Asylum seekers: Problem solved; or just moved to Indonesia?

Tony Abbott has correctly pointed out that under his new government the reduction in the number of asylum seekers taking the dangerous journey between Indonesia and Christmas Island has dropped by “almost 90%.” Already over 600 people, seeking asylum in Australia, have been stopped by Indonesian authorities giving the PM plenty of scope to claim a major coupe in his goal of ‘stopping the boats’.

So has the problem been solved? Or have we simply ‘pushed back’ the problem to Indonesia?

Before we address this question it is worth looking at why there has been such a significant reduction in the number of boat arrivals over the past month:

Firstly, some credit must go to Kevin Rudd and his Manus and Nauru solution. Manus Island in particular has produced the desired result of providing a significant disincentive for asylum seekers wanting a new life in Australia.

Secondly, Tony Abbott’s rhetoric in opposition certainly frightened the people smugglers once the Coalition was elected. Abbott’s threat to ‘take the sugar off the table’ has caused many asylum seekers to re-think their plans to travel on old boats to Australia.

Thirdly, the PM’s recent visit to Indonesia and meeting with President Yudhoyono was  successful, culminating with Mr Abbott’s mea-culpa in admitting that Australia’s handling of the people smuggling issue, including buying Indonesian fishing boats and paying-off village wardens to dob-in smugglers, was probably not very clever. It also did represent a potential breach of Indonesian sovereignty as claimed by Indonesia’s foreign minister Dr Natalegawa, but more importantly it represented excellent ‘ammunition’ for opposition parties in Indonesia in which to attack the Yudhoyono government for kow-towing to the big neighbour to the south.

The re-building of relationships with Indonesia has also opened the door for the Indonesian National Police and the Australian Federal Police to work together to stop the boats. There should be no doubt that with politics out of the limelight these two organisations can achieve a great deal. They eliminated one of the region’s most feared terrorist groups, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) who was responsible for the Bali bombings, and numerous other terror cells in Indonesia.

If these two police forces can remove a terror group such as JI, we should expect that there is much they can do to stop the people smuggling industry in Java; and we are now starting to see the results of the co-operation and goodwill that has been developed over ten years.

Indonesia has also helped by cancelling the option for Iranian nationals to obtain a ‘visa-on-arrival’ at Indonesian airports. This was being used by many Iranians to transit through Indonesia with ease on their way to Australia as ‘economic migrants’.

The drop in boat arrivals has achieved another major objective of the Abbott Government: To take the asylum seeker issue out of the headlines. And if the recent coverage by our media outlets is any indication, the objective is working. Australians are tired of the issue and just want it solved. But has it actually been ‘solved’, or just pushed back to Indonesia, thanks to President Yudhoyono’s co-operation and goodwill?

There is no doubt if Australia stops the boats coming to our country, then in the longer term Jakarta will also benefit as people will stop coming to Indonesia. Asylum seekers are in Indonesia for only one reason: as a transit point to Australia.

Whilst Indonesia is now being far more co-operative and supportive of Mr Abbott’s hard line policy, there are however, a number of senior officials in Jakarta who feel that Australia’s prime minister gained enormous political capital at the expense of President Yudhoyono’s standing within Indonesian domestic politics. They also believe this will result in Australians  seeing the asylum seeker ‘problem’ as being now solved, rather than just being placed back with Indonesia to deal with.

The challenge for Indonesia in the short to medium term therefore, is to know what to do with the thousands of displaced people who are now ‘stuck’ with simply nowhere to go. This will become a major problem for Indonesia very quickly and Australia needs to be assisting our neighbour to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to resolving the broader regional asylum seeker issue.

One effective way to do this would be to increase our intake of genuine refugees from the current level of 20,000 per year to say, 35,000. We could easily accommodate this increase, particularly as we immigration as Australia’s baby-boomers age.

The additional intake could come from the people currently in Indonesia or Malaysia, and providing people were genuine refugees there is no reason why the process could not be fast-tracked, giving a major incentive to asylum seekers to use the formal (legal) channel for their desired journey to Australia.

Such action would significantly reduce the pressure on Indonesia and would be a politically smart move by Australia, given that within 12 months Indonesia will have a new government with a new president who will, most likely, be far more nationalistic and less warming to the idea of helping solve what most Indonesians see as an Australian-made problem.

The sooner we act to support Indonesia by helping genuine refugees the greater the chance of Mr Abbott’s ‘stop-the-boats’ policy being embraced by the incoming president in 2014.

Ross Taylor AM is the chairman of the WA-based Indonesia Institute (Inc).

October 2013