Opinion
Australia’s descent into cruelty inspires other nations
Osman Faruqi
Culture news editor and columnist“You are worse than I am.”
That’s what former US president Donald Trump told Malcolm Turnbull in 2017 when the former prime minister explained Australia’s policy of never allowing refugees to settle in the country if they had arrived by boat.
Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull discussed asylum seeker policy in 2017.Credit:Bloomberg, Alex Ellinghausen
“That’s a good idea, we should do that too,” said the president who swept to power promising a ban on Muslim migration and the construction of a border wall between Mexico and the US.
While it was Turnbull who received Trump’s praise, he doesn’t deserve the credit for re-establishing offshore processing and resettlement. That dubious honour belongs to Kevin Rudd who, in 2013, announced that all boat arrivals would be sent to Papua New Guinea.
Later that year Tony Abbott won a federal election after campaigning on a platform of “turning back the boats”, another policy that is now embraced by both major parties.
In fact, notwithstanding their decision to return the Nadesalingam family to Biloela, the federal Labor government has already turned back two boats of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka – demonstrating that Abbott’s legacy is well and truly cemented in Australian politics.
Trump’s glowing endorsement in 2017 should have been a wake-up call for Australian politicians and voters, who together have spent the last 30 years punishing refugees for their method of arrival, since mandatory detention was introduced by the Keating Labor government in 1992 in response to a wave of boat arrivals.
If there ever was a moment when Australia snapped out of its collective descent into cruelty, you would imagine it would have been when Trump admitted he wasn’t quite as cruel as the Australian parliament.
Alas, it didn’t happen. And not only has our trajectory remained the same, but recently other nations have started borrowing from our “worse than Trump” playbook, whether that be mandatory detention, offshore resettlement or turnbacks.
In 2015, Israel threatened asylum seekers with either detention or deportation to a third-country “safe haven”, evoking similar deals Australia had struck with other countries. Like Australia’s attempted people swaps, the courts scuppered Israel’s policy. Denmark passed laws in 2021 to allow for the deportation of asylum seekers to countries outside the EU while their claims were assessed, a process also pioneered by Australia.
The country currently most inspired by Australia’s refugee policies is the United Kingdom. Last year the British government introduced the Nationality and Borders Bill which sought to emulate “Australian Solution” style policies including turn backs and offshore processing. It was a response to increased numbers of asylum seekers crossing the Channel, seeking refuge in Britain.
During debate over the bill, Australia’s high commissioner to Britain, former attorney-general George Brandis, was asked to provide evidence about how effective our asylum seeker regime had been. In his testimony to the House of Commons, Brandis said that boat turn backs were introduced to save lives and prevent asylum seekers perishing on the dangerous journey to Australia.
He argued that the combination of offshore detention and turnbacks were both popular and saved lives. The MPs probed Brandis, trying to understand the mechanics of the policy, its cost, its legality under international law and whether any single component was more effective than others.
Both the measures included in the bill, and the involvement of Australia’s high commissioner in spruiking the policies that inspired them, demonstrate a link between Australia’s approach to refugee policy and what the British government was seeking to do.
But this is more than just policy ambition. In April this year the Nationality and Borders Bill became law, and in a number of key areas the UK’s approach to refugees became almost identical to Australia’s.
For the first time refugees arriving by boat will be treated differently to other irregular arrivals. But the measure that has attracted the most attention is the government’s policy to deport asylum seekers to a third country.
Asylum seekers, mainly those who arrived by boat, will be sent to Rwanda for processing. Even if they are found to be genuine refugees, they won’t be allowed in the UK but instead settled in Rwanda. It’s the same model Australia implemented with Papua New Guinea.
Much like in Australia, the British proposal has been condemned by human rights advocates and international law experts. Even Prince Charles has privately criticised the policy, reportedly calling it “appalling”.
Australians love to consider themselves as care-free, laid-back and generous. In reality, we have deployed a ruthless, bipartisan set of immigration policies that Trump admires, and the heir to the British Crown finds “appalling”.
The fact that these policies have become our biggest ideological export should make every Australian deeply uncomfortable.