Opposition To Refugees Grows In Australia

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

For weeks now, a group of Sri Lankan refugees have been living in limbo. They're on an Australian custom service boat plying Indonesian waters. In a scenario thats become all too familiar for Australia, as Stuart Cohen reports from Sydney.

STUART COHEN: For more than three weeks, Australia's surge in asylum seekers has dominated headlines, as well as debate in parliament.

Unidentified Woman: Will the prime minister update the House on the government's response to people smuggling?

Unidentified Man: Mr. Speaker, the government is committed to a tough but humane policy on immigration.

COHEN: Around 40 boatloads of refugees have made it to Australian waters so far this year - more than four times as many as last year. And Australia's immigration detention center on remote Christmas Island is maxed out.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says it's all due to wars in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. The opposition claims Rudd has softened immigration policies since taking office in 2007.

Professor WILLIAM MALEY (Director, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, Australian National University): The increased number of asylum seekers approaching Australia mirrored to a considerable degree a rise in asylum applications in other parts of the world.

COHEN: William Maley is director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University. He says it's closer to the truth that so-called push factors are responsible for the surge, rather than the lure of Australia's softer borders.

Prof. MALEY: The notion that people faced with a military attack in Sri Lanka or fearing a rise to the Taliban in Afghanistan, are at the same time logging on to find about the minutiae of Australian refugee policy, is a fairly naive approach.

COHEN: To fight the growing problem, Kevin Rudd has turned for help to the launching point for most of the boats. In whats being called the Indonesian Solution, Australia plans to give Indonesia millions of dollars to build new detention centers and even pay a bounty on each refugee intercepted. It's something opposition members like Shadow Immigration Minister Sharman Stone, have wasted no time in using to hammer away at the prime minister.

Dr. SHARMAN STONE (Shadow Minister, Immigration and Citizenship): Kevin Rudd has nothing to do to solve this problem, it seems, other than to ask Indonesia: Please, will you now intercept people who weve lured on down with our softened policy?

COHEN: Underlying the debate is Australia's sometimes checkered past with non-Western immigrants. That attitude is exemplified by outspoken Conservative Member of Parliament Wilson Tuckey. He's played to the public's fears by suggesting terrorists might be lurking among the refugees.

Mr. WILSON TUCKEY (Conservative Member of Parliament): If you wanted to get into Australia, you know, and you have bad intentions, what do you do? You insert yourself in a crowd of 100.

COHEN: That comment was quickly condemned by many in parliament. But William Maley says the prime minister is still stuck between a political rock and a diplomatic hard place.

Prof. MALEY: He needs to tread a narrow line between taking a forceful position to convince the wider electorate that he won't be a soft touch where people smuggling is concerned. But on the other hand, not alienating people within his own party who have always been wary of the way in which the previous government sought to belt refugees around the ears.

COHEN: This early test of Kevin Rudd's Indonesian solution isn't going so well. The 78 Sri Lankans, as well as another boatload of 255 intercepted by Indonesia more than three weeks ago, have gone so far as to threaten suicide rather than step foot on Indonesian shores.

Rudd says he's willing to wait this one out.

Prime Minister KEVIN RUDD (Australia): In handling this matter, Indonesia has an abundance of patience and so does Australia because we intend to process this matter, this complex matter over a period of time.

COHEN: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is expected to visit Australia some time later this month for further negotiations.

For NPR News, Im Stuart Cohen in Sydney. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.