Paul Syvret From:
The Courier-Mail March 19, 2013

TONY Abbott’s Liberal Party is attempting to lie its way into government, nothing more nothing less.

They are lying to you about the state of the economy when they talk about restoring growth (we haven’t lost it thank you very much), restoring jobs (unemployment is at a historically low 5.4 per cent, against an average of about 6 per cent during the Howard years), and a “debt burden” that is the envy of the rest of the world and low enough to mean we are one of only seven nations to have a AAA credit rating.

They are lying about the impact of putting a price on carbon (Whyalla is still standing, lamb roasts are not $100, investment is still booming and Abbott, as it was with a certain set of accounts from BHP, can’t read an electricity bill apparently). And on this front, they and other climate change deniers are lying to you about Australia “going it alone” in terms of the global push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The party that is led by a man who has confessed on national television to having problems with the “gospel truth” is also lying through its back teeth about immigration and asylum seekers. Not that this should come as anything of a surprise from the mob that brought you TV ads with great red “invasion” arrows during the last campaign.

One of the latest grubby ploys has been a series of (unbranded) leaflets in strategic seats in NSW and Victoria spreading fear and division about the alleged cost of “Labor’s illegal boat arrivals”.

Forget even some of the very rubbery numbers used to get a big scary $6.8 billion headline (or $12.8 million a boat). Just consider the use of the word “illegal” three times on just one side of the pamphlet, authorised by Liberal Party directors Mark Neeham and Damien Mantach in NSW and Victoria respectively.

That is three barefaced lies before you even get to the alleged substance of the hate mail.

Quite simply, it is not illegal to seek asylum. Got that? Not illegal.

Under Australian and international law, a person is entitled to seek asylum in another country when they allege they are escaping persecution elsewhere.

“Everyone”, says Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

People who arrive on our shores with no documents, or even false papers, have the legal status of asylum seekers under said international law. They are human beings, not “illegals”, no matter how many times those who seek to exploit their plight for their own venal ends try to tell you otherwise.

The lie was repeated again yesterday by the Opposition’s Scott Morrison – a man who has constantly amazed with the hitherto undiscovered depths he has been able to plumb in this debate.

Morrison is the proud Christian (Pentecostal division) who wanted to deny relatives of asylum seekers who drowned in the Christmas Island boat tragedy in 2011 the chance to fly to Sydney to attend relatives’ funerals.

This is the same Morrison who has tried to whip up a campaign against the threat of Muslim immigration, who has warned of guns and communicable diseases.

It is the same merchant of lowest-common-denominator xenophobia and fear who more recently called for mandatory notification of asylum seekers to local police and residents in the areas where they are housed.

This followed the charging of a Sri Lankan asylum seeker with indecent assault – ignoring the fact that, statistically speaking, asylum seekers are 45 times less likely to be charged with an offence than other residents.

Even his own side of politics could barely disguise their disgust, with Victorian Liberal backbencher Russell Broadbent arguing that there should “never be special categories of laws for different categories of people”, and describing Morrison’s proposal as “vilification”.

Yesterday, though, he was in the press vowing to deny asylum seekers access to an independent review tribunal should they receive a negative assessment.

“These latest figures have confirmed,” he thundered, “that under Labor’s appeals process a ‘no’ almost always turns into a ‘yes’ and the prize of permanent residence for people who arrive illegally by boat.”

Perhaps this is the latest lap in the race to the bottom on this issue being staged by both sides of the politics following the Gillard Government’s disgraceful dog whistling over 457 visas (actually, shouting “dirty job-stealing foreigners” from the rooftops is hardly dog whistling, but you know what I mean).

Regardless, though, it is another attempt – dripping with mendacious politics – to rob our society’s most vulnerable and dispossessed of one of the few legal rights they have left (and as such would likely be challenged in the High Court).

Like all the cynical posturing from both sides, it is shameful, and I would like to think Australians are smart enough to see through the lies, and compassionate enough to condemn those who peddle the poison.

Email Paul Syvret

paul.syvret@news.com.au

Marilyn Shepherd Posted at 4:06 PM March 19, 2013

It is not illegal to enter Australia or any country to seek asylum, why is it that ARticle 31 is trotted out as an excuse to torture innocent people and call them vile names when it says the opposite? There is no offence in Australian law in entering or staying without a visa, not one person has ever been charged with illegal entry? I wonder what motivates such hatred for people who have largely fled wars? What was not reported either in the Australia or by Morrison is that hardly any asylum seekers have to make appeals because 87% of Afghans, 84% of Iranians, 83% of Pakistani hazara, 80% of Iraqis are accepted just by DIAC. Which means a tiny number of people are denied but on a review of merits 90% of the 13% of failed Afghans are accepted, 75% of the Iranians, 62% of the Iraqis and 88% of the Pakistanis making acceptance rates without ever seeing inside a court almost 100% for most. The only difference is Sri Lanka – but almost 100% of tamils are accepted while almost 100% of sinhala are denied. The facts tell the story. It was also the liberal party who helped to write the refugee convention.