In a functioning democracy, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison would resign over the Manus Island riot. This is a low point in a decade-long campaign of dehumanisation, writes Ben Eltham
It’s always depressing to say, “I told you so”. Not every prediction is accurate, and even an accurate warning can sometimes be ignored for the best of reasons. But when things go wrong it is necessary to ask why, and to remind ourselves that it didn’t have to be this way.
That’s the situation Australia finds itself in this morning, as we wake up to the brutal reality of our immigration policies.
After two consecutive nights of rioting in and around the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea, one man is dead, 77 are injured, and Australia’s policy of sending innocent people seeking asylum to concentration camps in neighbouring countries is in tatters. NM editor Marni Cordell is
covering the story as it unfolds.When local Manus Islanders are sufficiently angry about the concentration camp in the middle of their home island to go on a violent rampage – breaking into the camp and attacking the inmates, reportedly aided by police – it’s plain that the future of the Manus Island centre is untenable.
When asylum seekers waiting to be processed can actually be killed, it’s plain that Australia has failed in its most basic obligations to care for those under our charge. And the government continues to hide behind a cloak of “operational security”.
It’s possible to construct a kind of utilitarian calculus to defend such a policy: one that argues that even a death and many injuries in such a scenario can be balanced by the many lives of those who no longer travel to Australia in leaky boats, lives saved by tougher deterrence.
That, roughly, is one half of the argument the government mounts on border protection – the other half being that border protection is something the Australian nation has a sovereign right to decide.
But the sad truth is such utilitarian equations can’t really be calculated with precision. We just don’t have the information. Owing to the veil of silence that has descended on border security policy, we don’t actually know how many boats have been turned back. We don’t know how many boats have sunk, undetected. We don’t know whether the monsoon is providing the real deterrent. All we know is that no boats have recently “arrived” – in other words, evaded the Navy and Customs.
Anyone arguing that tougher measures are saving lives is simply guessing. There is no data to support the claim. The data the government is releasing is incomplete and unreliable.
On the other hand, we know an awful lot about conditions on Manus Island. We know, though a
Freedom of Information request by Guardian Australia, that there were 110 “incidents” on Manus in just four months last year.
We know that detention imposes crippling mental health impacts on those locked up in limbo. We know that the jail on Manus is manifestly inadequate, with substandard accommodation, sanitation and water supplies.
We know that the Australian government has set lower standards for Manus than for
detention centres on Australian soil. We know that the firm contracted to manage and run the centre, G4S, has a notorious record for lax safety regimes and
rampant profiteering.
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