The latest monthly Nielsen survey of 1400 voters has Labor leading 57-43, up from 55-45 last time. The survey also finds 56 per cent of Coalition voters want Malcolm Turnbull to delay finalising negotiations on the emissions trading scheme until after Copenhagen, rather than pursue his current policy of proposing amendments beforehand (supported by 23 per cent). Labor is up two on the primary vote to 46 per cent; the Coalition is down three to 37 per cent; Kevin Rudd’s approval is up one to 71 per cent and his disapproval down two to 23 per cent; Turnbull’s approval is steady on 35 per cent and his disapproval down two to 53 per cent; and Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is unchanged at 69-23.
UPDATE: The Australian has also published a “special Newspoll survey” conducted over the weekend to ascertain views on the Liberal leadership, which also featured the usual questions on voting intention. These found Labor maintaining the 58-42 lead recorded the previous week, with both Labor (47 per cent) and the Coalition (36 per cent) up a point on the primary vote. The Liberal leadership figures directly contradict Friday’s Morgan poll: where Morgan had Joe Hockey leading Malcolm Turnbull 30 per cent to 21 per cent, Newspoll has Turnbull leading 32 per cent to 24 per cent (or 39 per cent to 31 per cent on a head-to-head basis). This seems outside the normal range of house effects and margin-of-error static, suggesting the events of last week might have produced a move to Turnbull (or away from Hockey).
The West Australian has also published two Westpoll surveys of 400 WA voters in recent days. One shows 46 per cent supporting delaying emissions trading scheme legislation until after Copenhagen, against 47 per cent opposed (63 per cent to 32 per cent among Coalition supporters). From the other, “62 per cent of people believed that changes brought in by Labor were a factor in the increase in boat people, with only 16 per cent believing they were either quite or very unlikely to have made a difference”. Curiously, “it was predominately people identifying themselves as traditional Labor voters who were most likely to believe it was the Government’s policy which had caused the spike in arrivals”.
UPDATE 2: Essential Research has Labor’s lead down from 60-40 to 58-42. It also has 58 per cent agreeing that “Turnbull has shown he hasn’t got the temperament, patience and judgement to be a leader of a major party” (a formulation I have my doubts about) against 42 per cent disagreeing, and sundry questions on annual leave.
Atmospheric dispersal of sulphur doesn’t do anything about ocean acidification.
So Psephos to be clear, the excision of christmas island etc from the Australian migration zone, is legal tomfoolery to enable us to avoid the Convention obligations to not expel proven to be genuine refugees. But if someone who is a refugee makes it to the migration zone, our obligation is to not expel them.
Boerwar – I’m all for finding areas for the islander people who will be searching for safer land when CC causes bigger problems for them.
They apparently are not terrorists so they could be processed on their own land before the time comes to move off it. Quick and safe.
Asylum seekers unfortunately need to be closely monitored and checked before acceptance. The waiting must be awful for them but the few who have made it in to our area are an asset.
What Psephos said and *adieu*
Psephos,
I always thought the processing of asylum seeker refugees was to establish their bona fides. Please provide evidence if this is not true.
Understand the lawyering up consideration, but given 90% end up being accepted as asylum seekers without the lawyers, how much more damage can they do?
[So Psephos to be clear, the excision of christmas island etc from the Australian migration zone, is legal tomfoolery to enable us to avoid the Convention obligations to not expel proven to be genuine refugees. But if someone who is a refugee makes it to the migration zone, our obligation is to not expel them.]
No, the excisions were to stop unlawful non-citizens “lawyering up” and launching endless litigation making it impossible to remove them regardless of any determination made about their status. Our right to remove any non-citizen from our territory is absolute and is not affected by the Convention, because we retain the right to say that a person is or is not a refugee.
[I always thought the processing of asylum seeker refugees was to establish their bona fides.]
I don’t think I’ve said anything to the contrary.
The lawyers damage things enormously because they slow down the whole process of getting to a final determination which is pschologically damaging
[Tonight: Tim Gartrell & Grahame Morris dissect the week in politics & look ahead to the weekend Lib meeting. Lateline, ABC1 1040pm.]
http://twitter.com/LeighSales
Why does Grahame Morris remind me so much of Godwin Gretsch?
The real problem with the Convention is that it’s obselete. It was written with the experience of the prewar Jewish refugees from Europe in mind. No-one in 1951 imagined a world with tens of millions of people trying to move from poor countries to rich countries, all claiming to be victims of persecution. There are probably 2 billion people who could make a reasonable claim that their government denies their human rights. We cannot have a situation where the rich world is obliged to accept any and all of these people who can make their way by whatever means to our borders.
Psephos,
Reasonable interpretation of 1449?
Psephos @ 1449
I am with you on this one in principle. It should be up to the receiving country to determine status. This should include the ability to check whether people are lying or not.
In practice, though, there are so many bastardized people around that there is potentially an endless stream of them, and, as a I understand it, most of the folk who are arriving fit the test as we apply it.
It seems to me that as a nation we are working off a mixture of fear and greed and that dealing with these issues on a boat by boat basis, replete with 10 year old girls pleading for a landing, is not the way to go. It is not strategic. It is not generous.
By any standard, we are incredibly wealthy, incredibly wasteful, and incredibly destructive of the environment. It would do us very little material or emotional harm, in fact the reverse, if we were less wealthy, less wasteful and less destructive. As I have pointed out before, the gains we make in this way we could make available to refugees and to those less fortunate in other countries.
But, as a nation we are bloated, fearful, greedy and selfish. We dive into the righteousness of prattling about a paltry boatload here and a boatload there. What a disgusting bunch we really are!
[Reasonable interpretation of 1449?]
I don’t see how. I said “you have to have a process for determining whose claims are genuine, and removing those whose claims are not genuine.”
And you didn’t answer the question I posed to you at 1449. How about doing so?
Psephos said at 1456
No, the excisions were to stop unlawful non-citizens “lawyering up” and launching endless litigation making it impossible to remove them regardless of any determination made about their status. Our right to remove any non-citizen from our territory is absolute and is not affected by the Convention, because we retain the right to say that a person is or is not a refugee.
I agree with you about the need to avoid lawyering up and that the Convention is seriously flawed. If Kevin could get some changes in it, that would be great.
But I don’t hold with your argument that we currently have no obligations under article 33, because we determine who is a refugee. Surely article 33 itself is the definition of the refugee, and there is no doubt some wriggle room in interpreting it, but only some.
[But, as a nation we are bloated, fearful, greedy and selfish. We dive into the righteousness of prattling about a paltry boatload here and a boatload there. What a disgusting bunch we really are!]
This is an argument for communism, and I’m afraid that argument ended about 30 years ago.
Psephos
I must be slow tonight… what is the connection?
[Why does Grahame Morris remind me so much of Godwin Gretsch?]
Similar affiliations, vp
Psephos says:
“Is it your view that we are obliged to accept the statement of any person who reaches our maritime border that they are a refugee or an asylum seeker?”
Growler says:
1. All asylum seekers are entitled to protection regardless of whether Australia is cross with the Sri Lankan government or not. Their claims need to be tested prior to any decision about their eligibility.
Questioned answered?
Its Time @ 1451
True.
[Surely article 33 itself is the definition of the refugee]
No, Article 1 defines a refugee as a person who: “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality.”
But the Convention nowhere asserts that a person claiming to a refugee must be admitted to any country, or that any country is obliged to accept such an assertion at face value. The Convention *assumes* that it will be self-evident who is a refugee, but in the current circumstances it is not at all self-evident.
[All asylum seekers are entitled to protection regardless of whether Australia is cross with the Sri Lankan government or not.]
Like Dr Good, you assume that everyone who claims to be a refugee is a refugee and must be admitted. There is no law or convention which says any such thing. If there is, quote it to me.
Psephos,
I’m disappointed you cherry picked my 1468 to conclude the opposite of what was said.
Hard to have a discussion, if you want to play word games.
The Sri Lankan Government, having won the war, appears to be intent on losing the peace with the way it is treating Tamils.
However, it should not be forgotten that the Tamil Tigers got up to some very, very nasty business themselves.
We owe it to decent refugees, and to ourselves, to make sure that we do not allow Tamil Tigers into Australia.
Insofar as a third party was involved in helping to perpetuate the long and bitter struggle between Tamils and the Sri Lankan government forces, one needs only to look a little way to the west of Sri Lanka. In terms of ease of resettlement, sympathy, so on and so forth, that would be the obvious place for Tamil refugees to head for.
Besides, as the Tamil Tigers demonstrated time and again with their gun running, it is only a very short boat ride away.
Boer War were you originally from South Africa?
Psephos at 1470
Let me be more precise
Surely article 33 (below) defines our obligations under that article.
If we expel someone we consider a refugee who we (ie Australia) consider would have his life or freedom threatened in those frontiers, then we have breached the convention.
Under article 33,
“1. No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any
manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom
would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership
of a particular social group or political opinion.”
Your complete statement at 1468 was:
“All asylum seekers are entitled to protection regardless of whether Australia is cross with the Sri Lankan government or not. Their claims need to be tested prior to any decision about their eligibility.”
These two sentences contradict each other. Which one represents your position? That all persons claiming to be refugees (the expression “asylum seeker” doesn’t appear in the Convention at all) must be admitted? Or that their claims must be tested prior to admission? You can’t hold both positions.
[The Sri Lankan Government, having won the war, appears to be intent on losing the peace with the way it is treating Tamils.]
Boerwar,
Like the rest of us: learning nothing from history.
Why should Australia have any part of the subject boatload of Sri Lankan refugees? They did not enter into Australia. Why are they any different to other refugees currently in Indonesia who would also like to obtain refuge in Australia.
If the subject Sri Lankans were intending to seek refuge in New Zealand, would we assist them in transiting Australia?
Johncanb:
* As I said to Dr Good, we can’t expel people who are not within our migration zone. We can only refuse them admittance, as is our sovereign right.
* We don’t in any case remove people we determine to be refugees. We remove people we determine *not* to be refugees
Psephos,
I thought the whole idea of “processing” the asylum seekers was to establish the veracity of their claims to be “asylum seekers”. If they are not, they are sent home.
GG
Nope.
Had some great moments demonstrating against the Boks et cetera, et cetera back in the good old days. Might even have gained the badge of honour which was the police file…
Not sure why or if you are taking umbrage. Is it the suggestion that the Sri Lankan tamils would find it more comfortable to settle in Tamil Nadu which has a shared culture and which is a short boat ride from Sri Lanka, while Australia is 5000 or so miles away? Seems a reasonable thought to me.
Apart from that, in a general sense, I am all for reducing our general standards of living so that we are living in an environmentally sustainable way and for taking in many more refugees at the same time, not that I agree with Psephos that this is an argument for, god forbid, communism.
I am not for letting in everyone who puts their hand up just because they have put their hands up. The reason is that there are some very peculiar nasty murderous bastards out there and we might be saving ourselves a bit of bother by not letting them in at all.
GG, I agree with your 1480. But taking that view must entail retracting your earlier statement that “All asylum seekers are entitled to protection.” If by “asylum seekers” we mean: “Persons asserting that they have a right to enter Australia by virtue of being refugees within the meaning of the 1951 Convention”, then clearly all such persons are not “entitled” to anything vis a vis Australia. They only acquire an entitlement, to be classed as a refugee and treated accordingly, if we choose to give them one.
I’m going to keep saying this: Tamils – Sri Lanka – Tamil Nadu?
vp
? sorry, might have missed an earlier post. What is your point.
Psephos at 1479. I’m glad you say
‘We don’t in any case remove people we determine to be refugees. We remove people we determine *not* to be refugees’.
That is indeed Government policy.
But you seem reluctant to admit that this policy might in some way be connected to our obligations under the convention. Or have I misunderstood you
*Hypnos calls*
johncanb, if you actually read the Convention, you will see that nearly all of it deals with the rights and obligations of people who are (a) classed as refugees and (b) already resident in a country which is not their home country. Therefore nearly all of it is irrelevant to this discussion, which deals with people whose status is indeterminate and who are not resident in Australia. To repeat, there is *absolutely nothing* in the Convention that creates an obligation on any country to admit any person to its territory, nor that creates an obligation on anyone to accept an assertion by any person that they are a refugee. If I am wrong, please quote the section of the Convention that proves me wrong.
Boerwar,
Interesting perspective and the question was driven by your monniker.
1. There are clearly push issues associated with the spate of boats arriving of late.
2. I actually agree with Psephos that the current drama boats from Sri Lanka could be a set up (But we don’t know for sure).
3. people come to Australia for lots of reasons. Australia is a country of immigrants and as others have said, it makes us strong.
4. Not convinced that 2000 asylum seekers will destroy the fabric of our society.
VP, Tamil Nadu has 66 million people and is poor and crowded. They also speak a different dialect of Tamil to the Sri Lankan Tamils. They don’t regard them as being “people like them” and they’re not very welcoming of the 70,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees already present. They certainly won’t accept all 1.8 million of them. Tamils have lived in Sri Lanka for 2000 years and most of them have no connection with India.
Pseph-lord, I’m enjoying your work tonight.
Boerwar – I know there are obvious risks in quoting wikipeadia, but here are a few choice quotes on the nasty behaviour of Tamil Tigers (with some opportunistic editing from your’s truly) to support your #1473
“The Tigers, who during the height of their power possessed a well-developed militia cadre, were notorious for recruiting child soldiers, for carrying out civilian massacres, suicide bombings and …They invented the suicide belt and pioneered the use of suicide bombing as a tactic….They also pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks”
Psephos,
People making a claim of asylum are entitled to protection. It is up to the process to establish if they are eligible.
Seems to be a hang up about the word protection.
Don’t pretend to be legally linguistic.
[I actually agree with Psephos that the current drama boats from Sri Lanka could be a set up]
I never suggested that.
[Not convinced that 2000 asylum seekers will destroy the fabric of our society.]
This is a straw man, as you well know. This issue is our sovereign right to control our own borders, not whether accepting this or that lot of immigrants will destroy our society.
There’s also the issue of whether it’s humane to create an expectation that people who risk their lives boating to Australia will be admitted. When 500 Sri Lankans drown in the Indian Ocean or are killed by pirates in the Malacca Straits, whose fault will that be?
Squiggle,
Is that a dog whistle to demonise the Tamils.
Why not yhrow in that Murali is a chucker. That will have the best effect.
Psephos at 1487.
The discussion is not about whether there is an obligation under the convention to admit, or that there is an obligation to accept assertions. The question is does the convention oblige us to not return people (after they have arrived) if we consider they are refugees.
Under article 33,
“1. No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any
manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom
would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership
of a particular social group or political opinion.”
[Don’t pretend to be legally linguistic.]
Excuse me for trying to clarify what these words actually mean and thus enable this discussion to proceed logically. Why don’t you answer the substance of my points?
johncanb, I have dealt with article 33 twice already. Scroll up and read.
Psephos,
Apologies if I misinterpreted what you wrote yesterday about the current boat of Tamils. But, I got the impression you were implying they were destination shopping.
Agree that I have broadened the discussion.
The reality is that I’m much more sanguine about the threat from the north than others. Australia has been here for an awful long time and there is hardly a realistic threat of invasion. Furthermore, what would we do to stop anyone coming if they wanted to.
The whole asylum seeker boat people drama is a sideshow.
I understand that 4 out of 5 Australians do not agree.
Psephos at 1496
I don’t think you have dealt with it.
Is it so hard to say that we do have obligations under article 33 to not return people we determine to be refugees?
I agree that the behaviour of the Tamil Tigers is not relevant to this discussion. The TTs never deployed terrorist tactics against Western countries, only against Sri Lankan Sinhalas and (for a while) against India, which had troops in Sri Lanka. I don’t believe Tamils are a security risk per se.
pegasus
[Psephos doesn’t pussyfoot around when putting forward an analysis in support of Rudd’s hard line stance. He frames the issue around the best political strategy that Labor has to undertake in order to ensure Labor’s re-election. Refreshingly honest.]
And I think this is the problem we’ve been having with this conversation. You assume I’m talking like a ‘hack’ and that I should be justifying the ALP stance on this. I’m not doing either – I am being as refreshingly honest as psephos, but I am putting forward my own view on the topic.
And that means I don’t give a flying rat’s why Kevin told the Indonesians to retain the latest boat, because that has nothing to do with formulating my point of view.
I really thought I was being crystal clear about this, but it is possible that I am less opaque than I intended.
And I don’t see that I’m personalising this any more than you are. I have presented arguments (of the Socratic type) where I raised questions for you to work through to see if you arrived at the same conclusion. Obviously you haven’t bothered considering them, so I’ll have to cheat and give you the answers.
It isn’t morally right – it may be legally so, an entirely different argument – to encourage people to embark on voyages when you know that a certain percentage of them will die. It is morally right to take any action you can to stop them doing this.
However, in stopping them doing this, one creates other dilenmas, because that deprives these people of the opportunity to seek refugee status.
So the legal situation creates a moral dilenma.
And that’s as far as I go, because once I get those contradictions going, I find it difficult to resolve them.
I can only suggest we need to tackle this mismatch between the legal and moral. This would certainly require an international agreement that the rules are broken and need to be fixed. Once we get into the realms of international agreements, I am totally out of my league (if I was ever really in one) and have to admit myself clueless.