On Monday night's Q&A, Tony Abbott was asked about the recent wave of boat people, including Hazaras fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan. My ears pricked up, as I had recently been in Indonesia discussing the issue with the Jesuit Refugee Service there. At the end of one meeting, a 15-year-old Hazara named Ali (pictured) came and told me his heart wrenching story.
Ali's father was taken by the Talban, never to be seen again, and his mother has fled into Afghanistan with her children. Ali decided to flee, seeking security not just for himself but eventually for his mother and his siblings. He is presently stranded in Indonesia having spent all his money, hoping one day to reach Australia. Indonesia offers no solution to his plight.
Tony Abbott spoke of people like Ali in these terms:
'... if they are fleeing a well-founded fear of persecution, the first country they get to has a duty to offer them refuge. But ... nearly all of the people who come to Australia have come through other countries first. They've come through Pakistan, where they presumably don't suffer the same fear of persecution. They've come through Indonesia, where they certainly are at no risk of persecution. So the risk of persecution ceases well before they come to Australia.
'Australia is a very desirable destination, let's face it, which is why they don't stay in Pakistan or in Indonesia.'
Australia is a long time signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 protocol. It is one of the few countries in the region to be a signatory. Indonesia is not.
Under the Convention, Australia has a key obligation 'not to impose for illegal entry or unauthorised presence in their country any penalty on refugees coming directly from a territory where they are threatened, provided only that the refugees present themselves without delay and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence'.
Prior to 2001, the Australian government took the view that refugees fleeing even faraway countries via Indonesia were 'coming directly' and were thus not to be penalised for their illegal entry or unauthorised presence in Australian territory or waters.
That presumption was abandoned in 2001 with the increased influx of boat people from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. The Australian Government (of which Tony Abbott was a member) decided to penalise boat people arriving without a visa by imposing mandatory detention and by replacing the