Culture

Malcolm Turnbull And Peter Dutton Went To The UN And Bragged About Australia’s Refugee Policy

It was pretty embarrassing considering the amount of times the UN has criticised our policies.

by Osman Faruqi  20 September 2016

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The United Nations has been condemning Australia’s harsh refugee policy for years now (Sorry for all the links, but there seriously has been a lot of condemnations). So when Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton travelled to New York this week to take part in a UN summit focused on finding solutions to the refugee crisis, you think they might take a bit of a back seat? Maybe just sit there quietly, hoping no one notices them? Sadly, it turns out that was too much to hope for.

Turnbull and Dutton took to the world stage and encouraged the rest of the globe to embrace Australia’s strict immigration policies. In a speech, Turnbull claimed that Australia’s policies of mandatory, offshore detention were a core part of being able to provide “humanitarian assistance”.

“Addressing irregular migration through secure borders has been essential in creating the confidence that the government can manage migration in a way that mitigates risk and focuses humanitarian assistance on those who need it most,” Turnbull said.

So there you go, it doesn’t matter how often we get criticised by the United Nations for policies that breach global conventions on human rights, we’ll still brag about it.

If that’s not enough to make you feel deeply uncomfortable, yesterday on Sunrise Pauline Hanson congratulated the government on its refugee policies. “I think that Peter Dutton has done a very good job in controlling our borders with the number of refugees that we have coming across the borders,” Hanson said.

Refugee advocates have slammed the government for misleading the world about the impact our policies are having on refugees. The CEO of Save The Children, Paul Ronalds, condemned Turnbull’s speech and said the Prime Minister had, “Promoted an isolationist ‘deterrence-based’ model to asylum seeker policy that the evidence has shown is extremely expensive, takes a heavy toll on those Australia should be aspiring to protect, and compromises Australia’s global interests.

Oxfam and the St Vincent de Paul Society have also criticised the government, specifically taking aim at the the policy of “turning back the boats”.

It might seem from the evidence that the Australian government doesn’t really have much time for the UN. But that’s just not true. Malcolm Turnbull takes it really seriously. So seriously, that he’s sent one of the government’s most influential senators over to New York for a three month secondment. The name of that senator? Cory Bernardi.

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Feature image via Peter Dutton/Facebook.