FACT 1  ‘Stopping the boats’ has never saved lives In the past, for people desperate to escape persecution and start a new life, people smugglers invariably provided their only escape route.

   Any person who had arrived by boat since 2013 is now prevented from ever gaining resettlement in Australia and has been detained in indefinite offshore detention in Papua New Guinea or on Nauru, after the Australian Government did deals with the governments of both countries. These asylum seekers have committed no crime nor have they been sentenced in any court of law. They are being held indefinitely against their will, even though most of them have been found to be genuine refugees.

    It is a fundamental principle of human rights law that people cannot be punished for the reason of deterring others, but that is exactly what Australia is doing. Not only is it inhumane and hugely expensive, offshore detention serves absolutely no purpose. Asylum seeker numbers follow regional and global trends. Nothing will stop people in fear for their lives attempting to leave their homelands by any means available.

 

FACT 2  Boat arrivals are genuine asylum seekers Government statistics prove that asylum seekers who have risked their lives on a perilous boat journey are very likely to have genuine claims for protection. While around 45% of plane arrivals have been found to be refugees, the proportion for boat arrivals has been consistently above 90%.

 

FACT 3  Boat arrivals have never presented a security risk A terrorist threatening national security is more likely to have travelled by plane with a valid visa or false documentation than by leaky boat. It is improbable they would have chosen such a dangerous and difficult way to enter Australia, given that asylum seekers who arrive by boat without valid travel documents have always undergone far more rigorous security and identity checks than other entrants to Australia. There is no evidence that any boat arrival to Australia has ever been found to be a terrorist.

 

FACT 4  Boat people are neither ‘illegal’ or ‘queue jumpers’ The people who have arrived on our shores in the past to seek protection, without authorization and with no documents, or with false documents, are not ‘illegal’. They are asylum seekers – a perfectly legitimate status under International Law. Many are forced to leave their countries in haste and are unable to access appropriate documentation. In many cases oppressive authorities actively prevent normal migration processes. Additionally, asylum seekers who have documents may be forced by people smugglers to destroy them to ensure that no incriminating paper trail remains.

    There is no ‘queue’ in any meaningful sense of the word. The UN resettlement system works more like a lottery than a queue. Only a tiny proportion are registered with the UN and only a small number of those are eventually resettled. Given the number of displaced people globally, waiting in the imaginary queue would entail a wait time of more than 100 years!

 

FACT 5  Offshore detention is cruel and completely unnecessary Australia does not need harsh policies to secure its borders. No country in the world has greater control over its borders than Australia. While most countries share at least one border with another country and usually more, Australia is an island continent with vast surrounding seas. This natural barrier has always made irregular migration extremely difficult.

    The US and the European Union are estimated to have millions of unauthorized immigrants living within their borders. In comparison, Australia has very few people living unlawfully in the country at any one time, mostly tourists and temporary migrants who have overstayed their visas. Australia stands alone as a developed nation which imposes offshore detention on all boat arrivals and is roundly criticised internationally for this blatant breach of the UN Refugee Convention.