Editorial: Asylum seekers deserve some compassion

    5:29 AM Monday Jul 18, 2011

    Sri Lankan asylum seekers. Photo / AP


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    Sri Lankan asylum seekers. Photo / AP

    The Prime Minister was uncharacteristically blunt about a boatload of asylum seekers expressing a wish to come to New Zealand. "They are not welcome here," he said. He believes he had to be that blunt. The boatpeople may have been no closer to these shores than any have been when they were intercepted by the Indonesian Navy last Saturday – and they were heading for Australia – but John Key says he has intelligence that New Zealand was their intended destination.

    It is hard to believe; they and their craft did not look prepared for the swells and squalls of the ocean in these latitudes. But the words on their placards and the New Zealand flag they displayed were enough to bring this global problem closer to home than it has ever been.

    The 85 Sri Lankans on the boat obviously believed that, if caught, their best prospect was to appeal to New Zealand. Clearly, the compassion Helen Clark displayed to the Tampa refugees, fully a decade ago now, has made a lasting impression on asylum seekers, or at least on those who take their money and put them to sea in small boats.

    The New Zealand Government’s attitude contrasted sharply with Australia’s then, though it acknowledged the difficulty of Australia’s position. New Zealand, being so much further from those seeking refuge, could afford to be sympathetic to them. That was not a view shared by the National Party at the time and it is sending a different message to desperate refugees now.

    The Green Party is probably not alone in finding this message unpleasant. It seems unlikely that boatpeople would be mere "economic refugees" seeking a better living standard. There must be easier and safer ways to enter a country illegally than to put to sea in a small, overcrowded craft and hope to arrive unseen in the arid, deserted wastes of Australia.

    These people set out in the knowledge there is a better-than-equal chance they will perish at sea or be intercepted and sent to an unknown detention centre to await an uncertain fate. They are throwing themselves to fortune like people who have nothing to lose. The poorest of people have something to lose, unless their life is threatened.

    Sri Lanka has not long emerged from a long and bloody civil war. The Sinhalese Government would not allow media to witness the way it finally crushed the Tamil rebellion. Anyone afraid to remain in that country probably has cause. They deserve compassion even though no country can afford to welcome refugees who bypass the international channels for resettling them somewhere safe.

    It would do them no favours to encourage false hope of a welcome here. The more who can be discouraged from taking their chances in the open ocean, the better for all concerned. New Zealand ought to support Australia’s attitude to the hilt.

    Prime Minister Julia Gillard has continued the previous Government’s policy of compulsory detention on territory legally outside Australian immigration law. But since Labour came to power the number of boats intercepted has steadily risen. The main detention centre on Christmas Island is overcrowded and has seen hunger strikes and violence.

    New Zealand remains comfortably separated from the problem by southern seas. Asylum seekers arrive here by different means – 236 in the last year, of which 21 were allowed to stay. If ever a boatload arrived at once, it would test the capacity of detention facilities and the national compassion. But both would cope.

    Boatpeople would not be welcome, as Mr Key rightly warns, but they would be accommodated while their case was considered and welcomed if their need proved genuine. He should say that too

    1. They are not asylum seekers, they are working with big business to get from one country to another without going through the proper legal chanels.

      Air travel is big business here, don’t for one minute think Zaoui is the only one, then think again. The New Zealand or bust signs on the boats recently is because they don’t want to go to Australia & be stuck in a holding camps,& the media lap up their sob stories, instead of the ruthless media savy business owners of the boat trade, so be prepared for boats, because these people are on a mission & won’t stop until they get here.

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    2. PB (New Zealand)

      03:16 PM Monday, 18 Jul 2011

      I think the prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew summed it up during the Vietnamese boat-people exodus."if you don’t have callases on your heart you will bleed to death".

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    3. Gondwana (Manukau City)

      03:16 PM Monday, 18 Jul 2011

      Good on Key. We really don’t need anymore refugees we have enough already. I see more and more around doing menial jobs. We have heaps of people who can do those jobs. Korea , Japan etc.

      Don’t accept refugees so why should we. Yes their is the odd one who becomes a success but most just use up our scarce monetary resources for a very long time and then under family reunification it starts all over again with them bringing in their relatives who in turn bring in more relatives exponentially. Refugees should go to countries with similar cultures to their own. We truly are a silly little country.

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    4. G A Murphy (United States)

      03:16 PM Monday, 18 Jul 2011

      You don’t think letting them know they would be accommodated, considered, and possibly welcomed would encourage them to come?

      They do come from terrible places and deserve our compassion. But we do them no justice by in any way giving the impression they may be allowed to stay. If taking the hard line discourages any from risking their lives for no cause, then it is the right thing.

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    5. Ken Maynard (New Zealand)

      03:17 PM Monday, 18 Jul 2011

      Why is it liberals fall back on the mantra lack of compassion.

      We all feel for the state of humanity in third world countries. Their very condition is an indictment of failure off humanity as a whole.

      Yet what is your proposed remedy, that we should all be as badly off so there is no beterr state available in the world for anyone. How does liberalism see human salvation as a sharing of the lowest common denominator.

      All government is the sum of the people of which the state is comprised. Under joint & several responsibility all dysfunctional government is the sum of a dysfunctional people. There is no such thing as a corrupt & despotic government presiding over an ~innocent~ people.

      The colonial age tried to fix these societies at their place. Christianity has tried to fix these dysfunctional people. Western secular aid agencies & advisors have tried to fix them at their place as well.

      They refuse all remedy & cite traditional cultures as the reason why they continue to do so. If we bring them to our place they continue to reject our remedy, so pulling us down to join them, rather than us lifting them up to join us. Compassion has to achieve a creditworthy result.

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  6. Victoria Beck (Parnell)

    03:17 PM Monday, 18 Jul 2011

    Wasn’t the PM’s mother given NZ housing/welfare by taxpayers? It’s laughably ironic that he’s so against giving opportunities to others. A journalist wrote about his "killer" smile and yes, I would have to agree that despite the smiles he hasn’t got much empathy.

    My mother/family lived in far worse conditions, yet worked hard in order to subsidise those like him.

    I’m in two minds about whether help should be given. On the one hand, we cannot afford to keep the local lazy in the style to which they have become accustomed, so do not need more helpless to keep via our own reduction in living standards (I.e. My high tax).

    However, a multitude of full-time longterm helpless here will need maintenance for the rest of their lives, so some of the refugees I’ve met (imbued with nous/motivation/work ethic etc) might be exactly what NZ needs before we all go down the gurgler.