CHRIS Christensen’s reminder (CL 13/7/03) of the call to the rich man to meet the needs of Lazarus at his gate accords well with the recognition by the Geneva Convention on Refugees (of which Australia was both an architect and early signatory) that a nation’s primary responsibility is not, as many seem to hold, to the refugee in the overseas camp, but to the one who arrives at our door seeking asylum.
In response to Barry Corcoran (CL 20/7/03), those whose families have realised all assets to send a threatened member to safety cannot be held responsible for the expense to taxpayers of our government’s choice of the most costly option ‘ mandatory detention on an offshore island ‘ one not chosen by any other developed country, to deal with such arrivals.
Our government, through its linking of the formerly separate offshore and onshore programs, has locked Australians into an either/or mentality where one section of the refugee population is seen as either more or less genuine or deserving.
We have been led to believe not only in a fictitious ‘queue’ when the more apt image would be a pile, but in a selection process based on the refugee’s degree of need when in truth acceptance depends (as with migrants by choice) on ability to fit our criteria.
Our geography has largely cocooned us from the reality of large-scale movements of people. Unlike countries receiving tens of thousands at their borders, we have been able to hand pick those we let in.
If we applied a both/and approach to the refugee situation perhaps we could contribute some of the $2.8 billion allotted to border protection to keep out a few thousand asylum seekers, to supplement the $7.3 million we currently give to UNHCR, the body caring for the world’s 23 million refugees.
GENEVIEVE CAFFERY
Greenslopes, Qld
