Morrison’s powers: nobody will know who he sends back to be killed
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection,
Scott Morrison, is the only minister who is not answerable to anyone for
his decisions, with the exception of the decision to take us into war,
which can be made by the Prime Minister alone.
New legislation passed
this week gives Morrison unprecedented, unchallengeable and secret
powers to determine the futures of those who come to Australia seeking
sanctuary from homelands that are no longer hospitable to them. This
includes the practice of refoulement, the ability to return asylum
seekers to situations that are hostile and in some instances deadly
without first determining if they are at risk, a practice that is
inconsistent with international refugee law: Section 197
gives the government express permission to engage in refoulement
irrespective of whether there has been an assessment of Australian
obligations to that person.
Morrison is not required to determine in advance what risks an asylum
seeker will face in being returned to the country they’ve fled,
therefore, he has the power to send human beings to endure torture and
death, and nobody will ever know he’s done it.
Within his area of responsibilities, Morrison is now a dictator. In
the midst of a government determined to be as small a government as
possible there is a department with a dictator at its head, whose
control over some human beings is absolute.
In principle giving any politician, or any human being for that
matter absolute power over anything, cannot be good. Absolute power
corrupts absolutely. Why is it necessary?
Of course, it isn’t necessary in any way other than the political. It
serves the government’s purposes to cloak the fates of asylum seekers
and refugees in secrecy. It doe not make our borders any more secure, it
does not prevent us from being attacked by terrorists. What Morrison’s
new dictatorship does do is fly in the face of the tenets of our liberal
democracy, specifically its opposition to suspicion of concentrated
forms of power, whether by individuals, groups or governments.
There is no reason why the people of this country should be kept in
the dark about our government’s decisions as to the fate of asylum
seekers and refugees, or any other decision our government takes, unless
it is a matter of security. No matter how hard the Abbott government
has worked to frame waterborne asylums seekers as a threat to our
sovereign borders against which we are waging a war, they are not a
threat and this is not a war.
The passing of the latest legislation finalises the relentless
campaign conducted by both major parties to “stop the boats.” It has
taken the matter of asylum seekers arriving by boat out of the public
conversation. While this will come as relief to many politicians, the
rest of us should be very afraid that in our treasured liberal democracy
we have a minister who answers to nobody, and will conduct his
nefarious business in absolute secrecy. This cannot be good for anyone.
First published on Jennifer’s blog No Place for Sheep
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