Like 'white Australia' policy

Sydney
10 February 2002

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Like 'white Australia' policy - bishop

By Chris Hook

Current policies surrounding the treatment of asylum seekers would follow the same path as the white Australia policy, which may have been an effective deterrent but was now a source of national shame, says Bishop Eugene Hurley (pictured).
"While all Australians accept and support the fact that we need to have control of our immigration I am convinced that we do not accept deterrence at any cost," he said at a press conference last week.
"At one point of our history we had the white Australia policy, which certainly proved to be an effective tool of control and deterrent, but we now look back at that as a dark chapter in our history and I'm afraid we will look at this time with similar sadness and regret."
Bishop Hurley, whose diocese of Port Pirie, South Australia, includes the Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre, said he had been to the centre on a number of occasions as part of his pastoral duties. His most recent visit had been in the midst of protests over the processing of applications for asylum.
Bishop Hurley's comments came as members of the Independent Detention Advisory Committee helped broker a deal between Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and protesting asylum seekers at the Woomera camp.
Under the agreement, the department recommenced the processing of the Afghans' asylum claims, which was suspended in the wake of military action in Afghanistan and pending the esablishment of a new regime replacing the Taliban.
But Bishop Hurley warned that the protesters had a number of concerns and that protests had become particularly serious.
He said last week: "My judgement is that these threats have reached a point where they have become more than threats.
"When young men throw themselves into razor wire, my judgement as a counsellor is that these young men have gone beyond threats."
Bishop Hurley said his role was not to formulate government policy but to look at how government policy affected people.
"It is my conviction and my experience that the policy that has led to this situation, however well intentioned, is simply wrong," he said.
"I am convinced that the desperate despair of the people there, the traumatising of women and children, the intolerable tensions, are too high a price to pay for whatever deterrent it may be."
The bishop paid tribute to the professionalism of the staff and management of the centre but warned of the potential for "great stress among them".
He said he would provide personnel to witness agreements made between people with whom he spoke and the government "to honour a specific request made to me".
The bishop said the refugees were eager to return home when it was safe to do so.
He supported using a "safe haven" arrangement similar to that which applied to Kosovar and East Timorese refugees.