Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Boat people
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Fairfax
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Indonesia
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John Key
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Keith Locke
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Labour Party
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People-smugglers
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Phil Twyford
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The Greens
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The Standard
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Tony Wall
Tony Wall's story on Stuff this morning is a must-read. Under the headline People-smugglers bid to sail first boat to New Zealand it begins thus:
Under cover of darkness last Wednesday night, eight cars containing around 50 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh slipped out of the mountain town of Cisarua, 60km south of Indonesia's capital Jakarta, and drove towards the coast.
The tension was palpable. They'd been holed up in a villa for weeks waiting for this moment, the first step on a long, treacherous journey they hoped would end in a new life in faraway New Zealand.
The passengers, all adults, had paid people-smugglers deposits of around $US500 ($585), with the remaining $US5000 ($5800) or so due if they reached their destination.
But their dreams were dashed at the last minute. Although corrupt officials had been paid off, according to sources, it wasn't enough - police intercepted them and the group was turned around.
They are now back in Cisarua, the disillusioned walking away, the desperate vowing to give it another go in the next few days.
Fairfax Media learned of the plan to send a boat of 50 asylum seekers to New Zealand during a joint investigation with Fairfax Australia.
We obtained video footage of the boats involved in the plan, listened to secret recordings of a money-changer talking about New Zealand as the best option now that Australia is "closed", and, posing as an asylum seeker, contacted the smuggling kingpin.
Last night, sources in Cisarua who had spoken directly to the smugglers said corrupt police were demanding more money to let the boat go, and the Indonesian captain was demanding $US2500 ($2900) in advance.
Increasingly desperate, the smugglers are now offering berths for just $US2500, as long as it is paid up-front.
No asylum boat has ever made it to New Zealand but the current operation is the third attempt in recent months. In March, four men were arrested in Jayapura, West Papua on their way to link with a boat, and last month asylum seekers gathered in West Sumatra for a proposed voyage down Australia's west coast that was cancelled.
A source said two of the men arrested in Jayapura had managed to escape immigration authorities, made their way to Cisarua, and were among those who headed to the beach last Wednesday.
Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse said last night there was "no doubt" New Zealand was a target for people-smugglers, especially since boats had stopped arriving in Australia under their staunch Operation Sovereign Borders turn-back policy.
The issue of boat people, and of the predatory people-smugglers who rip them off is a highly emotive one. But this is the clearest evidence yet that New Zealand has to be ready to deal with this problem when, not if, the first boat arrives in our waters.
Unfortunately, every time that John Key has raised the issue, he has been shouted down by his political opponents. In 2010, Labour MP Phil Twyford blogged this on Red Alert:
Does John Key really think New Zealand is about to be hit by a wave of boat people?“What I’ve said to the Australian prime minister is that we recognise there is a problem, and we recognise that from New Zealand’s perspective it’s a problem that is coming towards our shores at some point in the future.”Has he looked at a map recently? There is a lot of ocean between us and them. Short of us putting out the welcome mat for people-smugglers it seems very unlikely they will make it this far.
Mr Key said that from all the intelligence he had received, this was “a real issue”.
In 2011, former Green MP Keith Locke accused the PM of scaremongering in this post on the party's Frogblog:
John Key's scaremongering about boat people flooding into the country damages New Zealand's race relations, Green Party immigration spokesperson Keith Locke said today."While John Key's approach may increase the National Party's 'redneck' vote, as happened to John Howard in Australia, it will be at a cost to race relations in New Zealand," said Keith Locke."Racial dog whistling about refugees is unbefitting of a Prime Minister.
And just last year, those bastions of left-wing reason at The Standard accused John Key of invoking the "yellow peril":
Bad jobs numbers and a succession of collapses of major businesses weighing your government down? You need: distraction! How about an old classic from the New Zealand politician’s playbook – the Yellow Peril!
Passed on by Richard Seddon and Winston Peters, Yellow Peril’s now being wielded by John Key as he talks of vague, unsubstantiated threats that boatloads of Indonesians are heading for our shores (no, I’m not sure what terrors are meant to eventuate when they land, either).
Of course, the closest any boat people have actually come to reaching New Zealand was when our mates, the Aussies, thought about helping them…
Never mind that Indonesia is literally 1/6th of the world away,* John Key wants us to know the ‘threat’ from boat people, threat of what I don’t know, is very real and something we should all be worried about. Far more worried than we should be about, say, the threat of losing our jobs.
(* At nearly 4,000 miles the distance from the closest parts of Indonesia to New Zealand is the distance from Europe to North America and back. Most boat people make trips from Indonesia to one of Australia’s offshore islands, a journey of a couple of hundred miles. So, we’re being asked to believe that boat people are planning, for no apparent reason, to make a journey 20 times longer and over colder, rougher, open seas in the Tasman, when Australia’s right there, literally in the way – doesn’t seem like a profitable business venture for the people smugglers for a start, 20 times the operating costs.)
We hope that Labour, the Greens and Zetetic at The Standard (who has long been suspected of being a Labour Party MP) take the time to read Tony Wall's piece this morning which has been written in partnership with his Fairfax colleagues from Australia.
As we said above, it's only a matter of time when the first boat reaches our waters. The Government is right to have been worried about this situation happening, and planning for such an eventuality is sensible.
Desperate people will do desperate things, even if it puts them and their families in greater peril. And as long as there is a market of desperate people, the predatory and parasitic people-smugglers will take their money and send them on their way, not really caring if they reach their destination.
We will watch reaction to this story with much interest. Instead of burying our heads in the sand and pretending that boat people aren't a problem for New Zealand as Labour and the Greens seem to have done, let's be ready to manage the first boat when it arrives.
