Calls for Australia's asylum seeker regime to end

Transcript

A group in Australia, including those prominent in academia, the arts, medicine and the law, along with faith-based and non-government organisations, is calling for an end to Canberra's asylum seeker regime.

Australia is housing thousands of people in detention camps, many offshore in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

The group of 190 people has issued a "j'accuse" statement arguing that the Australian policy requires damaging some to deter others, simply as a means to a political end.

It says the vast majority of these people are found to be refugees.

Monash University's professor Louise Newman, one of Australia's foremost developmental psychiatrists, is one of the signatories, and explains why they have taken such action.

LOUISE NEWMAN: This is really an attempt to bring together many people who have been raising issues of concern about the current situation with Australia's treatment of asylum seekers. As you're aware, there's been issues raised recently about the provision of health, and mental health services, very damning revelations about the treatment of children, issues about the actual operationalisation of Australia's so-called border protection policies with the government seemingly happy to have people languishing in the ocean for over a month. I think what we have in this country at the moment is really a growing level of concern about what we are doing. And what we are hoping to achieve by bringing these groups together and some fairly prominent individuals have been involved in the issues for some time is to really say in a clear way what our concerns are and the fact that it is on many levels not acceptable to many people in the community.

Unfortunately in Australia at the moment we have very much a government position on focussed on what they would see as deterrence of asylum seekers, very difficult to have discussions either in general media or with government around some of the more complex issues and let alone the moral and ethical issues that this sort of policy raises. So the j'accuse statement of course is built on a very long tradition of people working in a social justice area who really want to say to government that we do know that you are aware of the damage and harm that's being done to people and you do this consciously. And that there's an attempt to manipulate or influence the Australian community into somehow thinking that this frankly immoral maltreatment of people is acceptable.

DON WISEMAN: Yes. I guess the biggest battle for you in a way is the populist driving forces behind the government succeeding with this policy and the previous government for that matter as well? How do you overturn that? Because a lot of people in Australia I would imagine will just react to this as the elite speaking and they'll react negatively.

LN: Well I think that we have to unpack the assumption that the population is entirely wedded to the position of government. I think of course there's an element of people who are. Australia has a long history of being concerned about immigration and so called fears about our poorest borders. In many ways many of these issues aren't new. Australia has always had a little bit of discomfort about our place in the world and trying to maintain ourselves, which is inaccurate of course, but maintain ourselves as an Anglo-Saxon nation in this part of the world. So some of these issues recirculate. I think though what we need and what we are naming in this statement is that there's a conscious attempt by both major political parties and certainly the current government to manipulate some degree of anxiety in the community, even getting coverage of the issues that are factually accurate, that maybe do help the population understand that the so-called asylum seeker issue in Australia in a global sense is very limited and that there are alternatives. That has even been difficult.

I think what we are seeing at the moment is an increasing level of concern amongst the general community, not only the group we could label the better-educated elite or minority group. What we are seeing in our signatories and people interested in this statement are people from various community organisations, the churches, other faith groups, organisations within education, people who are not necessarily politicised in a way one might assume. Now I think that's a very positive sign, I think actually to change the situation in Australia, that's what we need. This needs to be a grassroots movement, this needs to be people in the street saying that they are not necessarily comfortable with the extremist measures of the current government and current policy that Australia could in our part of the world and to some other parts of the world actually be showing some leadership on this issue and promoting healthy discussion and alternatives. So that's I guess the challenge that we face in this country at the moment but I think an important one.

DW: You have spoken out right from the start of the overseas detention and that followed your involvement with the Immigration Health Advisory Board. Do you think though there is growing awareness of just what's going on in these camps, that more and more people are in fact starting to realise what horrific places they are?

LN: I hope that's the case. Although it should be said one of the issues that we face is that it is very difficult to get information about conditions within the camps, let alone what's happening offshore. Government is very much trying to regulate information if not maintain silence about what's happening. So with the Sri Lanka, the tamils on the boat for example recently, there was no admission there even was a boat for several weeks. And I think though that maybe people are concerned about that, that the Australian public in general do like to think that they are informed about what's happening. We've seen recently the under oath, Dr Peter Young from the health system provider for detention, giving evidence about the appalling health conditions and treatment of children within the camps. That's been very important in getting some of that information out. And I'm sure that the Department of Immigration and government are not pleased about that. But I think it's very important that when we, particularly for those of us who are working in health or professionals, when we become aware of violations of people's rights of maltreatment of very vulnerable people, we actually have ethical obligations to speak out about that. And we will certainly keep doing that. And I think when the people become aware particularly of things like harming children there is a certain level at a certain point in which they'll say enough is enough, and that's what we're hoping.