[Kabar-indonesia] 6 Asylum Bill Reports: Failure Not to Hit Jakarta Ties: Canberra [+Wainggai]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

6 reports: 

- SMH: Howard faces humiliating defeat on asylum 
  legislation

- Asylum law failure not to hit Jakarta ties - Australia

- The Australian: PM faces defeat on asylum bill

- The Age: Why I will not go Howard's way on illegals
  [By Steve Fielding]

- The Age: Asylum-seeker No. 43 has a new start
  [David Wainggai, the best known of the 43 Papuans, 
  whose arrival led to all unauthorised arrivals to be 
  processed on Nauru.]

- The Australian Opinion: Dissenters, support this 
  legislation [The Coalition rebels should not, in good 
  conscience, destablise the fragile Indonesian state]

Sydney Morning Herald
Monday, August 14, 2006

Howard faces humiliating defeat on asylum legislation

Mark Metherell and Mark Forbes

THE Federal Government's legislation to exile asylum seekers to offshore 
islands is facing defeat at the hands of two wavering government MPs after the 
surprise declaration against it by the Family First senator, Steve Fielding.

With government insiders now expecting the vote to be lost tomorrow, it would 
be one of John Howard's heaviest defeats in his 10 years as Prime Minister.

Another single vote against, or two abstentions, would kill the legislation, 
and the two most likely opponents were refusing to reveal their intentions 
yesterday.

Barnaby Joyce, the maverick National Party senator, said he would wait to 
"see how the debate goes".

In an ABC interview, Senator Joyce said of one commentator who bet that he 
would support the Prime Minister that "he might have just changed my opinion".

The Liberal senator Judith Troeth, who has signalled she will not support the 
legislation, is believed to be still deciding whether to vote against it or 
abstain.

Asked yesterday about her intentions, Senator Troeth would say only: "People 
will make a decision according to their best judgement."

Mr Howard yesterday urged the two to take into account that the legislation 
was backed by "a strongly held majority view" in the Coalition.

He appeared to rule out further concessions on the legislation, saying that 
he had not received any propositions "of any consequence".

The vote comes as the millionaire businessman Ian Melrose mounts a big media 
campaign against the legislation, arguing that Australia was abandoning its 
international responsibilities.

Mr Howard has urged his MPs not to give comfort to Labor by crossing the 
floor.

The crucial vote comes as the Prime Minister also faces unrest on the 
cabinet's disposition against liberalising laws that prohibit the cloning of human 
embryonic stem cells.

Several Liberal backbenchers are pressing behind the scenes for Mr Howard to 
allow a conscience vote on the issue, expected to be debated in the Coalition 
party room this week.

Mr Howard yesterday appeared to soften his opposition to a conscience vote, 
saying there was no legislation before Parliament to have a vote on, "but let's 
have a discussion and let's hear the views of my colleagues".

The Prime Minister denied an assertion by Senator Fielding that the asylum 
seeker legislation was to appease Jakarta. "I think our relationship with 
Indonesia will remain soundly based, no matter what happens. This is not something 
that is crucial to the relationship with Indonesia," Mr Howard said.

In Jakarta, a presidential spokesman, Dino Djalal, refused to comment on Mr 
Howard's claim that the relationship was sound enough to cope with the failure 
of the immigration changes.

"Because it is so sensitive at the moment, we shouldn't make any comment," Mr 
Djalal said. Indonesia was closely monitoring the progress of the bill, he 
said.

While stating that the passage of the laws was a matter for the Australian 
Parliament, Mr Djalal, said his nation hoped the laws would be instituted as 
they were a constructive way to resolve problems between Canberra and Jakarta.

Senator Fielding said Family First could not support changes "that would see 
Australia no longer playing by the rules".

------------------------------------

Asylum law failure not to hit Jakarta ties - Australia

SYDNEY, Aug. 13 (Reuters) - Australia's ties with Indonesia will not be 
damaged 
if tough new immigration laws, announced to appease Jakarta over Papuan 
asylum seekers, fail to go through parliament, Prime Minister John Howard said on 
Sunday. 

Howard's conservative government was splintered last Thursday after three 
government politicians voted against the planned new laws, and one abstained, 
when the immigration legislation was approved by parliament's lower house. 

The tougher immigration laws, announced after Australia granted asylum to 43 
Papuans, will mean all asylum seekers who arrive by boat will be sent to the 
remote Pacific Island nation of Nauru while their claims are assessed. 

"I think our relationship with Indonesia will remain soundly based no matter 
what happens," Howard told reporters. 

"This is not something that is crucial to the relationship with Indonesia," 
he said. 

A final vote in the upper house Senate is expected this week, but the 
legislation is not assured of approval with a number of government Senators 
expressing concerns over the laws. 
 
In the most serious challenge to Howard's authority in parliament in his 10 
years in power, the legislation will fail if one government Senator votes 
against the planned laws. 

Australia's decision to grant the Papuans asylum this year sparked heated 
criticism in Indonesia, with Jakarta withdrawing its ambassador from Australia. 

Jakarta believed that by granting asylum to the Papuan boatpeople who arrived 
on Australia's northern coast, Canberra was supporting a Papuan secessionist 
movement in Indonesia's restive eastern province. 

"Whatever happens this government will maintain very strong border protection 
laws. What we are trying to do is make them even stronger," Howard said. 

Mandatory detention for illegal arrivals has been at the centre of Howard's 
past two election wins. Church and human rights group have condemned the 
stance. 

Dissenting government politicians are angry that the proposed immigration 
laws will mean children will be detained in Nauru, despite a Howard promise a 
year ago that children would no longer be kept in immigration detention. 

--------------------------------------------

The Australian
Monday, August 14, 2006

PM faces defeat on asylum bill

Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent 

JOHN Howard faces the defeat of migration laws forcing all boatpeople into 
offshore detention after Family First senator Steve Fielding said he could not 
support a policy designed to appease Indonesia.

The Prime Minister's preferred legislation now appears doomed, with up to 
four Coalition senators refusing to say whether they will cross the floor or 
abstain when it goes to a vote as early as tomorrow. 

One Coalition senator crossing the floor, or two senators abstaining from the 
vote, will be enough to scuttle the legislation, delivering a historic defeat 
for the Howard Government over the border-protection policy credited with 
winning successive elections. 

Rebel Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce said yesterday he would abstain from 
the vote unless the Government agreed to his new amendment to allow the Senate 
to review every asylum-seeker decision. But government sources indicated his 
proposal was unlikely to secure support. 

Senator Fielding announced his surprise decision to oppose the legislation 
after talks with Papuan refugees and the Indonesian ambassador. 

"You know, I started to really look at it and I thought, look ... obviously 
it's to appease another country and it's the Indonesians," he said. 

"Imagine if every other country did what Australia is proposing. It would be 
chaos. There would be absolute chaos if everybody decided to boot people off 
to a foreign land." 

The new laws were introduced after a diplomatic rift emerged between 
Indonesia and Australia over the decision to grant asylum to 42 boatpeople from Papua, 
who arrived in far-north Queensland in January. 

The Government was accused of appeasing Indonesia, with its new laws that 
would send all boatpeople, including those who arrived on the mainland, to 
overseas processing centres such as that in Nauru. 

It remained unclear last night whether the Government would put the 
legislation to a vote in the Senate or withdraw it from the parliamentary schedule to 
avoid an embarrassing defeat at the hands of its own senators. 

The legislation passed the House of Representatives last week despite three 
Liberal MPs -- Petro Georgiou, Judi Moylan and Russell Broadbent -- crossing 
the floor to vote with the Opposition. 

Mr Howard insisted yesterday that the Government was not attempting to 
appease Indonesia. "I think our relationship with Indonesia will remain soundly 
based no matter what happens," he said. "This is not something that is crucial to 
the relationship with Indonesia." 

However, he conceded there was now a serious prospect that the legislation 
would be defeated. 

"Well, I think we can all count," he said. "Any government senator crossing 
the floor will kill it, and if two government senators were to abstain, that 
would kill it as well." 

Senator Fielding has in the past voted with the Government on issues such as 
the introduction of voluntary student unionism last year. 

Yesterday he dismissed the migration legislation as "ludicrous", saying he 
also had concerns over the Government's decision to change the rules for 
asylum-seekers when it suited them. 

"What is at the essence being proposed by the Government is, 'We don't like 
the rules any more'," he told the Nine Network's Sunday program. "That's not 
fair. We expect everybody else to play by the rules, not booting people off 
willy-nilly." 

Senator Joyce told The Australian last night that he had finalised the 
amendments on Friday but did not want to telegraph his plans before Senator Fielding 
declared his intentions. 

"In simple language, I want to give a power of review to the Senate over the 
minister's decisions," he said. 

"A disallowance could be made by any senator within 15 sitting days and then 
it would go to a vote. That would be it. If we got that amendment up I would 
vote for the legislation. 

"But the first person who languishes on Nauru, you could move a disallowance 
motion against everyone that ever came in after that. The Government would be 
kept in check," Senator Joyce said.

Mr Howard said he was unaware of a proposal of "any consequence". "You've got 
to remember we've already made a lot of amendments," he said. 

The future of the legislation now rests with a handful of Liberal senators 
who have expressed concerns about the laws. 

Victorian senator Judith Troeth, who praised the three Liberal MPs who 
crossed the floor last week, said yesterday she would reveal her plans for the vote 
in parliament. 

"People vote according to their best judgment. I will be making my intentions 
clear when I speak on the bill this week," she told The Australian. 

Queensland senator Russell Trood and NSW senator Marise Payne will hold 
further talks with Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone today. 

Nationals MP John Forrest, who surprised colleagues last week by abstaining 
from the vote and resigning as the party's whip, attacked the Government's 
migration legislation as "morally, spiritually and ethically wrong". 

Senator Vanstone said last night she was yet to hold any discussions with 
Senator Joyce over his planned amendments. 

Earlier, Senator Vanstone said "the plain facts of life" were that Australia 
and Indonesia had to work together on border-protection issues. 

She played down suggestions of a compromise deal involving housing 
asylum-seekers on Christmas Island, instead of putting them on Nauru. 

"It wouldn't have the same effect in terms of lack of access to Australian 
law, that is, that long and lengthy appeal process," she told the Ten Network. 

"We've looked at all of the options, and Nauru is without a doubt the best 
option." 

Mr Howard did not make a last-minute plea to senators to toe the party line, 
but he did remind them the policy was the majority government view. "It is a 
... strongly held majority view and I would naturally ask that be taken into 
account," he said. 

Debate on the legislation is due to begin in the Senate today, with the vote 
expected tomorrow.

-----------------------------------------

The Age (Melbourne)
Monday, August 14, 2006

Why I will not go Howard's way on illegals

by Steve Fielding

GROWING up in a family of 16 children, one of the lessons my parents taught 
me was to always play by the rules. There is a right way of doing things, they 
said, and a wrong way.

Politics is no different. In the case of the Government's new border 
protection laws, it became clear to Family First that the Government wasn't playing by 
the rules.

That is wrong and that is something Family First could not support.

Family First supports a strong system of border protection, of who comes to 
this country and who doesn't. But it also has to be a fair system.

There are rules about the treatment of asylum seekers which are accepted by 
all countries. Yet suddenly Australia says "not us".

How can Australia expect India and Pakistan to accept Afghan boat people yet 
boot people who reach our country off to a foreign land? It's a case of one 
rule for Australia and another for everyone else. And that's not on.

If every country followed Australia's lead — made up their own rules and 
booted people off to foreign lands — there would be absolute chaos.

Australia has no control over what happens on Nauru so it would effectively 
be washing its hands of any boat people and adopting an attitude of "out of 
sight, out of mind". It's not fair and it's not right.

This issue has weighed heavily on Family First, and one of the questions I 
have asked is, why has the Government made these changes? What is the reason for 
them?

It became clear to me that the answer is Indonesia. The Government's policy 
is designed to appease Indonesia, and Family First strongly opposes that.

Australia should never allow itself to be pressured or bullied by any 
country. I don't care what country it is. Australia should decide who comes to this 
country and who doesn't — no one else.

Family First is proudly independent. The Family First Party is in nobody's 
pocket. We have said from day one that we will look at each issue on its merit.

The question we will always ask is "What is the right thing to do?"

Family First opposed the workplace changes and flogging off the rest of 
Telstra, but supported the welfare changes. It's all about doing the right thing.

Australia's political leaders should set the highest standards of behaviour. 
They should set a good example and they should lead by example. If we expect 
other people to play by the rules, we should play by the rules.

----------------------------------------

The Age (Melbourne)
Monday, August 14, 2006

Asylum-seeker No. 43 has a new start

photo: David Wainggai, the best known of the 43 Papuans, whose arrival 
led to all unauthorised arrivals to be processed on Nauru. Justin McManus

by Michael Gordon

DAVID Wainggai is a big part of the reason the Howard Government decided to 
toughen its already tough border protection laws. But he is an even bigger part 
of the reason those laws now look very likely to be defeated in the Senate.

If the laws were in place today, Mr Wainggai would not be enjoying his first 
taste of freedom in Melbourne. He would be on Nauru, fearing the prospect of 
years of crushing isolation and uncertainty.

Mr Wainggai is the best known of the 43 Papuan asylum seekers whose arrival 
on Cape York in January prompted the sequence of events that led to the plan 
for all unauthorised boat arrivals to be processed on Nauru.

The other 42 were granted temporary protection visas almost immediately when 
their fear of being persecuted if they were returned to Papua was ruled to be 
well founded. Those decisions prompted the Indonesian backlash that, in turn, 
led the Australian Government to radically ramp up its border protection 
legislation.

Mr Wainggai, 30, was refused a visa and spent nearly five months alone on 
Christmas Island before the Refugee Review Tribunal upheld his appeal and ruled 
that he was a person "to whom Australia has protection obligations under the 
(United Nations) Refugees Convention".

It has been a traumatic period for Mr Wainggai, who says he kept thinking of 
his father, Dr Thomas Wainggai, who died in a Jakarta jail in 1996, eight 
years after being arrested for his part in a protest where the Papuan flag was 
raised in Jayapura.

There was even a point where he says he feared that he, too, would die in 
detention.

Mr Wainggai yesterday told The Age how he was sustained by prayer, support 
from friends in Australia and the advice from his Australian lawyers that his 
claim was likely to succeed — advice they insist he could not be given if the 
new laws applied.

"It's a relief to be here," said the man with a remarkable capacity for 
understatement. Mr Wainggai is staying with Jacob Rumbiak, who was a colleague of 
his father at university in Jayapura. Mr Rumbiak was arrested the year after 
Thomas Wainggai and spent 10 years in Indonesian jails before being granted 
refugee status in Australia.

The most poignant moment after Mr Wainggai's arrival came on Saturday when he 
was reunited with his cousin, Herman Wainggai, at the home of Mr Rumbiak and 
his partner, Louise Byrne. For several minutes the four embraced.

"We just cried for God answering our prayers and blessing the Australian 
Government," said Herman Wainggai, who was one of the 42 issued with visas in 
March. David Wainggai was in grade 5 at primary school when his father was taken 
from the family.

He vividly recalls the previous evening, where the family stood in a circle 
around the Papuan flag and prayed at the family home.

He did not attend the flag-raising protest the following morning, but tells 
how he was forced at gunpoint to give Indonesian soldiers the keys to his 
father's office after the arrest.

The cousins do not dispute Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone's claim that 
they are political activists, but insist their fear for their safety was acute 
before they fled their country.

They also maintain that they would not have been safe if they had simply 
crossed to Papua New Guinea, as Senator Vanstone asserts, saying the Indonesian 
military and intelligence is well established in that country and would have 
sought to track them down.

David Wainggai hopes to study in Melbourne and wants one day to be able to 
return without fear to Papua.

One of his lawyers, David Manne, says that under the new laws the appeal 
process after the initial rejection would have been far less certain and that, 
even if Mr Wainggai's appeal had been upheld, he would have faced potentially 
years of uncertainty on Nauru while the Australian Government waited for a third 
country to take him.

-----------------------------------------

The Australian
Monday, August 14, 2006

Opinion

Dissenters, support this legislation

The Coalition rebels should not, in good conscience, 
destablise the fragile Indonesian state
 
by Neil Brown

THE tiff between Coalition backbenchers and the Government on the processing 
of refugees raises the thorny issue of the proper function of members of 
parliament. 

Should they weigh every issue on its merits and vote accordingly? Or should 
they do what they are told and vote with the party?

Well, it certainly can't be the former, for no government would get its 
legislation passed. There would be no cohesion in parties and the scope for grubby 
deals would be endless. 

The Labor Party, of course, goes to the other extreme. Its constitution says 
party decisions "shall be binding". No conscience allowed there. 

The Liberal Party has always followed a middle course. Members vote with the 
party after everyone has had a fair go at hammering out the official line, but 
they retain the freedom to vote against the party on a matter of conscience. 

The rebels on the refugee bill claim they oppose it as a matter of 
conscience. Those in the House of Representatives relied on conscience as a 
justification for bucking the party line, and those in the Senate look as if they will be 
making the same claim. It is that claim that has put them at odds with the 
Government and is putting at risk a bill the Government says is vital to an 
equally important part of the governmental process: namely, protecting the borders 
of the country. So far as one can tell, the public supports the Government. 

How, then, can this impasse be resolved? How can the rebels be brought back 
into the fold, yet the right to a conscience vote be preserved and retained? 
Certainly not by denying the right to a conscience vote or by abusing or 
ridiculing the dissenters. They clearly regard this bill as a matter of conscience 
and people who take their stand on conscience do not respond to abuse. They will 
respond, however, to reason. 

Having studied the bill and the UN Convention on Refugees, it seems to me 
that this is where the debate should occur. 

The bill is a matter of conscience for the dissidents. It is, however, not 
one that can justify defeating a government bill, damaging the Government and 
the rebels' parties at a difficult time and diminishing the Prime Minister's 
standing, all of which will happen if they stick to their declared positions. 
There are two reasons this is so. 

First, members of a party must always consider the effect that their votes - 
conscience or otherwise - have on the interests of the team, especially when 
the team is in government. That itself is a matter of conscience, the 
conscience of obligation to colleagues, the government and the country, which sometimes 
must take priority. This is clearly such a case. One only has to look at the 
salivating of the Labor Party and the media at a possible government defeat to 
see how true this is. 

Second, I invite senators to look again at the bill and the convention. It is 
conceivable that a bill on refugees could be a matter of conscience, but that 
is not this bill. If the bill provided that we would not recognise refugees 
at all, that we would not process their applications or that we would no longer 
adhere to the convention, then they would all be matters of conscience and 
justify a conscience vote. 

But it does none of those things. It tells you where and when the refugee 
processing will take place, not that it will never take place at all. If past 
experience is a guide, virtually all of those processed off-shore will be found 
to be refugees. 

Moreover, the bill changes these administrative arrangements in a way the 
convention itself envisages. The convention has a chapter on administrative 
measures, for that is what they are, not the conscience issues of life or death. It 
also recognises there will be illegal entrants and, accordingly, has an 
article headed "Refugees unlawfully in the country of refuge" and how they are 
handled. It therefore contemplates the case being dealt with by the bill. 

So the convention allows restrictions on illegal arrivals where necessary and 
"until their status in the country is regularised or they obtain admission 
into another country". There is nothing in the convention that prevents this 
processing to be done in another country; that, after all, was the way refugees 
were processed in Europe after World War II and is still the way most refugee 
processing is done. 

There is no abandonment of good refugee principles in the bill; it does not 
exclude anyone from being a refugee or claiming to be one. Neither does it 
weaken the welcome we have always given to genuine refugees. A good solution, 
therefore, is for senators to declare that maintenance of a commitment to refugees 
is a matter of conscience, but that they will vote for the bill if the 
Government makes a similar declaration, which it should. 

Finally, there is a positive reason the rebels should support the bill and, 
frankly, why we all should. We have been far too coy about the Indonesian 
connection. I can only say that if the Government has not brought this bill 
forward, at least in part, to discourage Papuans coming here, claiming refugee status 
and promoting secession from Indonesia, then it should be so influenced. We 
live in a region where virtually all of our neighbours have border disputes, 
centrifugal forces dragging them apart, potential instability or terrorists 
looking for a vacuum they can fill. 

The last thing we need, and the last thing we should in good conscience 
encourage, is a futile, incipient independence movement in any part of Indonesia or 
any other of our neighbours. I do not want on my conscience the misery and 
failure that this will certainly bring. And I hope our senators use their 
conscience votes to pass the bill as one step to preventing it from happening. 

Neil Brown, a Melbourne QC, is a former federal minister in the Fraser 
government and deputy leader of the Liberal Party.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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