In books and films the enormity of a complex and fraught situation is often conveyed by a detail that is quite tiny in the larger picture. For example, the severity of a famine is evoked by a woman fastidiously picking up and brushing clean a few rice grains that have fallen to the ground. In the detail we recognise the larger reality and the values of those implicated in it.
In the clamour of Australia's treatment of people who come to Australia to seek protection from persecution, with its discordant notes of suffering, humiliation, death, heated rhetoric and managerial complexity, a minor and almost unnoticed Government direction struck such a revelatory chord.
Direction 62 issued by the minister before Christmas affects people who came to Australia by boat, have been found to be refugees and have protection visas. It provides that any applications they may have made to bring family members to Australia must remain at the bottom of the pile. Given the many applications that await scrutiny, the consequence of this direction is that people who came to Australia by boat cannot be reunited with their family in Australia. The money, sometimes in the thousands of dollars, they may have spent in applying to sponsor family members will not be returned to them.
The brevity of the direction belies its enormous effects on the people affected by it. They had set their hearts on being reunited with their families. Their hope sustained them through the long years of detention before they gained protection. Most fled their own countries because they feared for their lives. They had good reason also to fear for the security of their families whom they left behind. Indeed the hope that they could together make a new life in Australia often fuelled their flight. In detention their fear for their families was mixed with guilt at leaving them and with helplessness at being unable to support or help them. When they received protection they directed all their energies to sponsor their families.
To give one example, a young man from Sri Lanka who had to flee for his life from both rebel and government forces, left his wife and two young children behind. One was born after he left. Living in a region with a heavy army presence she lives in fear and in poor living conditions. Her health has also been poor and she needs medical care. While in detention he feared putting her life at risk if he contacted her directly, but was deeply depressed by his separation and inability to help her. Once given protection he immediately put all his efforts into having his family come to Australia. After being told of the direction he has locked himself in his room.
It is easy to imagine the devastation of spirit experienced by those whose hopes are so crushed. It is harder to read the minds of those who devised and signed the direction. They could not have thought of a more exquisite form of torture. One hesitates to think that this attracted them to Direction 62. But it is equally difficult to think of other compelling reasons. If people are not deterred from coming to Australia by the certain prospect of being sent to Nauru or PNG with no opportunity to settle in Australia (that is, if they avoid interception and return to Indonesia by the Australian Armed Forces), this measure is not likely to discourage them.
The measure is also a costly indulgence for Australia. Because it increases the pressure on the mental health of already vulnerable people who have been accepted into Australian society, society will carry the costs of their medical care and of the lost contribution that they could have made to their new country.
To discriminate against and alienate new members of society, too, has heavy costs. It encourages divisions within society that will express themselves in resentment and hostility.
There are also costs when a government targets groups of the population it rules. The convention that the government should be a model litigant was a wise one: it expressed the importance for public order of the government being seen as a model of good behaviour. When it behaves vindictively it encourages disorder.
At a time of widespread lack of trust in all governments, too, this measure leaves the Government open to a charge of hypocrisy. It expresses support for families and family values. But when it suits its purposes it treats with contempt the most intimate family ties of the most vulnerable people.
There are large arguments against Direction 62. But the most compelling lies in the humanity officers of government and people granted protection share.
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.
Flaming water image from Shutterstock