Destination Australia: how did we end up here?

Volume 11 Number 3 March 9 - April 12 2015

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

 

In recent years, events at sea, on Nauru and Manus Island have seen Australian asylum-seeker policy come under sharp public scrutiny. And although the boats may have stopped, over 50 million refugees remain scattered around the world. University of Melbourne researchers believe it’s time to change the face of the debate. By Elizabeth Brumby.

In June 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that the number of displaced people, refugees and asylum seekers around the world had exceeded 50 million for the first time since World War II. Just as astounding is the fact that it is estimated of these 50 million, over half are children. 

Asylum-seeker and refugee policy has been one of the most contentious issues of our time, dividing both the Australian public and political parties alike. Much of the political discussion in recent years has focused on those who have made their way to Australia by smuggler boat. 

Consequently, the dominant policy imperative has been one focused on deterrence and ‘turning back the boats’. In response lawyers and human rights advocates continue to voice serious concerns about the legality and morality of offshore processing, mandatory detention and the holding of children in detention facilities.  

What many agree upon, however, is the need to move the debate beyond its current politicised boundaries. Perhaps Dr Arnold Zable, writer, human rights advocate and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, captured it best when he noted: “No matter what one thinks, no matter what one’s view is, the fact that asylum-seekers have become a political football is extraordinary in every way.”

Against this backdrop, the University of Melbourne has established the Melbourne Refugee Studies Program (MRSP), a scheme that emerged as a result of a roundtable discussion which involved representatives from across the University, who were keento contribute to fostering a constructive public debate on asylum seeker and refugee policy and programs. 

According to the Director of the Program Professor Harry Minas, a former member of the Commonwealth’s Government Ministerial Advisory Council on Asylum Seekers and Detention, “the core aim of the MRSP, is to integrate the body of research and advocacy activities carried out across the University in asylum-seeker and refugee policy.

“Researchers at Melbourne have been long engaged in a wide range of initiatives to improve our understanding and response to asylum seeker and refugee issues both in Australia and internationally,” Professor Minas says.

“Projects are being implemented across disciplines including a range of highly focused policy and community-oriented ventures in law, health, international studies, politics and education, just to name a few.”

Dr Les Terry, appointed late last year as Research Fellow and Co-ordinator for the MRSP, regards the program’s key task as “bringing it all together”. In moving across the University he has been impressed by the high level of staff and student commitment to a diversity of innovative projects in the asylum-seeker and refugee fields. 

In his view, the achievements of groups such as Researchers for Asylum Seekers (RAS), which has been actively engaging with the issues for over a decade, are a testimony to the commitment of researchers at Melbourne to building better policy and programs for some of the most vulnerable communities in the world.

It’s an important and challenging role for Dr Terry, but one that several decades of work around the issues of cultural identity, multiculturalism and social equity including a successful year as Chair of Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo have more than prepared him for. 

“The view across the University is that more can be done in forging a set of policies and programs consistent with Australia’s lauded past involvement in migration, refugee and asylum-seeker matters,” Dr Terry says. 

“We believe we can help shape a positive policy response, informed by evidence from research.

“While the boats may have stopped – large numbers of asylum-seekers are still out there, seeking safety for themselves and their families,” Dr Terry says.

“Where are they, if they’re not coming here? What might be the sustainable regional solutions?” 

But these are just some of the many questions that researchers are grappling with across the faculties. 

“Other projects are focusing on issues of refugee access to health and education services, participation in higher education, as well as the better use of skills and experience that many highly qualified people in these communities bring with them.”

In April, the MRSP will host Professor Gillian Triggs, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, for a round-table discussion and lecture with researchers from across the University. The discussion will explore the far-reaching policy implications of the Commission’s report on children held in detention. The report, tabled in February, details high rates of self-harm, child abuse and a number of cases of sexual assault of children in Australian-run detention facilities during a period spanning both the former Labor and current Coalition governments. 

Les Terry says it is the MRSP’s hope that the event will be another key step in building a collective sense of purpose across the whole University on an issue that will define the nation for many years to come.  

“The Program offers an opportunity for us to make an important and well founded contribution to the continuing debates around asylum-seeker and refugees issues,” he says. “It gives us a real chance to help shape a positive and widely supported agenda for asylum-seeker and refugee policies in these tumultuous times.”

 

www.mrsp.unimelb.edu.au