Australia began deporting undocumented migrants arriving by boat to camps on Pacific islands Friday to deter other mostly Middle Eastern asylum seekers sailing from Indonesia to circumvent visa requirements. The so-called Pacific Solution worked the first time around.
There were no boat arrivals in 2002, the year after John Howard's conservatives cajoled Nauru and Papua New Guinea into hosting offshore immigration detention centres for those who had paid smugglers for a passage to Australia in a ramshackle boat. The camps soon emptied and in 2007, when Labour took over government, they were closed. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, overwhelmed by fresh boat arrivals, has resurrected a policy she described earlier in the year as "costly, unsustainable and wrong."
There are doubts the Pacific Solution will work twice. In the four weeks since Gillard announced she was reopening the Pacific camps, smugglers have never been busier. Over 10,000 people have arrived so far this year by boat, half of them since July. Over 2,000 have landed since the Gillard announcement, enough to fill the tents waiting for them in Nauru and Papua New Guinea several times over.
There are an estimated 12,000 would-be refugees in Indonesia awaiting boats for the passage to Australia. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen admitted "there are challenges implementing this policy" - not least, making good on promises to Nauru and Papua New Guinea that the campers would eventually leave.
During Labour's time in office only 17 asylum seekers so far have been sent back to their homelands. Almost all those found not to be genuine refugees stay on while human rights lawyers appeal against the rulings. Another headache: Iran, a prime source of people arriving in boats, refuses to take back citizens who flee. Bowen said the resurrected Pacific Solution would be backed by a no-advantage rule that would entail those taken to Nauru and Papua New Guinea waiting there the same length of time as those queuing at the UN mission in Jakarta for resettlement in a rich country.
He said no-advantage meant their sojourn in the Pacific could be years. In the first incarnation of the Pacific Solution, more than half of those held in Pacific camps were eventually taken in by Australia or New Zealand. The deterrence the Howard government relied on was making Australia a less attractive destination than North America or Europe. Those accepted were given visas that entitled them to stay for three years at a stretch, leaving open the possibility they could be sent home if conditions there allowed.
A temporary protection visa (TPV) also denied the holder the right to send for family members for a reunion in Australia. Leave on a TPV and its provision meant there was no coming back. Labour scrapped TPVs and made life easier for arrivals waiting for one. The mandatory detention scheme was relaxed, allowing arrivals a stay in community accommodation rather than in onshore camps.
Labour claims that threatening years in Pacific camps is spurring on the smugglers. "I've been saying for about six months that people-smugglers are running a closing-down sale," Home Minister Jason Clare said. "They're telling people: Get on the boat before there's no more chance to come to Australia."
The arrival figures - boats are docking at the rate of one a day - show asylum seekers either content to wait in Pacific camps or convinced that Canberra will relent and allow them to queue-jump. Many must believe it is better to be in Australia's care than Indonesia's - especially when Canberra has promised that its Pacific camps will eventually be emptied.
The conservatives, if they win the parliamentary election next year, have promised to revert to Pacific Solution Mark I. The Australian Navy, which for the past five years has assisted asylum seekers in their voyage, would be ordered to turn boats back to Indonesia if it was deemed safe to do so. To really turn the screw, TPVs would be brought back and even successful asylum seekers once again would be left in limbo in their target country.