Read this just now, and had to share it:
Many people smugglers are heartless, unscrupulous, mercenary individuals. So much can be agreed. Of course, not all of them are entirely evil. More importantly, they provide a service which some people desperately need. You have to be desperate to use a people smuggler and take the dangerous journey from Indonesia across to Australia. That’s probably why so many of them are ultimately assessed as refugees: you have to be really desperate to use people smugglers.
It may seem admirable to smash the people smugglers’ business model, but if Australia does so, then the desperate people who would otherwise use their services will have no way of escaping whatever terror they are fleeing. This, then, is the solution which both major parties offer the Australian public: from our deep-seated concern for the welfare of asylum seekers, we will force them to remain in whatever hell it is that they are trying to escape, and we will do that by removing their only means of escape.
Welcome to my country.
Julian Burnside
Read more at julianburnside.com.au
