PERTH, Australia (CNS) The chairman of the Australian bishops’ social justice council criticized as cowardly the government’s policy of locking up people who arrive illegally via people smugglers. Bishop Christopher Saunders of Broome said politicians on both major parties are playing on people’s fears by spreading the lie that Australia is being "flooded" with illegal immigrants.
"It’s the old question of ‘what would Christ have done,’" Bishop Saunders said Sept. 17, three days after the 95th illegal boat was intercepted and arrived at Christmas Island. The number of people in detention there awaiting processing reached 4,900.
"To think that just because they came through (in) some dangerous manner — God only knows how many hundreds have drowned on the way — instead of arriving in a Qantas jet, that we have to lock them up, is an inappropriate response to people in need," the bishop told The Record, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Perth.
"We only see a tiny proportion of those seeking refuge," he said, noting that Australia’s allocation of receiving 14,000 refugees each year is small compared to the world’s 16 million refugees and asylum seekers.
"A certain line of cowardice runs through politicians in our democracy and, when they are running neck and neck in an election, they like to trade on people’s natural fears of being overrun by refugees, misinforming the electorate and playing on their lack of education about the issue," he said.
"This has happened with each wave of migrants to Australia, whether it is the Greeks and Italian migration of the 1950s or the arrival of the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s," he added.
The bishop’s Outback Diocese of Broome is where people from Afghanistan seeking refugee status are placed in the Curtin detention center until their claims are processed.
He said that while the Curtin center’s facilities have greatly improved, the far-flung Outback location is still unacceptable.
Curtin is "in the middle of nowhere and 28 hours by car from Perth and two hours from Broome, with temperatures over 40 degrees (Celsius, 104 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer," he said.
The bishop called for the construction of centers for the asylum seekers that are closer to major regional centers and cities, where they can access proper medical facilities and lawyers to help them with their refugee status claims.
He also condemned the moratorium the government placed on the processing of Sri Lankan asylum-seekers’ claims April 9.
"We’re talking about keeping as many of them locked up as possible and not processing their claims. … I can’t see one ounce of Christian love in that," he said.