Nine years of suffering and uncertainty must end

Nine years ago this week, the Federal Government declared that people seeking asylum by sea would never be allowed to settle in Australia and would be processed offshore.

Since that date over 3,000 people have been sent to Nauru or PNG, living for years in substandard conditions and experiencing immeasurable suffering and neglect. Successive governments have maintained this cruel, costly and ineffective policy.

On this anniversary, the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia calls on the Albanese Government to end offshore processing and to quickly find safe and permanent resettlement for the more than 500 people either still in PNG and Nauru or who have been transferred to Australia on medical grounds, and who are not covered by existing arrangements with the US, Canada or New Zealand.

In Nauru the recent COVID outbreak has exposed serious flaws in the health and welfare services for the people still there. In PNG the Catholic bishops have called for immediate medical evacuation of the most seriously ill and expressed concern about the previous Australian Government’s attempts to permanently resettle people in PNG.

The Society urges the Albanese Government to take the following immediate actions to:

• re-introduce safe medical evacuation from PNG and Nauru, consistent with the 2019 Medevac legislation, which Labor supported but which the previous Government repealed; and

• make serious efforts to improve the safety and well-being of those still offshore, in line with its duty of care to them.

  Furthermore, if those still in PNG and Nauru have not been safely and permanently re-settled in another country by 30 June 2023, those remaining should then be quickly evacuated to Australia, while they await permanent re-settlement.

  The Society helps many of the people evacuated from PNG and Nauru and now living in our community on six-month visas or in community detention. The previous Government treated them harshly and unjustly and they continue to suffer. So, the new Government should also quickly:

• issue these people with visas valid until they are found a safe permanent home;

• give them an adequate safety net when they can’t work; and

• give them the opportunity to visit their family in third countries or invite families here for a visit.

  Finally, the Society long protested to the previous Government about the arbitrary and indefinite immigration detention, including for those evacuated from PNG and Nauru. We are grateful that many asylum seekers have recently been released, but we see no reason for holding anyone in locked immigration detention unless they are a threat to national security.

  Since the first months of his pontificate Pope Francis has expressed particular concern for people fleeing war and persecution. He continues to regularly call on us to welcome and protect them. In the last decade, Australia has failed to welcome or protect people who have sought asylum in our country, arriving here by boat, despite their being entitled to seek protection under international law. The new Government must stop this mistreatment of people seeking asylum.