It is now four decades since the first boat vessels carrying asylum seekers from Indochinese docked on the shores of Australia. Since then the concerns and the perceptions of the public over the maritime arrivals of unauthorized asylum seekers has continued to influence government policy strongly. The statistics have it that the numbers of the asylums have fluctuated a great deal over the years. Surprisingly this changed between the years 2008 to 2013 when there was a considerable rise in unauthorized asylum seekers arrivals. It placed pressure on both the Liberal Governments and the Labor Party to begin adopting and remaining stern on measures to solve the border security concerns. The measures adopted were aimed towards stopping the asylum seekers boats and combat smuggling of people. Both the Coalition government and the Labor government collaborated in many circumstances to the issue of the asylum seekers.

Despite the bipartisan support of given current deterrence measures of the Government differences also existed on the Asylum seekers issue between the two parties but not so much. It is evident that they shared some deterrent measures of curbing asylum seekers like offshore processing. The differences later arose between the two parties majorly due to the complexity of the issue. Therefore a team of the expert panel was created in 2012 to investigate and give advice to the Australian government on the best means to handle the issue of the arrival of the asylum by boat. The expert panel found the issue so complicated that there were no quick and straightforward solutions. The panel gave short term and long term recommendations to be tried in mitigating the problem. The long term deterrence proposal was bringing back of the regime of the offshore processing. Whereas, the long term approaches were to establish better migration paths and protection of the refugees using the coordinated framework of regional cooperation. Apparently, up to date some of the long term recommendations proposals have not been effected by either of the two parties. This has led to continuous debates of whom good and bad refugees are. The paper provides a detailed assessment of the claim that there is a distinct difference between the Australian Labor and Liberal governments on Asylum Seeker and refugee policies.

The Labor and Liberal governments disagree on a given small number of issues. Some of which include whether asylum seekers should be granted temporary or permanent protection and the formal yearly number of refugees’ intake by Australia. The disagreements contributed to differences in the refugees and asylum seekers policies. The key policies of the Labor party on the asylum seekers and refugees are as follows. They advocated for increased annual intake of humanitarian refugees to a tune of 27,000 by 2025 to address the worldwide humanitarian crisis. This was double the refugee’s intake of the government which was 13750. They also advocated for in their policy the provision of 450 million dollars in funding for three years to support the UNHCR significant program globally and in Pacific and South East Asia  (McAdam, 2013). The party was to eliminate temporary Protection of visas (TPVs), as the policy kept the refugees in somehow state of permanent limbo. Labor committed to quick processing of peoples documents and make those cleared to be genuine refugees on protection visas which are permanent. The party assured reintroduction of the rule of 90 days into Australian’s Migration Act. The rule would ensure accountability in making sure that the government processes the protection applications within the recommended period.

The other policies of refugees and asylum that the labor government advocated for is the appointment of an independent advocate to represent children’s interest of those that were seeking asylum. The advocate was to ensure the mandatory support of the children whose rights were abused (Devetak, 2004). The party will ensure that the children are out of detention as fast as possible. The party also called for the reinstatement of the access to the Review tribunal of the refugees and removal of IAA brought into action by Abbot Government. Labor would remain firm to ensure that offshore processing policy is maintained through the establishment of independent oversight of the processing facilities funded by the Australian government.

On the contrary, the central refugees and asylum policies that the Liberal party assumed after the 2013 elections are as follows. The coalition government called for the restoration of the Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) to ensure that no visas are issued on permanent protection basis to any unauthorized maritime visitor arrival (McKenzie & Hasmath, 2013).  Therefore, they were to wait for the processing of their application to be an asylum in Australia on a temporary basis; this shows a distinct policy difference between the two major parties. The government also ordered that those who are thought of to have deliberately destroyed or discarded their identity documents with an aim to disguise the immigration department were to be denied their refugee status. Liberal government advocated for the establishment of stiff sovereign borders operation which was to merge fifteen agencies and departments under one military-headed operational command. The government organized such a strong body to ensure unity and unidirectional control to manage the influx of the asylum seekers.

The Liberal government also legalized the “turn back boats “rule.  The border protection officers were instructed by the government to turn back the boats shipping the refugees to Australia back to their destinations if it was safe to do so. The government withdrew the taxpayer money that was used to assist the immigrants in the processing of the asylum claims for those who arrived in Australia without a visa. The introduction of the funds was fought for by the Application Assistant Scheme; thus its tripping means that the refugees could find the processing of the Visa very hectic hence barring them from traveling. With the same idea of limiting the surge of the immigrants in the country, the government expanded the capacity of the offshore processing in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The liberal government formulated a policy that established a new quicker assessment and removal process. The objective of the policy was to make sure that the assessment of the protection claims is fast-tracked to shed light on immigration status within a short time. It helped to ease the decision of the government on the refugees.  The above refugees and asylum seekers policies from the two major parties in Australia shows distinct differences between them over refugee and asylum seeker accommodation. Despite the bilateral sharing of some deterrence policies, the Labor party is fighting much to ensure that the refugees settle in Australia while the coalition government majorly formulates policies to thwart it.

In 2001 Howard Government introduced offshore processing in the third country under the migration amendment to prevent illegal and unauthorized non-citizen from arriving in the shores of Australia. Both the two major parties were in support of the regime of excision. The maritime arrivals were stopped from processing visa applications unless authorized by the minister of immigration due to the public interest. The boats that were not authorized were met at sea and turned to Indonesia or directed to third countries like Nauru or Manus in Papua New Guinea in the Pacific (Lincoln, R. and Robinson, S. eds., 2010).  The claims made by these people were processed outside Australia. The whole process was branded “Pacific Solution.” However in 2002, Labor saw that the refugee processing at Nauru and Manus was costly therefore noting unsustainability of the Pacific solution, thus ended it in 2007. When Rudd’s Government took power in 2007, they declared that Nauru and Manus centers would never be used.  All the processing of unauthorized boats was to be done in Australia. Due to the increased number of boat arrivals in 2010, the statement was reversed by the Labor government. The then-new sworn in Prime Minister Gillard held discussions with Malaysia and PNG. The two governments accepted the terms thus the processing zones of the illegal arrivals were shifted in the two countries in 2011. Malaysia not being compatible with the refugee rules Gillard announced the official asylum refugee’s offshore processing zone to be in Nauru and Manus in 2012.

In 2013 Kevin Rudd was re-elected to as the Prime Minister, at this time he brought up changes with very tough rules of the policies of asylum seekers in Australia. These included sending offshore of all the asylum seekers with no valid visas for processing. Those found to be refugees were not to be accommodated in Australia but sent back to their homes or held indefinitely in the transit vessel. Those found to be smuggling people to the country were to be arrested and convicted. Under the coalition’s policy, all the asylum seekers who sailed to Australia were sent to PNG and resettled there. In 2015 the Labor government disagreed with the offshore processing policy and called for its abolition (Hyndman & Mountz, 2008). They were supported by the Minister of immigration Richard Miles who criticized the policy due to the processing delays. Miles advocated for the third country to help settle the refugees and called for Australia to reframe the asylum seekers and refugee rule to resolve the surge problem in Nauru and Manus. In 2016 after the UN summit for refugees the Australian Prime Minister Mr. Turnbull gave a briefing that they have reached an agreement with the USA to be the third country to resettle refugees.

In September 2016, the US administration under Barack Obama agreed to resettle a total number of 110,000 refugees from Manus and Nauru in the 2017 Fiscal year.  He announced this at the leaders’ Summit of Refugees hosted by himself as the President at New York. The architect of the activity was Anne Richard who was the assistant secretary in charge of population, refugees, and immigration by then (Dehm, S. and Walden, M., 2018). The United States was willing to take hundreds of refugees under the Australian protection in the condition that Australia was to take more refugees from the facility. Unfortunately, Barack left office before he could honor the promise. The process of settling the offshore detained refugees is underway as there are still discussions between Trump’s administration and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull. US will determine the number of Refugees to resettle from Nauru and Manus depending on the eligible applicants that will be cleared by the US vetting team.

The government of New Zealand has made several attempts to offer resettlement through both the Nauru government and Australian government, but there request have always been turned down. The PM of New Zealand  Jacinda Ardern gave an offer of the relocation of 150 people a year from Manus and Nauru but was dismissed by Tony Abbot the then Prime Minister. They again called for the resettlement of the asylum seekers from Australia under the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull who again turned down. The Prime Minister of Australia claimed that it would create excitement by refugees to board the boats. The Labor government tried to push for the relocation of even the children to New Zealand, but it failed (Price, 1981). The Labor also called for limiting the unique trans-Tasman arrangement to make the refugees get their rights, but the government maintained their take. The resentment of the Prime Minister to accept the resettlement offer of New Zealand was pegged on the unique Trans-Tasman travel arrangement. The trans-Tasman travel arrangement would allow free movement of refugees from New Zealand to Australia without any restriction. The travel arrangement was effected between the two states in 1973, and it allows citizens of the two states to move to reside and work in either country. Therefore, the Australian government would not give them the priority of resettlement however willing they were. The other issue that limits the resettlement deal is the maintenance of the two country’s diplomatic relationship. The Liberal governments also declined New Zealand’s offer to change the trans-Tasman travel arrangement between the two countries. They claimed that due to the relationship between the two countries and the different unique factors they share the refugees might find it easy to get to Australia.

The medical bill that was taken to the parliament to ensure the sick refugees would be treated in a better way by transferring them from Manus and Nauru to Australia was dropped. The proposed medical bill was a faster and a fairer means of transferring the families of the refugees for medical attention in Australia. According to the government, the bill would weaken the offshore regime of processing, endanger the security of the nation and restart the boats. The bill stated that if two doctors recommend that the refugee in Manu or Nauru needs to be transferred to Australia, then it should be done (Sanggaran, Ferguson & Haire, 2014). The immigration minister was given the power to turn down the transfer if the person was a threat to the countries security. The minister was added more power and actions checked by an independent panel.  Currently, the transfers have been made more robust with checks from the border force of Australia, the courts and the governments of PNG and Nauru. Due to the large number, the convincing technique and filibuster of Senator Bernardi the bill was not passed till 5 pm thus by law was dropped. It has made the innocent ill families of the refugees and asylum suffer in the detention Manus and Nauru.

Strong bilateral relationships exist between Australia, USA, Indonesia, and New Zealand. Australia and the USA seem to be likeminded at both global and regional levels. The counterpart ministries visit each other as they share mostly issues to do with immigration, defense and security, and trade. The two national leaders have also met and discussed the great asylum seekers problem in Australia and US have agreed to settle refugees held in Nauru and Manus. Australia and Indonesia enjoy strong cooperation ranging from political, security, economic, education, and extensive citizens ties. The bilateral cooperation is underpinned on frequent high-level visits including the Foreign and defense ministers meeting (2+2). The two countries signed a strategic security cooperation treaty known as Lombok Treaty; they cooperate in maritime protection and also work together in combating smuggling of people. The two countries cooperate on a broad spectrum of asylum policies management (Dupont, 1996).  Australia has highly funded Indonesia’s regime of immigration detention which has helped in the operation of 13 centers for refugees in the archipelago. The bilateral relationship has also made Australia support the intelligence training in Indonesia to stop anti-people smuggling.  The bilateral diplomatic relationship between Australia and New Zealand has always remained strong. New Zealand government has opted to cooperate with Australia to help them resettle 150 refugees from Manus and Nauru. The PM of New Zealand has left the offer of the resettlement on the table and is upon the Australian government to take the offer. This shows the high level of bilateral relationship in addition to the economic, political and security partnerships.

The Liberal party has a more firm approach to the refugees than the Labor party which is notable from the stern actions it takes in mainstreaming the refugee influx. It has since it assumed the country’s leadership remained very firm on its policies about the refugees and the asylum  (Gibney, 2008). More specifically, the party has strongly retained their stand on the boat turn back policy where it was safe for the border commanders to do so. Also, the offshore processing and the temporary protection visas policies have been given significant attention. The firm approach to the handling of the refugees and asylum has seen the reservation of additional power to the immigration minister. The minister has been vested the power to cancel any visa and movement of the refugees in Australia in case he detects the country’s security is threatened.

Liberal government has remained steadfast on the refugees, with the aim of maintaining the security of the country from the notion of the bad refugees who might be a threat to the state.  The hard push on the refugees and the asylum has been counteracted severally by the Labor party to reduce the pressure. The Labor party has since advocated for acceptance of the refugees in Australia to reduce the bulk of refugees piling up in Nauru and PNG. On the contrary, the Liberal party has continued toughening the policies and instead of looking for new avenues to relive the bulk and not to accept more refugees in the country. In conclusion, the firm approach that the Liberal party has put on the asylum seekers and refugees policies brings out the distinct differences in the two major party’s views on the refugees. Therefore, a comprehensive approach is needed to make the two parties work together in the light of assisting the vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers in Manus and Nauru.

 
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