Tragic boat crash forces a look at Australian refugee policy

originally published by: The Associated Press
18th December 2010

The deadly crash of a boat full of asylum seekers off an Australian island this week has triggered a blame game. Blame the cyclone off Christmas Island. Blame the Indonesian people smugglers who loaded the rickety vessel with Iranians, Iraqis and Kurds and set off for Australia. Blame the slow response of rescue teams. But mostly, blame the government for the deaths of at least 30 men, women and children.

“The Gillard government has blood on its hands,” Herald Sun newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt wrote, calling for Prime Minister Julia Gillard to resign. “These tragic drownings at Christmas Island are a direct result of her reckless boat people policies.”

Police divers pulled two bodies from the sunken wreckage Friday, raising the confirmed death toll to 30. Gillard said it was unlikely more survivors would be found, two days after the wooden boat smashed into craggy cliffs, splintering to pieces and tossing the passengers into treacherous waves. Forty-two survived.

The tragedy has once again put the spotlight on the three-year-old Labor government’s struggle to come up with an effective refugee policy. Critics on both sides say the current approach encourages asylum seekers to undertake perilous sea journeys.

When the Labor Party swept to power in late 2007, it relaxed the previous government’s strict refugee laws as part of an effort to forge a fairer and more humane process.

Since then, boat arrivals have increased steadily. More than 120 carrying at least 6,000 people landed in 2010, the highest in 20 years.

The opposition Liberal Party blames the policy shift, while the Labor government contends that unrest in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka is behind the surge.

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Posted by Zinzi Eka-Naphtali on 22/12/2010. Filed under Refugees & Asylum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry