South Australian HUMANIST POST EXTRACT 4

As printed in the September 2001 issue of the S.A. Humanist Post I HAVE A DREAM......but it starts with a nightmare Every week we hear news from our detention centres where we keep illegal immigrants and the more we hear the more we get the impression that these centres are little better than concentration camps. There are many refugees in camps run by the UN in hot spots across the world. European countries, including Britain are taking an increasing number of refugees but in recent years Australia has taken fewer refugees and the illegal refugees represent a very small percentage. The world population, now over 6 billion, will increase by another billion in the next 14 years in spite of a higher death rate due to AIDS, war and insurrection. The situation in Israel, the rise of fundamentalist creeds such as the Taliban, and similar trouble in many parts of the world will insure an increasing number of refugees in need of help. The UN, the NGOs will have no option but to put extreme pressure on all governments to accept more refugees. Australia will not be able to withstand this pressure, nor should we want to, but it does mean that Australia must entirely revise both its economic policy and its treatment of refugees. Current policy allows the downsizing of industry and government, allows employers to contract for lower wages, longer hours, helped by an unemployment rate which is much higher than the statistics show. With a larger workforce due to immigration, these policies must be reversed. More full time jobs will be required to ensure that the young will have a future. Reforms to our money and banking systems will be required to allow more to be spent on land care and water supply. Both legal and illegal immigrants should be treated on the same basis. They should be sent to an attractive place on the coast, a sort of cross between a holiday camp and a motel for 10 weeks where they would be put through a comprehensive course including the English language, Australian history, government, law, customs, non-government organisations, sport, food, the arts etc. Of course they would be medically examined and given information and help to improve their health, and security would have 10 weeks to pin down any actual criminals. The first questions they would be asked would be about their language so that appropriate language teachers could be found and it would be made clear that the intention of the course was to help them to become worthwhile Australian citizens. On completion of the course they would be eligible for unemployment benefits and sent to places where they could find employment and housing. Those who absconded from the course would have no papers and therefore no benefits. A dream? Well that depends on us. There are elections coming up and we should be asking candidates questions before we vote for them. It seems to me that the Liberals have proved their unworthiness to adopt simple humane policies but will the others do any better? The best way to find out is to interview them. I have recently met the ALP candidate for Napier and have found that he approves of the ideas and policies of Whitlam and Dunstan and criticises Hawke and Keating and therefore gets my approval. But many federal politicians are scared stiff of doing anything that might upset the market. They need to find a new Doc. Evatt or Gareth Evans prepared to advocate reforms to the worlds money systems and convince all nations to agree to adopt such reforms. Dick Clifford.