NZ prepared on people smugglers

As Australians approach a federal election, asylum seekers and people smugglers are turning out to be a key issue for the fifth time in a row.

New Zealanders may look sceptically at this. Why is this captivating the Australian public?

The political issue is one of fairness and national sovereignty. For three decades, Australia had a bipartisan commitment to a big immigration programme (some 184,000 inward migrants in 2011–12, not including kiwis).

But there was an implicit social contract: Immigration was supported provided it was done in a fair and orderly process.

Boat people turning up on the shores of the Northern Territory and Western Australia is an affront to this sense of fairness, and can undermine confidence in the whole regime over time.

It would be one thing if all these boat people were refugees directly fleeing persecution in benighted and war-torn countries, but many are not. They are ‘economic refugees’. That is, they are not really refugees, but immigrants, wishing to start a better life in Australia. And fair enough too.

The problem is that this demand from ‘economic refugees’ has facilitated a people-smuggling trade from Indonesia to Australia. People pay vast amounts of money to get on a boat (A$10,000 or more), and some 100 people are showing up in Australia every day. Tragically, many boats sink and thousands of people are dying at sea.

One of the most controversial things John Howard did as Prime Minister was institute the ‘Pacific solution’, a regime that dried up the people-smuggling trade almost entirely by processing applications offshore. After he left office, Kevin Rudd scrapped the policy and the trade started again. Much of the pressure came from the human rights industry, replete with moralisers keen to be seen as concerned, but who are largely absent from public debate now that their preferred policy has failed miserably.

Fortunately, the New Zealand government has learnt from the Australians, quietly and sensibly passing the Mass Arrivals Bill earlier this year. Boats have already been detected on their way to New Zealand, and regardless of quibbles over the bill, it is good that New Zealand is preparing for the eventuality before it actually happens.

Refugees absolutely deserve our compassion and fair treatment, but how that programme is conducted has to be balanced against the potential scourge of people smugglers reaching New Zealand shores.

New Zealand clearly doesn’t need Australia’s toxic asylum seeker debate on its own shores.

Luke Malpass is a research fellow with the NZ Initiative.