An open letter to our political leaders

By NSW/ACT Independent Education Union

 

  • Why, in this election campaign of 2010, did you seem unwilling to trust us –the electorate – with a vision for Australians as responsible world citizens?
  • Do you really believe voters have lost the sense of humanity that welcomed more than 100,000 refugees here between 1991 and 2002?
  • Tell me, why we should not develop an Australian non-partisan commitment to asylum-seekers?
  • And, by the way, isn’t it time for an Australian apology to those refugees whom we have turned away or treated harshly?

Tags are the talismen of electioneering. Like so many others, I lament the emphasis on politicking at the expense of policy discussion during this recent campaign.

In particular, references to ‘border protection’ exemplify this. The big issue behind border protection is that of asylum-seekers. Border protection follows.
Avoiding the question
Simplistic panaceas of regional – ‘off-shore’- processing (no less than the idea of a re-opened Nauru) avoid the question.

The same promise from both Liberal and Labor leaders to stop the boats or stop the people smugglers falls far short as a policy for the complex realities of asylum-seekers, border protection and illegal entry.

This recent campaign was virtually silent about:

  • why boats come here,
  • why people smuggling has emerged into a nasty industry,
  • the crises which create asylum-seekers,
  • Australia’s legal and international responsibilities as world citizens towards asylum seekers, and
  • our country’s capacity to offer hospitality that history indicates will rebound to our advantage.

Instead we have been offered negatives: stop the boats, crack down on people traders.

Someone has said that leaders are those who call out the best in us. There has never been a shortage of Australians demonstrating the best of their humanity and concern for the common good.

Ten years ago, thousands of us walked the bridges of the nation in an apology to Aboriginal people that our then-Prime Minister refused to utter.

Trains travelling into the city hummed with good will. We swelled up out of North Sydney station. As we edged across the Harbour Bridge, above our heads, a sky-writer breathed ‘sorry’.

We cheered because we were leading where our leaders would not go.

The [day is] 13 February 2008 was dull and wet. At nine o’clock, people filed towards the big screens to witness the moment when political parties together apologised to the Stolen Generations.

In Martin Place, we crowded in the rain, dripping and emotional, as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson both gave voice to our desire to say ‘sorry’.

Later that day, Aboriginal leader, Patrick Dodson, addressing the National Press Club in Canberra, spoke what many of us hoped, that after this moment, Australia could be imagined as a different place.

Where is it that political candidates are calling us to now?

Stop the boats. Stop the people smugglers. Australians who are anxious about ‘boat-comers’ deserve clear information. Slogans with inadequate information have the capacity to increase rather than reduce fears.

What do these catchcries say to over 550,000 people who, since 1945, have come as refugees to this country, who have applied themselves with industriousness, made a new home, and settled here with high levels of acceptance?

In December 2001, I was one of four Australians invited to participate in an Assembly of World Citizens in France to draft a charter of human responsibilities.

The gathering had been carefully chosen in proportion to the world’s populations. Despite Australia’s small representation, there was no hiding my nation: a wealthy country that had resisted offering refuge to the passengers on the Tampa; that had shipped asylum-seekers to a remote Pacific island to broil in inadequate shelter sheds, and who had locked children and families behind razor wire. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed of my country.
Fair go
So I ask political leaders, do you really think we, the Australian voters, have lost our sense of humanity and a fair go for those women, men and children who need to wander with their families from country to country, camp to camp, facing risk and hardship?

I ask you, political leaders, to engage together above party politics on the global humanitarian crisis of refuge, to develop principles that survive beyond three to four years, and respect international law. Patrick Dodson said on the day of apology in 2008, it takes courage to begin a journey when the destination is imagined but not known.

I urge you to create a vision for us that is humane, just and honourable. That will take courage. It should not be reduced to simplistic tags.
I challenge politicians to trust us enough to call us to our better selves.

Dr Anne Benjamin, Adjunct Professor in the Australian Catholic University’s School of Educational Leadership