Following the High Court of Australia’s decision to rule offshore refugee processing as illegal, the Australian government is now pursuing an option that has been the cornerstone of Australian immigration law since federation- to amend, revoke and generally fuck with established domestic legislation.
In a move that would have seen John Howard declare a national holiday/early election, the Gillard government has considered a range of measures to bypass the High Court’s decision. These have included renaming the Migration Act 1954 to the Anti-Immigration Act 2011, to increase migration and refugee review fees to sums that would rival Greece’s financial deficit, and to further attempt to deter people smugglers by renaming Christmas Island to Christmas Ireland, thus creating the illusion of national debt and financial crises.
In addition, the federal government has rolled out a new class of visas in response to both the High Court’s decision as well as the Prime Minister’s plummeting popularity in the polls. Titled “Overboard Visas,” these will be automatically granted to the unaccompanied minors specifically so that they can be thrown overboard and then photographed for election purposes. The rationale behind this is that it worked fantastically well for the Howard government’s re-election in 2001.
In retaliation to claims that the government is ignoring the status of asylum seekers, a spokesperson for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship replied today: “Australia is fully dedicated to recognising the right of refugees to seek asylum... they sail to our shores, and we place them in Villawood Detention Centre and Christmas Island, which are run like asylums anyway.”
On the question of whether funds should instead be diverted to fix our current processing system and speed it up, the reply was: “That is not an option that this government is prepared to consider. If this country even contemplates offering justice and a fair go for asylum seekers, the consequences would be disastrous. What would the people smugglers think of us then? We’d end up with more incoming vessels than a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel! We simply cannot afford to be soft on this.”
The moves have been hailed by conservatives as in keeping with a great Australian tradition that dates back to Federation: to legislate against outsiders equally, especially those who have not reached our shores yet.
