Refugee Law

As an Australian citizen living abroad a depressing feature of current electoral politics at home has been the race to the bottom on policy for asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Australia. The reasons for which the new policy of summarily deporting all boat arrivals to Papua New Guinea for refugee processing and resettlement are contrary to Australia’s international obligations have been ably articulated by Ben Saul and others. However, an allied issue in the boat people debate has been the feasibility of “stopping the boats” at sea. The leader of the Coalition opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, has claimed “it’s standard naval practice to intercept and turn around boats on the high seas,” and Coalition policy has also reportedly “annoyed Indonesia by insisting Jakarta is open to talking on turning back boats when it most definitely is not”. Nonetheless, Mr Abbot has suggested that the “US Coast Guard has been turning boats around in the Caribbean for years” and that this points to maritime interception as a viable policy option.