November 26, 2012
Ben Doherty
"People are dying at sea on
unseaworthy boats, based on false promises and lies about what awaits them in
Australia" ... the video message that has been broadcast to the Sri Lankan
media from the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen. Photo: Roy Rubianto
WOULD-BE asylum seekers from Sri
Lanka are being told there is no prospect of them working in Australia while
their claims are assessed, and that they will be forced to survive on ''minimal
subsistence'' from the government.
A public relations blitz by
Australian officials is trying to dissuade Sri Lankans, tempted by people
smuggler's promises of visas and well-paid work in Australia, from boarding
boats.
The deputy secretary of the
Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Peter Vardos, said in Colombo that
despite the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres being full, asylum seekers
given bridging visas to live in Australia would have no capacity to earn money.
''That will not happen - they will
not have work rights and they will have minimal subsistence from the federal
government to help them,'' he said.
Asylum seekers will be eligible for
89 per cent of the NewStart allowance, about $438 a fortnight.
''One selling point of the people
smugglers is that people can come to Australia while their claims are being
processed … that they can work in the Australian community, earn an income and
repatriate remittances to their country. That will not happen,'' Mr Vardos
said.
Australia wanted skilled migrants.
''We do not need semi- or unskilled people, we do not need people who
unilaterally show up on our shores and say 'Give me a job'. I can appreciate
why people seek a better life for themselves, but it's a risky journey and
people die.''
Earlier this month, the department's
regional director for South Asia, Jose Alvarez, said in Colombo many on the
boats to Australia wanted jobs, and had been sold ''lies and false promises''
by the smugglers.
''The ones we returned … were all
about the fact that once they arrive they'll be able to go into the community
and work and then send the money back. It was all about having job
opportunities.''
A video message from the Immigration
Minister, Chris Bowen, has been broadcast to the Sri Lankan media in English,
Sinhala and Tamil.
''People are dying at sea on
unseaworthy boats, based on false promises and lies about what awaits them in
Australia. This is unacceptable,'' he said.
Of the 6192 Sri Lankans who have
arrived by boat in Australian waters this year, 511 have been returned to Sri
Lanka. The department says it does not keep statistics on the ethnicity of
asylum seekers. Sri Lanka maintains that about 90 per cent of those leaving the
country are members of the Tamil ethnic minority. But the overwhelming majority
of those being returned to Sri Lanka as economic migrants are Sinhalese.
Three years since the end of the
26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Tamil
Tigers, the country's Tamil minority still suffers serious persecution.
At the UN review of Sri Lanka's
human rights record this month, the Australian government said to Sri Lanka it
needed to ''take action to reduce and eliminate all cases of abuse, torture or
mistreatment by police and security forces'' as well as ''all cases of
abductions and disappearances'' in the country.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/no-chance-of-work-sri-lankan-boat-people-told-20121125-2a1m3.html#ixzz2DIu8beX6
