for it or ever
• 47:10
  should or that their problems will be sought out there's a good example of this actually recently
• 47:15
  in Australia is the Andaman Sea crisis I've been looking into this interviewing this Rahinga refugee
• 47:22
  so so the Andaman Sea crisis relates to the Rahinger in 2015 it starts and many people who are
• 47:31
  interested in this area would have heard reports of of Thailand and Malaysia and Indonesia
• 47:36
  turning back boats in 2015 this is a sign of the ongoing one of the costs it should be taken
• 47:43
  into account when one thinks about deterrence measures at sea and just to American well to any
• 47:51
  listeners who aren't familiar with the Rahinger and don't you know and the sort of geopolitics and
• 47:56
  the ethnic conflicts of Southeast Asia oh yep so the Rahinger are from Rakhine state mostly
• 48:04
  in their their Muslims in Myanmar and they're one of many minorities in Myanmar but they're
• 48:11
  they're regarded sometimes in the international community as the most persecuted people in the world
• 48:16
  like they have been pretty much wiped off the books several times in Myanmar they demonized
• 48:23
  dehumanized systematically so and and this is really ramping up it it happens that they reckon
• 48:31
  regularly but but is really ramping up 2015 so people are starting to leave on boats and if I remember
• 48:38
  it wasn't there it isn't southern Thailand weren't they dry it wasn't Thailand trying to drive
• 48:41
  them out or was that was that after they'd arrived from Myanmar yep so they'd been making journeys
• 48:47
  for a while but but Thailand was pushing them back out to sea that's what first made and there was
• 48:51
  also some mass graves found on the time Malaysian border at that time I'll link it to America too
• 48:57
  so sorry you guys Josh yeah yeah now I was just gonna say so you've got Myanmar which is obviously
• 49:01
  this brutal military dictatorship which is a horrible ship poke autocracy which is obviously
• 49:06
  doing its own evil things behind the scenes against this this minority that it hates but the
• 49:13
  what I remember from 2015 was that then you started having this spillage over to walk to countries
• 49:18
  that we tend to think of as being better on human rights and more democratic like Thailand
• 49:23
  and they then start facing their own their own crisis as as they see it of of of Rohingya who they
• 49:32
  have no more love for them than people in Burma do and so it becomes a kind of continent-wide
• 49:39
  problem rather than one that's isolated to Myanmar that's right but you've got to look down stream
• 49:44
  because it was also the time that Australia stopped the boats so so part of the reason that and
• 49:49
  as rational calculation from these countries midstream Thailand Malaysia Indonesia that they were
• 49:55
  pushing back boats is they they knew that Australia wasn't going to accept anyone so they said we
• 50:01
  don't want people stuck here forever so we're going to push them back so that's that's what that's
• 50:06
  what it means to stop the boats somehow you're saving lives at sea there's a very concrete example
• 50:11
  over a period of months and it's and it's just a couple of years of the sort of arms race that
• 50:17
  goes on that if you look at it over time is a logical consequence of any deterrence measures
• 50:23
  that other countries start doing the same thing logically and then you have to up and up your
• 50:28
  deterrence measures and so you defer and you deflect the suffering but you really prolong it too
• 50:36
  so what happens in the end people are still so like the suddenly the push factors are changing
• 50:41
  Myanmar's treatment people better treatment moving a bit it's actually worse where they end up now
• 50:46
  you've got a million people in Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh that's the consequence in part obviously
• 50:52
  it's more complicated that there's lots of lots of vectors but but there's a link there between
• 50:57
  Australia stop in the boats and and if you want to talk about saving lives of sea maybe you have
• 51:02
  maybe we don't see it but you're not saving lives full stop people are ending up in camp somewhere else
• 51:07
  only months and years later and suffering even more so in many ways so they get me wrong there's
• 51:13
  not necessarily easy solutions and we can get to that but if you want to look at what are the
• 51:18
  consequences of deterrence then then you should look a bit longer term and a lot of people in America
• 51:23
  I know who are in these who are far more have far more expertise than me are talking about
• 51:28
  the crisis they have on the border with particularly with children right now as being
• 51:32
  deferred deflected backed up from Trump era policies and from a generation and or more of not
• 51:41
  dealing with the border in in a bipartisan way in the states in the sense that there's always
• 51:48
  been this tacit agreement between big business over there and you know people smugglers and illegal
• 51:54
  migrants that they can come across the border fairly freely and pick fruit in california and then
• 51:58
  go back to mexico and there's there's never a a serious desire to crack down on that from from
• 52:05
  the traditional republican party and that was where the Trump populist movement came and swallowed
• 52:10
  that part of the party hole and said if you're not going to if you're not going to secure the borders
• 52:15
  we will in fact there's that line by I can't remember it was at David French or at David from like one
• 52:20
  of the conservative davids in the states who who is a you know a senior conservative figure who says
• 52:26
  if if liberals meaning small liberals if progressives won't enforce borders then fascists will
• 52:34
  yeah right yeah which is that like from from a wonderful orator and he's a great critic of Trump
• 52:39
  actually yeah he was he was George W. Bush's speech writer he came up with the access of evil speech
• 52:46
  so he was not a lot he's come around there's being yeah a good guy on the if if you're on the
• 52:51
  anti-Trump side of things so we've kind of dived right in came to mandatory detention which is where
• 52:57
  I want to end up but let's just back back up a little bit so people understand what we're talking
• 53:02
  about because I'm glad that you raised like children in cages in the us and the whole debate about
• 53:06
  the wall and it's really interesting through the prism of america's immigration crisis to view
• 53:13
  what Australia's strategy over the past generation has been we talked about after world war two
• 53:18
  we're bringing in the beautiful the beautiful bolts then the immigration the definition of
• 53:24
  whiteness sort of gets amended somewhat so Greeks start being admitted Italians there's a huge
• 53:30
  need for labor in Australia in the 50s there are big nation building projects like huge dams in
• 53:35
  the snowy mountains and so on so they they need lots of labor so they bring in southern Europeans
• 53:40
  because they can't bring in enough they can't find enough English people who want to move out here
• 53:44
  and the white Australia policy is the informal name for for that policy as long as you'd
• 53:50
  define swarthy Greeks as being as being sufficiently white for you which their parents probably wouldn't
• 53:56
  have but the children did in the 50s and then in the end of the 60s the white Australia policy is
• 54:01
  abolished indigenous Australians are recognised in a referendum there's this kind of awakening as
• 54:07
  there was across much of the world in the late 60s from the american civil rights movement to what
• 54:11
  was going on in in France and Australia starts opening itself up to other minorities and of course
• 54:20
  your family is part of that story Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war being one of the only
• 54:25
  other countries to follow america into that dispute then gave it an important moral obligation to
• 54:33
  do something about the people who were dispossessed from that war and you are you are one of those
• 54:39
  those people but then on the back of that there's a lot of migration from Asia in the 80s
• 54:45
  this leads to a bit of a backlash and a flare up of white resentment in the 90s I guess in the
• 54:56
  form of Pauline Hanson this this fish shop fish and chip shop takeaway owner from regional
• 55:02
  Queensland who creates her own political party one nation and and it's essentially an anti-immigrant
• 55:09
  party and then that gets co-opted by john howard and this this is where I'll end my my
• 55:15
  potted history of the 20th century because we now reach the 21st century can you explain
• 55:19
  to people what happens when john howard this new conservative prime minister comes in in the 90s
• 55:26
  9-11 happens in 2001 and a boat called the tamper approaches Australia's shores and this is a kind
• 55:34
  of watershed moment in thinking about how we deal with arrivals yeah thank you Josh what a great
• 55:40
  potted history I'll add a few punctuation points in terms of boat arrivals to that
• 55:47
  it'll only take a minute so you can understand boat arrivals and waves of boat arrivals to Australia
• 55:53
  in in four stages we've got the the Indochinese boat people of the late 70s after the Vietnam War
• 56:01
  and really we're only talking I'll only talk about boats that made it to Australia so my my
• 56:07
  family waited in a Malaysian camp so we didn't come here directly like we were invited to come here
• 56:13
  we were controlled in a sense and came yes that's okay so we only had about 2000 boat arrivals or
• 56:18
  so from the late 70s who came directly to Australia they're the ones that I say Australia hates
• 56:23
  an inverted commas the ones of beer straits very uncomfortable with then the late 80s they get
• 56:28
  about 3000 Indochinese people and and that's the one that started mandatory detention the unique
• 56:35
  Australian idea that if you come here even if you're in asylum seeking you don't have a a valid visa
• 56:43
  you'll be detained for the entire period until you can be regularised find an appropriate visa
• 56:49
  and that can often take years and then the third wave is where you've got up to is in the late 90s
• 56:55
  and and and here we're talking about people this is globalization era there's a talking about people
• 57:02
  from all over the world and particularly the Middle East and all these issues are going on there
• 57:07
  because of September 11 and around that that period and that's the third wave we talk about
• 57:13
  thousands and tens of thousands of people and the fourth one is in the late 90s 2009-2010
• 57:20
  so as you say the the key boat arrival was the Tampa and that involved an Norwegian cargo ship
• 57:28
  picking up a distressed vehicle to the to the the northwest of Australia it had 433 I think
• 57:38
  mostly Afghan asylum seekers on it and it tried to land tried to say it tried to land in Perth
• 57:46
  and and this caused an immense spectacle this was in August of 2001 and the Howard and his
• 57:54
  government the conservative government said that decided that they couldn't land they didn't want
• 58:00
  to land here 2001 sorry did you say August of 2001 yes August 2001 is before September 11
• 58:07
  yeah in my brain it was a response to to September 11 it wasn't no I can look it up quickly
• 58:13
  I'm pretty sure it was August 2001 the tank rating so it changes the valence I've always thought
• 58:18
  well it's a boat full of Afghan of people from Afghanistan so after September 11th there's
• 58:24
  obviously an easy political ploy for the prime minister to make to make hay out of the idea that
• 58:31
  these we don't necessarily know whether or not these people all wish us well yeah well he certainly
• 58:35
  did that because it stretched out they had to come up with some an idea of something to do with
• 58:40
  these 400 and something people and and and the answer was the Pacific solution that's right and
• 58:47
  just so non-Australians get a sense of the gravity of this it was it was a it was a mexican standoff
• 58:52
  you probably not allowed to say mexican anymore it was a mutual standoff of a completely non- mexican
• 58:57
  variety where the prime minister of Australia was essentially telling this this captain this norweg
• 59:02
  this captain of a Norwegian vessel no you're not allowed to to come on a humanitarian mission to
• 59:08
  bring desperately hungry thirsty people into into Australia we're just going to leave you there
• 59:14
  offshore and we'll bring you all the food and water you want but you're not going to land that
• 59:18
  vessel is never going to land in Australia so as you say then behind the scenes all of a sudden they
• 59:22
  have to go into crisis mode and go all right if we're not going to allow boat people to come to
• 59:27
  Australia's shores what on earth do we do with them so the Pacific solution is hatched what does
• 59:33
  that look like Kim yeah the Pacific solution yeah and I should say on the boats there's all sort of
• 59:39
  images of there's an MS and Louis a famous ship in World War II of Jewish refugees who came by boat
• 59:44
  turned away from everyone end up going back to Germany and and all sorts of terrible things happen
• 59:50
  to them but what happened was the Pacific solution and and as a for the first time in Australia well
• 59:58
  what happens is that these people are taken to Pacific islands Nauru was very small island to
• 1:00:06
  to the east of Australia and then Manus Island in PNG and and it's decided that their their
• 1:00:14
  asylum claims will be processed there and it goes along with the whole idea and you say that we
• 1:00:19
  said it was a standoff we said it was a spectacle but in many ways the whole idea was was to
• 1:00:27
  was ensure that there and the order went out at the time from Howard's people there'll be no
• 1:00:33
  dehumanizing no humanizing sorry there will be no humanizing pictures of these people so the whole
• 1:00:39
  idea was to make sure that they didn't have a face at Australians couldn't see these people so every
• 1:00:43
  every deterrence measure I think has to be understood as as at least involving two forms of public
• 1:00:52
  diplomacy and communication one is projecting out to prospective migrants and people smugglers
• 1:01:00
  to saying you won't be allowed in give up your trade but always there's also a message projecting
• 1:01:06
  inwards towards the population and here it was these people are not the sort of people that you want
• 1:01:13
  you can't see their faces they're not desperate people we will tidy them up we will take care of them
• 1:01:18
  for you and we'll outsource it too so you never have to worry about it so that's that's that's the
• 1:01:24
  political message that I'm most interested in in with respect to asylum seekers of the Pacific
• 1:01:30
  solution we'll get them out to other countries and deter them for more from coming and we'll
• 1:01:36
  process them and and really that was the start of of of certain strategies and and off-shoring
• 1:01:46
  of detention and of processing that other countries have come to follow and that Australia's
• 1:01:52
  had now you know in in a couple of phases for well over a decade that of course
• 1:02:00
  demands suffering to people it's also challenged our relations with our Pacific neighbours PNG
• 1:02:06
  and Nauru and it's cost us a fair bunch a fair bit of coin too but the benefit is people would
• 1:02:13
  say it stopped the boats it's save lives means that we can close up camps in Australia or detention
• 1:02:19
  centres within Australia and also as you mentioned before there's arguably benefits for Australian
• 1:02:25
  coastal social cohesion because we're in control we're in control we can argue this is what Howard
• 1:02:30
  would say and also other conservative governments would say less so labor progressive ones
• 1:02:36
  that it means we can take in more migrants along into as part refugees as part of our
• 1:02:44
  resettlement program and humanitarian program and also more migrants skilled migrants who want to be
• 1:02:50
  here that we want to be here and and can work here and contribute to Australia so it's it's
• 1:02:55
  quite a calculation even the bulk of the labor of the left wing labor party would agree with that as
• 1:03:01
  you said it was Kevin Rudd the the shining star of progressive politics who swept away you know a
• 1:03:08
  multi decade reign of of John Howard's well 12 years I guess of John Howard's conservative
• 1:03:14
  prime ministership and who came in with all of with a you know apologising to indigenous Australians
• 1:03:19
  doing all these progressive things and at the same time as you said earlier he even hardened
• 1:03:24
  Australia's mandatory detention policies by saying that anyone who arrives on Australian soil
• 1:03:30
  in an unauthorized capacity will never be able to resettle here so this has become a bipartisan
• 1:03:36
  thing right it has it has and there was a short period he came in in 07 great sort of progressive
• 1:03:41
  who are temporary protection visas specific solutions wound back but then numbers start creeping
• 1:03:47
  up again this is a very uncomfortable question for refugee boat arrivals yeah the boaties are coming
• 1:03:52
  they come in tens of thousands from 2010 2011 and this is a very uncomfortable question for refugee
• 1:03:58
  advocates because and and then so and he he he he he he he re insta gillard the Straits first
• 1:04:08
  woman prime minister female prime minister re instates the Pacific solution and then Rudd comes
• 1:04:13
  back in just at the very end before the 2013 election and he knows that that Australia's suffer
• 1:04:20
  that these parties suffering on this issue of asylum seekers and borders and he puts in a
• 1:04:26
  harsher policy than anyone has ever seen no boat arrival will ever be resettled in Australia
• 1:04:32
  ever like you can't even come here as a tourist sometime like if you're somehow you got resettled
• 1:04:37
  in in New Zealand or something like that you'll never be resettled here if you come by boat
• 1:04:44
  without a visa so but I think I mentioned there's an uncomfortable question for the left is
• 1:04:51
  that is that period just before Kevin Rudd made that deal with PNG at the time the the regional
• 1:04:58
  resettlement agreement was and the highest number of unauthorized arrivals come by boat in Australia's
• 1:05:06
  history and it was really tracking like in the financial year 2012 2013 it was about 30,000
• 1:05:12
  boat arrivals and and during those labor years the their their their the coalition opposition
• 1:05:19
  often say there was you know over 1,000 people died at sea which is almost surely true you know
• 1:05:25
  it's probably 1200 but they but but this is a difficult question for the left that's a lot of
• 1:05:31
  people it was really tracking in 2013 to get to 50,000 boat arrivals to Australia it's nothing like
• 1:05:38
  Lebanon or or or Pakistan or anything like that or around at times but compared to industrialized
• 1:05:44
  countries that's a fair amount of people and and note it's before the European border and migration
• 1:05:51
  crisis so that's that that's one of the uncomfortable questions I think for the left that we have
• 1:05:56
  to think through that's that that's probably that's really not a desirable situation but what does it
• 1:06:03
  take to to to lessen those number of arrivals you know the the great mantra from Tony Abbott who
• 1:06:10
  came in as prime minister in 2013 was he's going to stop the boats and he did he did but it was
• 1:06:16
  from reintroducing the Pacific solution and mostly it was from turning back boats to doing whatever
• 1:06:22
  he can to turn back boats this massive cost with that too so it's a real effect issue yeah it's
• 1:06:27
  a full policy that Australia has which was you know which is admired by unfortunately anti-immigration
• 1:06:34
  figures around the world you know Donald Trump was reportedly besotted by Australia's advertising
• 1:06:40
  about stopping the boats and was retweeting you know Australian government ads that were being
• 1:06:45
  published across Southeast Asia that say if you arrive by boat you will never be you will never
• 1:06:50
  set foot in Australia and this gets coupled in the Australian so to you know to the twofold strategy
• 1:06:57
  being you send out the Navy to to actually intercept the boats and you use you know sophisticated
• 1:07:03
  surveillance to find the boats and then to to get them and to either turn them back or once they're
• 1:07:10
  you know once they're too close you just make sure that they get resettled onto Naaru or Manus Island
• 1:07:15
  which is part of Pup when you're getting into these resettlement camps and people just sit there
• 1:07:19
  and essentially rot there forever until they can be resettled to another country like Malcolm
• 1:07:24
  Turnbull the prime minister did a deal with Barack Obama when Obama was president to resettle many
• 1:07:29
  of the people on Naaru and was it Manus as well or just Naaru back to the United States who were
• 1:07:35
  legitimate refugees and then Trump tried to reneg on that and had a very hostile conversation when
• 1:07:41
  he got into office with Malcolm Turnbull the prime minister but eventually they eventually honored it
• 1:07:47
  so the question for a lot of Australians becomes do you want to have this barbaric system where
• 1:07:55
  you're letting people rot on desert islands I mean this is not a lot of people anymore right how many
• 1:08:00
  people are on Naaru I think there's a with Naaru and Manus islands about 300 so about 3,000 people
• 1:08:07
  overall have passed through Manus Island and Naaru a bit over 300 left a lot about 700 800 have
• 1:08:17
  gone to the US 700 800 are on temporary no about a thousand in Australia actually on this is
• 1:08:24
  complicated but they're on they're only here temporarily they've been in hotels they were
• 1:08:28
  medived here because their their medical situation was so so grave that was another country where
• 1:08:35
  the conservative got didn't even want to allow them to come to Australia for urgent medical care
• 1:08:40
  and just goes on doesn't it reached where they were allowed to because once you I mean the subtext
• 1:08:45
  here is that once you actually set foot on Australian soil then we have all kinds of obligations
• 1:08:48
  under refugee conventions and so on to treat you humanely whereas as long as you're technically on
• 1:08:53
  Naaru or a different country then we don't have to worry about you it's a bit like the Guantanamo Bay
• 1:08:57
  get out of jail free card that the US yeah that's a great analogy but Josh let me solve offshore
• 1:09:03
  processing resettlement let let me solve it for you and you listen it's very quickly it's not worth it
• 1:09:08
  it's not worth it like there are there are humanitarian whatever you think of deterrence
• 1:09:14
  there has to they really should be a bar of what you're trying to do to people and and and
• 1:09:19
  effectively locking them up giving them no future whatsoever on in places that it will
• 1:09:25
  in almost invariably be largely hostile to them it it it doesn't even have deterrence value the
• 1:09:32
  only value it has is is the domestic political value to say that we're being tough and we're protecting
• 1:09:38
  you deterrence value if we went from 50,000 odd arrivals and 1200 lives lost at sea when at what
• 1:09:45
  when the policy wasn't in place to all of a sudden the boat stopping once the policy was in place
• 1:09:49
  it's minimal at best and this is being fought right now in the UK because they're looking at doing
• 1:09:54
  offshore processing and resettlement it's minimal at best what the best evidence is that what stops
• 1:10:02
  people smuggling and boat arrivals if you really want to do that is turning back boats is turning
• 1:10:09
  back boats and and the Abbott government was was incredibly determined to do that it came up with
• 1:10:17
  it it acquisitioned these little lifeboats and when people couldn't get back on their own boats
• 1:10:23
  they put them in those boats it's also accusations of them adding people to boats that they'd had
• 1:10:28
  already in detention and sending that back which is effectively people smuggling too there's
• 1:10:33
  quite a bit of evidence that that happened on very discreet and a few occasions but it was
• 1:10:39
  turning back boats that's the great fight I think for advocates of deterrence and particularly
• 1:10:44
  the Labour Party right now and I think it's a reasonable fight you know I don't I think there's
• 1:10:51
  a reasonable debate to have I think offshore processing and resettlement just as nowhere near
• 1:10:56
  worth it it costs a heap amount of money too it often ruins your regional because it's as a colonial
• 1:11:03
  feel people know they're being used you know in Papua New Guinea in Manus Island and Aru they take
• 1:11:10
  the money but they're resentful for being colonized like that you know it has awful effects on
• 1:11:17
  one's regional relations and minimal deterrence effect vis-a-vis turn back so for me if you're into
• 1:11:23
  deterrence the question should be and you're a humane person and you don't want to foe meant fear
• 1:11:29
  in your domestic population the only real question is can you humanely push back boats and then
• 1:11:37
  and and all the other stuff with respect to offshore offshoring and outsourcing asylum seeking
• 1:11:46
  measures should be out of the picture it's it's almost you know it's just not worth it whatsoever
• 1:11:51
  Kim while we're talking about what works and what doesn't work and I want to get to I want to
• 1:11:55
  actually beyond that in a moment anyway because I the reason I oppose mandatory detention and offshore
• 1:12:00
  processing is is because of a duty of care argument rather than necessarily a humanitarian or
• 1:12:06
  utilitarian argument about it and we can let's get to that but while let's just stay for a moment
• 1:12:11
  on a on a pure sort of body count about like if you if you are completely utilitarian like how would
• 1:12:17
  you how would you minimize the number of deaths amongst the cohort of people who want to come to
• 1:12:23
  Australia as asylum seekers as refugees the if turning back the boats is the solution you don't
• 1:12:29
  have to keep turning back the boats forever at the same level presumably I mean the where we are not
• 1:12:35
  currently seeing the same number of boats disembark from southeast Asia and need to be pushed back
• 1:12:41
  because they know that when they get here they'll either be pushed back or they'll be resettled
• 1:12:47
  offshore yeah so I should go back to my previous point it's still a form of deterrence that really
• 1:12:51
  deflects problems and and pushes them into the future that someone else is going to deal with
• 1:12:58
  so turning back boats but but it does promote some sort of orderly system so in actual fact it's
• 1:13:04
  similar to Australian similar to the US sort of people have a sense of what the solution is but
• 1:13:09
  it's impossible to get there because of the politics and also it's incredibly next situation
• 1:13:14
  well what one should be looking at is a regional a situation where there's a very strong
• 1:13:23
  resettlement program it's often called a regional protection framework or or responsibility
• 1:13:29
  sharing is the principle would be hindered where this sort of happened with the Vietnamese it's
• 1:13:34
  it sort of happened with the turkey deal in Europe for a while but basically you have
• 1:13:39
  countries that are in the middle that are transit countries who are happy to
• 1:13:46
  to house asylum seekers for a period of time get their assessments going figure out who they are
• 1:13:53
  give them as long as they're funded by people downstream and by international organisations
• 1:14:00
  during that time because often they're not as rich as other countries and there's some
• 1:14:04
  a promise of a reasonable promise of resettlement in the future so they're protected midstream
• 1:14:11
  and they're able to move to better places or be repatriated most people are repatriated of course
• 1:14:18
  after a period of time it's only actually a small percentage maybe 10% of the UNHH so I would say
• 1:14:24
  of people who flee who will who need resettlement don't have any other options can't return home or
• 1:14:29
  can't be integrated to where they were so so that that's sort of the solution you got to save
• 1:14:34
  places for people to stay for shorter periods of time there might be months and years and then
• 1:14:39
  options for people don't have any choice of going home and then everyone's working to help people
• 1:14:43
  go home that's what that's what the solutions look like but very very hard to get to in part because
• 1:14:47
  of the politics and the well yes and there's also I mean I'd also just point out since you mentioned
• 1:14:53
  the United States the situation there I think is a good warning sign about what you don't want to
• 1:15:00
  happen where the conversation around the whole immigration policy has become I guess stolen or
• 1:15:09
  co-opted by the question about the border itself border security so like the rhetoric around
• 1:15:17
  caravans of Central Americans who are heading towards the border and who are creating a border
• 1:15:21
  crisis intersects with a kind of left-wing piety about the importance of honoring every person
• 1:15:27
  who crosses the border and if you make it into us into the United States then basically you should
• 1:15:31
  be welcomed with open arms and ice the immigration enforcement agency should have no right to try
• 1:15:37
  to kick you out that there becomes a lot of lot of posturing on both sides with the right fear
• 1:15:44
  mongering and the left downplaying any concern about immigration security at all that that
• 1:15:52
  that starves all that sort of sucks up all the oxygen out of the room and prevents Americans from
• 1:15:57
  talking smartly about what the whole immigration mix should look like not just the one at the border
• 1:16:03
  and not just the one not just the humanitarian mix but the skilled migrant mix and so on and you
• 1:16:10
  sometimes argue with American with left-wing American friends and say it's not all about
• 1:16:15
  just rolling out the welcoming map to anyone who can who can manage to make it across the Rio
• 1:16:20
  Grand into the United States like it would be a good thing if America had more Burmese refugees
• 1:16:25
  and more Romanians and more Somalis it doesn't have to all be Central Americans just because you're
• 1:16:30
  located there and the the Australian attempt I think the best the most generous spin that we can
• 1:16:37
  give to our political opponents on the mandatory detention question I think is that they want to see
• 1:16:44
  a very generous but orderly system and I think a lot of Australians have bought into a fiction
• 1:16:52
  that there is a queue that people can join and that it shouldn't be that hard for someone who
• 1:16:58
  is intending to pay a people smuggler to get here to make their way instead to a nearby refugee camp
• 1:17:05
  in one of these countries and put their name on a list and then get accepted by Australia or Canada
• 1:17:10
  or New Zealand or the United States and come here the patient correct way rather than the manipulative
• 1:17:17
  sneaky backdoor way can you tell us about the queue like what options do people face yeah that's
• 1:17:27
  a huge bunch of questions here I really appreciate thinking about those there isn't there isn't
• 1:17:33
  realistically a queue in the sense that people could wait forever in Indonesia I mean I think
• 1:17:38
  most years Australia takes in terms of recognised refugees that have been registered by the UNHCR
• 1:17:43
  are the closest one of our closest neighbours Indonesia we might take 50 people good year we might
• 1:17:47
  take 500 and Malaysia's got a hundred thousand refugees there you could wait there forever you never
• 1:17:54
  come here but that there is a queue in terms of over since in Australia we make queues you know what I
• 1:18:00
  mean there's we make queues politically through rhetoric and even through our our policy decisions
• 1:18:08
  too for instance for instance one of the first things that the John Howard administration did
• 1:18:14
  with this in this policy area was to de link the our offshore humanitarian intake the the the
• 1:18:24
  refugees that we take from camps from all around the world that's called our offshore humanitarian
• 1:18:28
  program it it'll it's sorry it linked that to boat arrival so that for every one boat arrival
• 1:18:35
  we take one less person from camps so that that sort of makes managerial sense in a way but it
• 1:18:41
  does most countries don't do that and it means that that if you're if say if you're a pashtun
• 1:18:48
  afghan here and you're asked and you meet Hazara who's come by boat you've realised that your
• 1:18:55
  cousin might not be able to come here because that person's come by boat so so it creates a certain
• 1:19:01
  a sense of the queue we do that all the time through rhetoric and through our policy decisions in
• 1:19:05
  Australia so there is a queue in that sense but but you know realistically in terms of any
• 1:19:11
  understanding of international conflict and global politics accused ridiculous that's part I mean
• 1:19:17
  that's that's part of I would say that's part of the political realities that Australians and all
• 1:19:24
  people in in in countries where people are trying to make it to I have to try to come to grips with
• 1:19:30
  and can do in an adult way I think that the in terms of the mindset in how we should deal with
• 1:19:36
  boat arrivals irregular migration that there is a contrast that's often made in Australia at less
• 1:19:41
  so nowadays that that in terms of that offshore intake we take over the years it's been somewhere
• 1:19:48
  between 10,000 and 20,000 per financial year and they get pretty good resources are they're diminishing
• 1:19:54
  to resettle in Australia we get people from the most needy places the debate over that 10,20,000
• 1:20:01
  is by and large a bureaucratic one is by and large one left for experts who are having mind
• 1:20:08
  Australia's best interests and also our humanitarian obligations and our values and it's and it's a
• 1:20:15
  debate that's had in very civil terms we should be moving towards that sort of tone and that sort of
• 1:20:22
  approached our debate about irregular arrivals too it's going to be harder but it's not inconceivable
• 1:20:29
  like as I said a lot of these go down to they're not set in stone attitudes about bodies and refugees
• 1:20:35
  so we can be pretty civil about our discussions about what to do with these people in need but part of
• 1:20:43
  the exact way we just take the heat out of and that's that's refer that's in contrast to America
• 1:20:47
  where it's just just laced with heat and laced with it I mean that is the risk I think and this is why
• 1:20:52
  I have a show like this where we try to have bullshit free conversations about uncomfortable subjects
• 1:20:57
  because I think the only way of of forging a path forward on any of these big controversial
• 1:21:03
  issues is to turn the volume down a little bit and turn the heat down and just figure out where
• 1:21:08
  the common ground actually lies and what's true and what's not and if there's not a real queue
• 1:21:13
  that these people can join then but we also don't want them coming in vast numbers by by boat
• 1:21:20
  on leaky vessels then what is the the compromise and the solution and part of the problem with having
• 1:21:25
  absolute positions on either side of this is that you do get the American situation where both
• 1:21:30
  sides hunker down into their trenches and think that that right is on their side and you know
• 1:21:36
  the left thinks that the conservative side of or the Trump side of politics is just about
• 1:21:41
  locking children in cages which is a catch is broken but let's face it we're all I mean all countries
• 1:21:46
  lock children in cages basically if they have any kind of detention system for unauthorized
• 1:21:51
  arrivals and you know many many administration has done that prior to the Trump administration
• 1:21:56
  just sounds like a cute way of framing it if you're anti anti Trump and I think his policy was
• 1:22:01
  apparent and horrible and inhumane but you know we have to we as Aussies have to carry the karma
• 1:22:07
  of Nauru and Manas Island as well and you know if when you were saying earlier that Australians hate
• 1:22:14
  boat people and they sort of push back on that saying in comparison to who I mean if you think
• 1:22:17
  about the the French allowing the all of the Syrian refugees to just create a huge encampment in
• 1:22:24
  Calais that they ended up steam rolling and bulldozing out of existence and the way that they
• 1:22:29
  treat their African-French communities in the suburbs of Paris and then you know they're not
• 1:22:34
  even allowed to study racial disparities in French academic institutions because because of their
• 1:22:38
  secular constitution or think of you know Germany think of Japan and the way that Japan
• 1:22:45
  thinks about foreigners you know I don't think we're doing doing too badly here as long as we
• 1:22:50
  find ways to not keep activating the xenophobic sort of a fear based attitude of the Australian people
• 1:22:58
  and can aspire to something higher and before we go I want to I want to touch and want something
• 1:23:04
  that is a bit higher which is too often here I feel like our debate about mandatory detention
• 1:23:10
  and refugees and immigration comes down to this macabre sort of scale of death where we're
• 1:23:17
  piling up bodies on one side of the scale and seeing which one has a great you know utilitarian
• 1:23:24
  benefit so proponents of harsh border policies will say look we've stopped the boats which means
• 1:23:30
  that we're stopping people from dying at sea which means that we can take more people from refugee
• 1:23:35
  resettlement programs and provide more skilled migrant places in Australia and we can maintain our
• 1:23:42
  high immigration levels and therefore at the end of the day blah blah blah everyone ends up
• 1:23:45
  being ultimately better off than if we had a more humane immigration policy and didn't
• 1:23:51
  lock people up on these desert islands because then more of them would come and so on I think
• 1:23:55
  what that misses is once someone is in your care you actually then have a moral duty to them
• 1:24:04
  that you didn't have to a stranger like once the boat is on the horizon and you've got
• 1:24:11
  and you're on a navy ship and you can see those nearly drowning nearly staffing thirsty people
• 1:24:17
  let alone once they've reached your country then the calculus changes then I don't think it's
• 1:24:24
  just about a utilitarian question of how you do the most good in the world then it becomes what
• 1:24:29
  kind of human being are you and what kind of country are you and how are you going to express
• 1:24:34
  those values in the way that you treat these people who are now essentially your prisoners is there
• 1:24:42
  any there there for you yeah absolutely there's a moral baseline to what we should do particularly
• 1:24:47
  people who are in our care and we should try to extend that line of care as far as we reasonably
• 1:24:53
  can so in actual fact you know the immediate policy decisions should be pretty simple for Australians
• 1:24:59
  there are there are families on Christmas Island right now small family it's been in detention
• 1:25:03
  for four years the town be a lawyer that they settled in for a period of time they want them let
• 1:25:09
  them go let them go there'll be no deterrent value in in in in not doing that there are there are
• 1:25:16
  a thousand or so people who are in Australia because they were suffering because of what Australia
• 1:25:22
  did to them when they were on Nauru and Manus Island let them out no no no there'll be no strategic
• 1:25:29
  that people won't suddenly come on boats like crazy or anything like that you know
• 1:25:34
  you should do that too I think some ways there's really difficult issue but those if one has
• 1:25:39
  any sort of moral baseline even taking in the considerations of deterrence if you're into that
• 1:25:47
  there's some pretty easy decisions to just be decent and treat people with dignity
• 1:25:53
  what's the long term solution long term solution is one like I mentioned before it's it's getting
• 1:25:58
  in between it's a long term solution is to have a larger resettlement program where the responsibility
• 1:26:05
  is shared and in between points in transitory countries where people can be protected and be and be
• 1:26:12
  offered for reasonable pathways either back to their home countries or or to third countries it's
• 1:26:19
  getting it's the middle I pass those interim points and come straight to Australia if you come
• 1:26:26
  straight to Australia now that's the tricky one and I said that's the key question I think
• 1:26:31
  that we should be having robust and can have robust but also you know generous discussions about
• 1:26:42
  whether they can be turned back safely and we have had those discussions I think so that's the key
• 1:26:48
  policy decision for me I think in the immediate sense and this is a tough one because a lot of
• 1:26:54
  people I know who our advocates would disagree with me I think it is possible to turn back some
• 1:27:00
  boats safely and that's a reasonable deterrence measure and makes political sense for where we're
• 1:27:05
  out as a country in the immediate future and would you just turn them back or would you take them
• 1:27:12
  and then and then put them in one of these interim resettlement camps in Malaysia or Indonesia or
• 1:27:17
  that's right that's why it costs money it costs more money than we're spending because you have to
• 1:27:20
  make sure where they've turned they've been turned back to yeah not just leave them on some island
• 1:27:26
  to die you want to show that there's somewhere to send a message that you can to create some sort
• 1:27:32
  of reasonable queue reasonable queue that you have some chance and yeah you know I can understand
• 1:27:37
  Australia and have a thing for control it's not that it's I'm not for absolute control that's
• 1:27:42
  where we're at right now absolute control we're even the smallest child will somehow break down
• 1:27:47
  the whole facade of of border security that you've put up that's where we're at now you know
• 1:27:52
  that's where right now that's it's ridiculous it's it's it's it's it's killing people it's
• 1:27:56
  damaging people it's not good for our soul it's terrible for our I mean it's it's it's crazy
• 1:28:02
  because we're in this era where we're where we're supposed to be reconciling ourselves to the
• 1:28:07
  historical wrongs of slavery in the case of the United States and indigenous genocide in the case
• 1:28:13
  of Australia that doesn't seem to be quite so much on the radar of Americans but I suppose they've
• 1:28:17
  got other fish to fry and and meanwhile we're actually engaged in being complicit in this ongoing
• 1:28:26
  human rights calamity which even though it's only for a few hundred people at the moment is
• 1:28:34
  is really morally indefensible to keep people indefinitely I mean it reminds me of the
• 1:28:40
  Israeli predicament of you know you just can't have you can't keep people in essentially open
• 1:28:46
  air refugee camps in perpetuity and expect that not to have some kind of a backlash at least on
• 1:28:52
  your own sense of yourself and your own vision of yourself as the guy it really corrodes
• 1:28:58
  Australia's moral standing I think to be complete and yet I'm still not totally convinced that
• 1:29:05
  what you're proposing wouldn't be a magnet for more boats I mean maybe that's just the price we pay
• 1:29:12
  maybe we go if people want to get on boats and want to risk their lives and they want to die at sea
• 1:29:16
  that's their choice that's right we're not fragile enough to say that that we can't handle that
• 1:29:20
  that that that reality of international affairs either that we can you have a few hundred
• 1:29:24
  few thousand people come here uh unannounced by boat and we'll do our best to save them you know what I
• 1:29:30
  mean I like what what what is that with that idea that's what I mean by the chassis belt
• 1:29:34
  what is it with that idea that no one can come I'll give you an interesting stat I've
• 1:29:39
  trying to figure out what was the who was the last person everyone everyone who's here now is
• 1:29:44
  on a temporary visas a different form of detention other people would say it's incredible precarious
• 1:29:48
  situation everyone who's who come unannounced here and who might be here because of Medivac
• 1:29:54
  here because they were suffering so much they're on temporary visa got no idea what's going to
• 1:29:57
  happen to them except I was trying to figure out who was the last person to get a permanent
• 1:30:03
  protection visa in Australia and and from what I can tell and unless I'm maybe things have done
• 1:30:09
  quietly the last person to come here without a visa and then and apply for asylum and get permanent
• 1:30:16
  protection was in July 2014 and and there he was a 15 year old stole away Ethiopian on a cargo ship
• 1:30:26
  so so he didn't engage people smugglers that's how much it took uh uh that's how that's how
• 1:30:31
  that's how long it's been and how much it took in terms of from Australian policy makers to just
• 1:30:36
  let up a little bit on the absolutism in terms of control and its approach to both people to
• 1:30:41
  unannounced arrivals the last person was was 15 in 2014 he's 22 23 now and he didn't engage
• 1:30:49
  a people smuggler and and everyone else since as as basically been had their had their suffering
• 1:30:57
  perpetuated can you do legally under refugee law or could you do something like say that if you
• 1:31:05
  come here by boat will process you on shore and if we you are found to be if you're if you're not
• 1:31:10
  found to be our legitimate refugee then we'll send you back to wherever you came from but if you
• 1:31:14
  are a legitimate refugee you're still not going to be settled in Australia we'll we'll we'll do
• 1:31:19
  a swap arrangement with countries like Malaysia or Indonesia or Fiji or New Zealand or whoever
• 1:31:24
  it might be you don't know where you're going to end up whether it's a good country or a bad country
• 1:31:27
  from your perspective a rich country or a poor country and in exchange we will take a similar
• 1:31:32
  the equivalent number or maybe even more uh refugees uh from refugee camps around the world
• 1:31:39
  uh through a resettlement program so we end up at least ahead on the humanitarian count
• 1:31:44
  but as an individual if you make it to Australia you're never going to get resettled in Australia is that
• 1:31:49
  an interesting point that's something some sort of deterrent value you're not looking just for
• 1:31:52
  a migration outcome there's there's yeah like it's worth thinking about I think there's a couple
• 1:31:57
  of things to note um that would be very hard to coordinate internationally but it may be
• 1:32:01
  as a long-term goal the second one is that Australia tried it something like a refugee swap scheme
• 1:32:07
  in uh and it was uh found to be um uh unlawful in 2012 the Malaysia solution was a swapping of
• 1:32:16
  4,000 refugees from Malaysia and Australia would send back 800 people who arrived by boat
• 1:32:22
  uh that was disallowed by uh the high court of Australia um a lot um for not too complex
• 1:32:28
  so was that kind of the high court saying no once they're here and once they're refugees you
• 1:32:34
  have a responsibility to make sure that they're safe you can't send them back to Malaysia where
• 1:32:37
  they might not be safe that's all right and there's also issues of in those case specific cases
• 1:32:42
  but potentially sending back kids and there's different laws for kids and uh the immigration
• 1:32:46
  minister has custodian ship of those kids and that's not acting in their interests but I'll
• 1:32:51
  I'll have a more positive example of a swap and what's all of these issues are problematic
• 1:32:56
  but the turkey deal that basically halted to a large extent the European border and migration crisis
• 1:33:03
  in early 2016 I think it was that was some sort of swap with the EU through Greece and Turkey
• 1:33:10
  that sort of worked for a time although they're having issues now maintaining it uh with turkey
• 1:33:16
  and and basically that was a one-on-one that people would be sent back from Greece to Turkey
• 1:33:22
  and in return uh uh asylum seekers who'd waited in Turkey one person who was sent back for everyone
• 1:33:29
  person sent back one person would be accepted as an asylum as a refugee to Europe so that was a
• 1:33:35
  swap that did work for a time yeah people problem where there were I mean I'm sure everyone remembers
• 1:33:40
  those horrendous images of uh you know of people don't dead and washed up on the shores of Greek
• 1:33:47
  islands and so on after they tried to make the voyage from Syria to uh to Europe was it in response
• 1:33:54
  to that that saying look we're going to process these people but you're not going to end up staying
• 1:33:57
  in the EU uh no no yes so that that sort of work that's what worked in 2016 and and those figures
• 1:34:04
  dropped dramatically in terms of people trying to make their way desperately to the EU because they
• 1:34:11
  realized if they just if they waited in Turkey um they could so we're talking about large numbers
• 1:34:16
  of resettlement though that's what it took a lot of money to Turkey and and and and and um and large
• 1:34:23
  number of resettlement places but I'd say once again you got to get short-term politics out of it and
• 1:34:28
  think about it in the long term more we're paying heaps of money there's no low cost solution
• 1:34:32
  so you might as well do the humane one you know that you know you might as well go for the solution
• 1:34:36
  that that will make your uh that'll that'll that'll diminish fear in your population that'll cost
• 1:34:42
  you the same if not less uh when it comes to this this stuff anyway because we spend an absolute
• 1:34:47
  fortune on offshore processing and mandatory detention and turning back the boats and everything
• 1:34:52
  so as you say if you took all of that money and you you you said all right let's come up with an
• 1:34:56
  actual sustainable long-term multi-decade uh regional solution uh you could probably the world's
• 1:35:03
  greatest minds could probably come up with something better than locking people on a desert island
• 1:35:07
  in perpetuity um Kim let's just end with uh your prognostications about the future um we talked
• 1:35:15
  about Trump and Brexit and you know those touch on a kind of you said at the beginning of the
• 1:35:23
  interview when we're so wealthy why are we so obsessed with security and you know making sure
• 1:35:29
  that people don't come here and steal our our stuff at this moment and there is this global
• 1:35:35
  thing going on of identitarianism and populism and I wonder how you see it panning out and
• 1:35:43
  whether you're optimistic or pessimistic about the future yeah well where I find some optimism
• 1:35:48
  um is that given there's this um burgeoning of different voices in part because of technology
• 1:35:55
  like never before I think we are seeing um refugees and boat people being able to tell their stories
• 1:36:03
  and that's what I've dedicated a lot of my professional life to and and the the key figure in
• 1:36:08
  Australia is um is Beruz Buchaniel though of course he's in New Zealand at the moment he was
• 1:36:14
  locked up on Manus Island for four years he's a Kurdish filmmaker, poet, writer, journalist
• 1:36:22
  and he's almost he's a public intellectual for Australia one of the most key public intellectuals
• 1:36:28
  of 21st century Australia never set foot on in on Australian soil never will
• 1:36:34
  uh he won a stack of awards particularly the Victorian literary premier's literary prize for his
• 1:36:40
  no friend but the mountains it's a tough read it's prison literature he wrote it on through
• 1:36:45
  through a phone sending it secretly to Australia through a messaging app and then having it
• 1:36:52
  translated here he was one of these detainees he was a he was a boat person who was locked up well
• 1:36:57
  he was on Manus wasn't he he was on Manus and and and and he was using what's app or something to
• 1:37:03
  adjourn in Melbourne and he narrated an entire book because you're not allowed to I guess he wasn't
• 1:37:09
  allowed to have a pen and paper or something as while he was being held in mandatory detention by
• 1:37:16
  by Australian authorities well outsourced to outsource to the to the to PNG that's an amazing
• 1:37:22
  thing that he was able to write a book and then actually it was actually a good enough book that
• 1:37:25
  it won awards but why are you your exemplar for this? Why I'm optimistic about it is as much as he
• 1:37:32
  he's got some very critical things to say about Australia but but he does I think he speaks to
• 1:37:38
  why I love both people a bit he says they give us new perspective you know that the nerve endings
• 1:37:42
  of humanity and he aim him and and I'll meet Tafelian he's translator he's a scholar in Sydney and
• 1:37:50
  and and they're incredible claims about Australia one in one is that they he he juxtapositions
• 1:37:56
  of popesides Manus Island and another Australia that he's another island and he and he builds it up
• 1:38:03
  but it's Australia he says it's Australians that are not free but somehow we've managed to
• 1:38:08
  having creative and intellectual freedom on Manus despite all those things that are keeping us
• 1:38:13
  down that are brutalising us but we we can see the world that we have seen Australia you know
• 1:38:18
  they call it a casereal sort of society a society that's built on locking people up whose freedoms
• 1:38:24
  are built on locking people up a certain flourishing about that I actually sort of like but it helps
• 1:38:29
  you reflect who is free right how are we conditioned how are we locked up by by some of the things
• 1:38:36
  that we do to others so so that's what gives me optimism these are incredible perspectives their
• 1:38:42
  perspectives I prefer to gain in different ways without brutalising people but but you know there's
• 1:38:52
  incredible heroism there for me that I find inspiration and and and courage from
• 1:39:00
  here it reminds me a little bit of when Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison and he
• 1:39:05
  was asked about his hatred for his captors and for the white supremacist system that put him there
• 1:39:10
  and he said I don't feel any hatred I don't have any hate because as long as I feel hate for them
• 1:39:15
  they still have control over me the only way I can be free is yeah it's to not have hate
• 1:39:21
  and maybe it's part of Australia's journey and part of America's journey ultimately to liberate
• 1:39:26
  ourselves from the moral stain of the way that we're treating asylum seekers I you wouldn't be
• 1:39:33
  here and I wouldn't be here were it not for the fact that previous Australian generations were
• 1:39:37
  generous towards towards people who were the most desperate people in the world so let's hope
• 1:39:43
  it can continue can it's great to talk to you thanks so much for being with us it's been good thanks