Australia 'offends' allies on refugees
The Canberra Times
By KIRSTEN LAWSON
Australia was offending its international allies and in danger of losing their support in its bid for a seat on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, former Human Rights commissioner Chris Sidoti said yesterday.
Australia had offended Norway in its treatment of the Tampa last year and was now offending the former president of Ireland, UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, by its "rude" response to her request to send an envoy to Woomera.
"These are the countries that are our allies, the countries that support us at international forums and who will be voting on whether we get elected to the UN Commission on Human Rights in a couple of months' time," he told ABC Radio.
"I don't think we can expect to receive very much support at all from any of our traditional allies, let alone countries that in the past have been hostile to us, if this is the way we conduct ourselves."
His comments came as protest groups around the country prepared to travel to Canberra when Parliament resumes on Tuesday, to rally outside Parliament House where they will be addressed by Labor frontbencher Carmen Lawrence who is leading Labor's push for change.
And Prime Minister John Howard took a conciliatory tone in Jakarta yesterday, after offending Indonesia last year by suggesting it was turning a blind eye to people smuggling.
Mr Howard stressed that Indonesia was not the source of asylum-seekers - who originated elsewhere and simply used Indonesia as a transit country.
He said a regional agreement, not a bilateral agreement between Australian and Indonesia, was needed to solve the problem.
"I am also conscious of the difficult experience Indonesia had following a regional agreement about Vietnamese refugees some years ago, which resulted in people being there for a period of some 15 years, much longer than originally contemplated," Mr Howard said.
But he was not so gentle with Ms Robinson's request to send an envoy.
"The Government does not intend to allow a situation to develop where anybody can, on demand, simply say I want to go and have a look at Woomera.
"We'll look at it next week, but I'm not signalling in advance that we're going to agree to Mrs Robinson's request."
The Howard Government is seeking a spot on the 53-member Commission on Human Rights for 2003-05, so it can push reform to the way the UN watchdog committees do their work. The vote is due in May.
A spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer rejected the suggestion that Australia was jeopardising its chances, saying Australia was lobbying hard to get elected and its plans for reform had drawn interest from a number of countries.
Mr Downer, in Moscow, said Australia's reputation remained high and unchanged by the asylum-seeker issue.
"At the level of governments they are pretty sympathetic to the problems we face and they in the main don't complain about it," he said. "It is very rarely discussed.
"At the level of the community, it depends which country you go to. In the main, they don't know anything about it at all."
The Labor for Refugees group has stepped up its campaign to radically alter Labor's policy, urging federal and NSW MPs this week to support an end to detention, except as a last resort, and an end to the Pacific solution.