The Racial State: Asylum
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The issue of asylum is arguably one of the most politicised in Australia and elsewhere. Critics argue for a strict distinction between legal and illegal immigration, while supporters of the right to asylum highlight human rights abuses, war, and starvation as legitimate reasons for benevolence. States over the last two decades have increased the policing of borders, detention and deportation of would-be refugees. We shall examine the various approaches to the debate situating it within a view on globalization that highlights the apparently unstoppable flow of humans and the possible futility of borders in a transnational age defined by risk, uncertainty and the human instinct for survival.
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The Racial State: Asylum
- 1. Asylum The Racial State Week 10A/Prof Alana Lentin a.lentin@westernsydney.edu.au
- 2. Overview Definitions & legal obligations Facts & figures Forced migration / Globalisation Criminalisation of asylum seekers The detention industry Campaigns
- 3. ref·u·gee /ˌrefyo͝oˈjē/ Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of theprotection of that country. United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951)
- 4. The flight of refugees around the globe New York Times
- 6. Asylum and Australia Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
- 7. Why seek asylum? Multiple push factor Why a theory of forced migration?
- 8. Falling from the sky
- 9. Criminalising Asylum ‘We consider the border not to be a purely physical barrier separating nation states, but a complex continuum stretching offshore and onshore, including the overseas, maritime, physical border and domestic dimensions of the border. Treating the border as a continuum allows an integrated, layered approach to provide border management in depth— working ahead of and behind the border, as well as at the border, to manage threats and take advantage of opportunities.’ Border Force Website
- 11. 2015 ‘Migration Crisis’“Syria is thus the eye of a broader storm and the Muslim world is exporting its instability to Europe, via a mass exodus of people. What can or should Australia do? There is nothing we can do about the ancient Sunni-Shia schism, but we can protect those who have become collateral damage – Christians.” Paul Sheehan, SMH , 7 September 2015
- 13. Australia and Mandatory Detention Origins Australia: a Global laboratory “I believe it is crucial that all persons who come to Australia without prior authorisation not be released into the community. Their release would undermine the Government’s strategy for determining their refugee claims or entry claims. Indeed, I believe it is vital to Australia that this be prevented as far as possible. The Government is determined that a clear signal be sent that migration to Australia may not be achieved by simply arriving in this country and expecting to be allowed into the community.” Gerry Hand, Minister for Immigration 1992 “Australia has long been a laboratory for the invention and export of policies around the world that have contributed to the same dynamic elsewhere—as with the export of ‘offshore’ internment camps, electoral tactics that demonise asylum seekers, subcontracting mechanisms, and so on.’ Angela Mitropoulos
- 15. Manus Island: the current situation “We will take more. We will take anyone that you want us to take. The only people that we do not take are people who come by boat. So we would rather take a not very attractive guy that help you out then to take a Noble (sic) Peace Prize winner that comes by boat. That is the point.” Malcolm Turnbull to Donald Trump
- 16. The Detention industryOffshore Detention Total Spend 2013-14 = $9.6bn Offshore spend per person = $1 m Onshore per person = $239,000 Community per person = $12,000 Refugee Action Coalition
- 18. Life on Manus
- 19. Detainees @omarjack @taghiniaamir @behrouzboochani @justicemanus Politicians @peterdutton_MP @richardmarlesMP @nickmckim Activists @rac_sydney @rranwa @danielhrlc @riserefugee @asrc1 Research perspectives List 3 points made by each account Formulate a tweet in response
Editor's Notes
- Australia is a signatory to 1951 Convention on Refugees. An asylum seeker is someone who is waiting to have their claim for refugee status approved. If a person is found to be a genuine refugee, Australia (and all other signatories) are legally bound to offer protection and to ensure that the person is not sent back unwillingly to a country in which they risk being persecuted. This is called the principle of ‘non-refoulement’. Background to Geneva Convention: Written in the context of WW3 aftermath. Geared towards a European public and never meant to cope with non-European (African, Asian etc.) immigration. But, sharp rise in ethnic conflict - often fuelled by the West - in the Middle East (Iraq-Iran war, Palestinians…) or in Latin America (Chilean and Argentinian dictatorships…) or famine and conflict in various African countries - led to increase in people seeking refuge in the West. Further increased since wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Syrian civil war. Rohingyan persecution in Myanmar. Seeking in Australia also fuelled by the tensions in Sri Lanka and the dangers to the Tamil minority.
- New York Time source: Nearly 60 million people are displaced around the world because of conflict and persecution (UN figures). About 14 million of those fled in 2014. Despite the drama of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, most Africans displaced by conflict stay in Africa. UNHCR data: The fastest-growing refugee population was spurred by the crisis in South Sudan. This group grew by 64% during the second half of 2016 from 854,100 to over 1.4 million, the majority of whom were children. Indeed, children made up an astonishing 51% of the world’s refugees in 2016. During 2016, 10.3 million people were newly displaced by conflict or persecution. This included 6.9 million individuals displaced within the borders of their own countries and 3.4 million new refugees and new asylum-seekers. According to 2017 UNHCR figures, more than half (55 per cent) of all refugees worldwide came from just three countries: • Syrian Arab Republic (5.5 million) • Afghanistan (2.5 million) • South Sudan (1.4 million)
- When refugees flee their own countries, most end up with their immediate neighbours, often some of the world’s poorer nations. In terms of hosting displaced people, developed countries pale in comparison with nations bordering conflict zones. Combined, the United States and France had 760,000 refugees last year. Ethiopia, for example, is host to some 665,000, most from Somalia and South Sudan.
- Australia: Australian figures (Refugee Council data): Australia by comparison to other countries fails to do its fair share in protecting refugees. Of the 2.5 million refugees who had their status recognised or were resettled in 2016, just 1.43% were assisted by Australia (34,193 people). In 2016, 27,626 resettled refugees arrived in Australia, with the increase being due to the one-off commitment of 12,000 places for Syrian and Iraqi refugees and delays in the processing of refugee applications which saw a reduction in arrivals in 2015. Australia recognised 6,567 only asylum seekers in 2016, protecting just 0.28% of the world’s asylum seekers. At the end of 2016, Australia had 29,590 asylum applications pending. Total onshore applications for asylum in 2013: 26,427 (of which boat arrivals 18,119). 48% of plane arrivals and 67% of boat arrivals were granted visas (meaning that most arrivals are so-called ‘genuine’ refugees. 35,000 people lodged offshore refugee visa applications (6,500 granted) [Source - The Refugee Council] https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/resources/statistics/asylum-seekers/] Compare with 64,500 in Germany or 83,400 in the US (these are for people granted permanent protection - not people arriving in extraordinary circumstances such as currently in Europe).
- 1. Multiple push factors: Changing definition of what pushed people to flee. Beyond traditional reasons - political persecution, war, famine, etc. These are still the predominant factors particularly during today’s context (Syrian civil war, Iraq, Afghanistan, Rohingya Muslims…) - there are also new factors: Castles mentions: - Environmental factors/climate refugees - ‘development projects such as dams, airports, roads, luxury housing, conservation areas and game parks.’ Often affect poor or indigenous people more - World Bank says that there are 10,000 environmental refugees (in 2003). But Castles warns against this label - as the factors are economic and political as well as purely environmental (i.e. people without political power unable to resist, e.g. mining projects). - Sex trafficking: growing demand in the industrialised north coupled with heavy migration controls fuels the illicit sex industry - underage, unprotected, often unpaid, no access to sex worker organisations/unions (often affects women from conflict zones and others lured by the hope of a better life). 2. Why a theory of forced migration? Castles (2003): it is not the numbers alone that make a theory necessary. In fact, only 2% of the world’s population are mobile. Most stay in their own localities. Given, global inequality, it is a wonder more people don’t migrate. A theory is necessary because of (a) the reasons for which people move and (b) the growing criminalisation of asylum seeking (despite being enshrined in law).
- Migration seems to have become intensified during globalisation (era since the 1970s defined by the interconnectedness of economic and political structures at a global level). Many have pointed out that, under globalisation goods and money flow freely while the movement of people is constrained. Z. Bauman: to understand globalisation, it is better to see it is a two-way process - for some the world is becoming more global, while for the majority it is becoming more local. Glocalization Zygmunt Bauman argues that globalization can be described as the ‘new world disorder’. While globalization has allowed the rich to make more money more quickly, two-thirds of the world has actually lost out due to globalization. Those who benefit from globalization live in time rather than space. They are not constrained by their geographical location because their wealth allows them to move freely. In contrast, those who lose out are stuck in space. As Bauman puts it, ‘in their time, nothing ever happens’ because they do not have the ability to move as they please. So globalization and localization should be seen as two sides of the same coin. Bauman refers to the first (rich, global) group as tourists and the second (poor, local) group as vagabonds. Tourists become wanderers because they want to. It doesn’t matter to them if they have no fixed home because their wealth allows them to enjoy all that is good about the world and permits them to feel at home anywhere. This might apply to bankers, international business-people, ‘ex-pats’, some international students... But, not all wanderers move out of choice. They move because they have to. This could apply to migrant workers, many of whom migrate within their own countries (e.g. in China) because multinational companies have set up industrial centres in particular regions. Because work is scarce in their home towns/villages, they are forced to migrate. Bauman refers to this group as vagabonds. “The vagabonds are the waste of the world which has dedicated itself to tourist services” (Bauman 1998: 47). Wasted lives: Globalisation can be defined as excess - the parts of the world with the smallest number of people consume the most (energy, food, etc.). We require the rest of the world in order to be wealthy. It is because the majority of the world has less that we have more. Bauman: ‘rich nations... draw resources... from the rest of the world.’ When poor countries are further impoverished because of this, our reaction is to want to stop their populations from coming into ours to share in the wealth we have made. There is no understanding that under globalisation, the fact that we are wealthy is dependent on the fact that we can exploit the resources of the rest of the world. The reason there has been an increase in people seeking asylum since 2002, is at least in part due to wars waged by the West on countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Globalisation is about interconnected processes. Effects of events in one part of the world are increasingly felt in other parts.
- Guardian UK report (25.4.2013): ‘A young man whose body was found on a pavement in west London almost certainly died after stowing away inside the landing gear of a British Airways flight from Angola in a desperate attempt to make a new life in the UK, an inquest has heard. José Matada was either dead or at the point of death due to hypothermia and lack of oxygen when he fell from the plane as its undercarriage opened for its descent into Heathrow airport, west London coroners court was told. He died on his 26th birthday, with a single pound coin in his pocket, as well as currency from Botswana. He is believed to have originally come from Mozambique, but authorities have been unable to trace any family or official confirmation of his identity. His body was found on the pavement of Portman Avenue, in East Sheen, an affluent west London suburb, shortly before 7.45am on 9 September last year, just after flight BA76 from Luanda, the Angolan capital, passed overhead.’ In ‘Falling from the Sky’ (2010), Les Back describes a number of other similar events, in 2001 and 2002. On one occasion, a driver saw a body falling from the sky, but no one was ever found. Clearly, people are taking desperate measures to get to their destination of choice. In Australia, people take voyages on overcrowded and unseaworthy boats. In Europe, asylum seekers cling to the undercarriage of the high-speed Eurostar train into the tunnel across the English channel. In 2009, the French government dismantled a camp in the port city of Calais, known as ‘the jungle’, where migrants camped waiting for their chance to cross to the UK in this way. Despite this, people keep finding ways to get in. Nevertheless, there seems to be a disconnect between these human stories of bravery and desperation and the ability to extend empathy. Les Back suggests this is because the words ‘immigrant’ and ‘immigration’ have become loaded with negativity (as we shall see in the next slide). Around 150,000 migrant visas are granted to Australia each year. However, only around 14,000 asylum seekers are granted protection visas. While people are waiting to have their claims for asylum assessed, they are not allowed to work. Despite popular opinion, many asylum seekers are highly skilled. The only thing that separates them from migrants entering through a migrant worker visa programme (e.g. 457) is the perception of illegality. How is this perception of illegality achieved?
- Since the late 1990s, it has become commonplace to link asylum seekers with criminality, sponging, and increasingly with terrorism. Explain racist van image Criminality: Two aspects 1. Seeking asylum is increasingly portrayed as illegal. In fact it is not illegal to seek asylum whatever the means of transport used to get into a country. 2. Asylum seekers themselves are portrayed as criminals, or potential criminals. This can be seen in calls for communities to be told about asylum seekers living in their areas (as one would for sex offenders). In addition to the policy of mandatory detention (to be examined later), the law has become harsher to place asylum seekers living in the community on temporary visas under suspicion. e.g. Code of Behaviour: The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection introduced a new Code of Behaviour in December 2014 which will apply to all adult ‘illegal maritime arrivals’ who are considered for the grant of subclass 050 Bridging E Visa (DIBP, 2014b). The code was introduced to make sure that people who are granted a bridging visa behave ‘appropriately’ in the Australian community. The terms of the code explicitly state that, “If you do not sign the code and are in immigration detention, you will remain in immigration detention; and if your are in community detention, you will not be considered for a bridging visa and may be returned to immigration detention; and if you are in the community having previously been granted a bridging visa, you will not receive a further bridging E visa.” Moreover the new code empowers the Immigration Minister to cancel bridging visas, making its implementation highly political. Border Force: In July 2015, the Australian Border Force was created (integration of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service). Official remit: ‘To protect Australia's border and manage the movement of people and goods across it’ (BF website). Border Force website displays an interesting understanding of the Border (which mirrors a lot of the social science theory) - [click for quote]
- 1. In Australia it has become consensus that the general population endorses a tough stance on asylum seekers. 59 per cent of people think most boat arrivals are not genuine refugees according to January 2014 poll. Similar attitudes in other western countries (although tide may be turning in reaction to recent crisis - but for how long?) But where do these harsh attitudes come from? It is undoubted that a combination of the wish of governments to be seen as tough on border protection and national security (the two are often seen as going hand-in-hand) and the role of the media in portraying asylum seekers as potential criminals and/or terrorists are at fault. In AU, tough attitudes to asylum seekers go back to the Tampa affair in 2001. A boat carrying 438 refugees from Afghanistan was denied entry to Australia. Howard: "we decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come.” Howard’s tough stance won him the election, piggy-backing on 9/11 (which happened one month later), allowing for a conflation of asylum seekers - seen as ‘queue-jumpers’ trying to enter illegally - with the threat of terrorism (a common trope - even today Syrian refugees are being portrayed as infiltrated by ISIS members). 2. Media: Asylum seekers are often portrayed in the press as freeloaders [click for photo]. British tabloid press describes them as ‘bogus asylum seekers’, or ‘economic migrants in disguise’ (similar in AU). They are widely believed to be making up stories to be granted refugee status. However, the difficulty of getting refugee status makes this unlikely in the majority of cases. Katie Hopkins [click photo]: Sun Newspaper journalist who described refugees as ‘cockroaches’ and who said she hoped that more drowned in the Mediterranean (huge following). She recently claimed that the death of toddler Aylan Kurdi fund washed up on a Turkish beach was ‘staged’. Terrorism: As Stephen Castles has observed, 'following the events of 11 September 200I, refugees have been branded as a sinister transnational threat to national security - even though none of the 11 September terrorists were actually refugees or asylum seekers.' Bauman: two fears are enmeshed in this Sun newspaper headline: ‘'We have an open invitation to terrorists to live off our benefits.' How does the media achieve this divide between legality and illegality in immigration? Why are some migrants alright and other not? Bauman: An article in a British newspaper written by the then Home Secretary about the myths about asylum seekers and terrorism was placed opposite a report about the shooting of a police-office while arresting an immigrant suspect. This plants the idea that all immigrants are dangerous criminals, although the two stories are unrelated. Bauman: growth in fear of asylum seekers and immigrants becomes acute with growing fear for the security of the population, due to the retraction of the state (less investment in social security, etc.) and the increase in job insecurity. Immigrants become easy targets for our fear. They remind us of who we once were or who we fear becoming. In an era of globalisation, when governments have less and less control over their own affairs, being tough with the weakest in society (e,g. asylum seekers) allows governments to appear strong, it also gives the appearance of having control over one’s own territory (border control) in an age when less and less is actually decided within any one border (e.g. global economic crisis affects everywhere).
- 1. Video explainer of backdrop to the current European ‘migrant crisis’. The use of the word crisis should be questioned. The crisis seems to be centred on the origins of the refugees (from Muslim countries). As we saw when we examine the criminalisation of asylum seekers, this fits in with the prevalent discourse connecting asylum seekers with terrorism. [show video] 2. Repression of migrant movement across the border. [show video] Hungary has taken on the role of protector of EU borders, putting up razor wire and refusing to allow refugees on trains. Similar repression in Macedonia on the border with Greece. Other EU countries, such as Denmark has put ads in Lebanese newspapers telling would-be migrants that Denmark has cut welfare for refugees and that those given asylum will not be allowed to have their families brought to the country during the first year, that a residence permit is delivered only to those who speak Danish, and that rejected asylum seekers are swiftly sent back to their home countries. 3. In AU, the government has committed to taking 12,000 refugees from Syria, taking the overall quota for the year to 18,000 (from 6,000). Several commentators called for Christian refugees to be prioritised (click Sheehan quote). e.g. SMH columnist, Paul Sheehan. As Yassir Morsi commented in The Guardian, ‘The rhetoric of the debate is driven by an unstated, disingenuous demand: because we are the compassionate ones, we can demand a return on our generosity. That means we get to openly decide who is a good refugee and who isn’t – Christians are good, Muslims, not so much – without being accused of racism.’ (link to Islamophobia) 3. Despite the repression and the fact that Germany has back-tracked on its open border policy and that the focus of European discussions is on stopping trafficking (which has become increasingly meaningless), refugees are taking matters into their own hands and literally tearing down borders and finding alternative routes, often walking 100s of km. This raises questions about the permanence of borders and the very idea of the nation-state as having the right to define who gets to be within it and who must be kept out.
- 2. Reactions of ordinary people seem to have contradicted the actions of governments. Examples of people-to-people solidarity actions. [click for photo] going to refugee camps (e.g. Calais) - Daily Mail Newspaper offer of 1 pound tickets to Calais taken up by activists bringing clothes etc. to people in the camp. [click for photo] German example of ‘Refugees Welcome initiative’ started in Berlin. People housing refugees (direct reaction to common criticisms of open borders approaches - why don’t you have a refugee live in your house?) Universities offering scholarships to refugees (e.g. WSU) People driving refugees across the border after Hungary closed the border and trains were not leaving. Also, activism during immigration raids (e.g. Peckham)
- Origins: Mandatory detention in AU brought in under Keating in 1992. Quote from Immigration minister of the time, Gerry Hand. AU was the first country to introduce mandatory indefinite detention for asylum seekers. Needs to be seen in the global context of immigration policy. Although the Refugee Convention states that signatories must grant asylum to those fleeing persecution etc., this conflicts with states’ demands to control who enters their borders and settles. The attitude to asylum seekers must be seen within this context. Australia since the early 90s has sought to separate between so-called legitimate (‘legal’) and illegitimate (‘illegal’) migrants. The designation of those who arrive by boat as ‘illegal’ is arbitrary because it does not mean that they are any less in danger than those who arrive by plane or who come via resettlement programs (e.g. Syrians in offshore detention are ostensibly the same people as those being chosen for resettlement under recently announced programme). The very existence of mandatory detention for asylum seekers establishes the notion that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ asylum seekers and right and wrong methods to enter the country. Mandatory indefinite detention is arguably worse than imprisonment because, unlike in the case of a convicted criminal, there is neither a crime (seeking asylum is legal under international law) nor a sentence - asylum seekers do not know how long they will spend in detention nor if they will be allowed to settle in AU once their case has been heard. 2. AU as a global laboratory. [click for AM quote]
- The AU government has, since 2013, claimed that seeking asylum by boat and has used propaganda to send a message to those who seek to come by boat that to do so is illegal. It has militarised border security through the appointment of a 3 star general to lead ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, combination of boat interceptions, tow backs, turn backs and a policy of mandatory indefinite detention on Nauru and Manus island with no hope of resettlement for those found to be refugees in Australia (show video). The reintroduction of offshore detention in Nauru and Manus Island (PNG) since 2013 has been presented as a deterrent to asylum seekers attempting to come to AU by boat. The LNP mantra of ‘stop the boats’ (also espoused by Labor) is presented as humanitarian - stops deaths at sea. However, the harsh policy of boat turn backs and tow backs and the secrecy enveloping ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ about what have been called ‘on-water operational matters’ means that the AU public does not have a full account of whether lives are still being lost at sea. As AM notes, ‘Violence is integral to the policies of mandatory detention and Operation Sovereign Borders…. In its actual conduct, as was predicted, the Australian government has endangered lives by successive acts of refoulement, is accused of causing injury to asylum seekers, and has undertaken unauthorized ‘people-smuggling’ into Indonesia.’ But Au remains resolute that no asylum seekers who have arrived by boat will ever be allowed to come to Australia. 2. Life in the detention centres of Nauru and Manus Island can only be described as dangerous. There have been 8 deaths - for example Reza Berati, 24 yr old Iranian asylum seeker hit on the head with a rock during protests on 17 February 2014, Hamid Kehazai who died following an infection that went untreated in October 2014 and most recently, in August 2017, Hamed Shamshiripour who was found dead in the forest near the Australian-run East Lorengau refugee transit centre on Manus Island having been suffering from long-term mental health problems. (database of Australian detention deaths http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/thebordercrossingobservatory/publications/australian-border-deaths-database/) Other cases include rape of 23 yr old Iranian woman who later attempted suicide and has been separated from her family who have been forbidden from having contact with her; children displaying suicidal behaviours and inappropriate sexual behaviour due to high levels of sexual abuse from both guards and other detainees. Guards involved in sexual assault were flown out of Nauru by helicopter to Australia in 2015. So, although Australia uses the sovereignty of Nauru and PNG to argue that it is not responsible over those jurisdictions, AU also flouts that sovereignty when AU personnel is involved. Living conditions are inhumane [show photo - example of toilets from smuggled out photos]. It is very difficult for reporters to gain access to the camps to observe conditions and they often rely on smuggled out video and photos. A number of whistle blowers including doctors, migration agents and former guards have spoken out about conditions in the camps. On July 1 2015, the passage of the Border Force Act meant that those who speak out against abuse of asylum seekers and about health care violations in onshore and offshore detention centres may be threatened with imprisonment. This has now been rescinded by the Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton in 2017. Detainees have been involved in protest against their condition including hunger strikes and sewing of lips. They have effectively used social media both to protest and alert the AU public to their treatment (e.g. Shane Bazzi’s Twitter account etc.)
- Manus Island update: In April last year, PNG’s highest court declared the country’s agreements with Australia to send and detain asylum seekers to the Manus detention centre as “unconstitutional” and “illegal”. Refugees either have to agree to return home, be resettled in PNG or - if they have not been recognized as refugees and accent return home - be rehoused in an ‘alternative detention’ tent camp being set up currently (in September 2017). There is also potentially the option to be resettled in the US. Before the end of Barack Obama’s term in office, Turnbull brokered a deal to take Latin American refugees in exchange for the US taking refugees from Manus and Nauru. However, Trump’s reaction was that this was a bad deal. Although refugees on Manus have been interviewed by US officials, it is still unclear how many - if any - refuses will end up going to the US. [click in quote] Famously in a leaked conversation between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull, Turnbull said, ‘“We will take more. We will take anyone that you want us to take. The only people that we do not take are people who come by boat. So we would rather take a not very attractive guy that help you out then to take a Noble (sic) Peace Prize winner that comes by boat. That is the point.” New Zealand has repeatedly offered to take the refugees from Au’s offshore detention camps, but Australia has refused as this is seen as providing a ‘back door’ option for these people to come to Au in the future.
- The image shows the progression of private contracts for running detention centres on and offshore in AU since 1992. The detention of asylum seekers has long been a profit-making industry (link to prison industrial complex from week 10). [click on image for link to interactive map] The cost of mandatory detention in Australia is almost double the US and Europe (https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/oct/01/australian-immigration-detention-costs-double-that-of-us-and-europe-report) Serco and Broadspectrum (formerly Transfield Services) are the two biggest contractors for the government. (Broadspectrum run offshore centres since 2012). It had earned almost $3 billion by 2015. But not for profits have also made a lot of money out of detention, including the Salvos, Save the Children, Red Cross etc. [click for figures break down] ABC Fact check: Human Rights law Centre, Daniel Webb, claimed that AU expenditure for offshore detention was five times higher that UN programme in SE Asia. ABC Fact check ran the numbers and found Webb was right: ‘Using the exchange rate at the time of Mr Webb's claim, Australia is currently spending more than five times the amount on offshore processing than the UNHCR spends in South East Asia.’ So, it is important to understand mandatory detention as a public-private partnership. While the government wishes to send a message of harsh deterrence to stop people seeking asylum by boat, private companies and not for profits have a lot to gain financially. Source for financial figures: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-13/offshore-detention-cost-australia-10-billion-in-three-years/7837388
- Since early 2014, there has been a focus in refugee activism on encouraging divestment from the mandatory detention industry. Successful boycott of Sydney Biennale leading to resignation of its director, Luca B-N (Transfield heir). [click for photo] Divestment from Transfield by HESTA superannuation fund and pressure mounting within other super funds. Other campaigns - UniSuper Divest, Dropkick Decmil (encouraging Freos to divest from Decmil, another detention contractor). [click for photo] Most recent focus is on Wilson security - the firm contracted to do security in offshore detention centres, with organizers targeting Wilson parking.