Challenges In Bilateral Refugee Arrangement Between Australia And Indonesia

Australian administrative strategy towards asylum seekers

Discuss about the Department of Parliamentary Services and Library.

The bilateral refugee arrangement between Australia and Indonesia has previously been recognized as a debatable matter to the current policies and regulations of Australia towards the asylum seekers specifically the arrangements with Naaru and Papua New Guinea (PNG) intended for offshore dispensation along with the return of asylum seeker vessels which are furthermore been interrupted by the Australian authoritative system. However, it has been recognized that the references to the offshore processing as an ‘Indonesian solution’ are prone to deceive (Missbach, 2013). Furthermore, no distinct bilateral arrangement can thrive in the boarder sense by focusing on the asylum issues which have been influencing upon the entire region of Southeast Asia and Australia. However, the issues pertaining to several nations despite of any bilateral arrangements which Australian authoritative policies caters to, must focus on the broader commitment with as well as between  the neighbouring nations (Hirsch, 2017). The essay examines certain challenges working with Indonesians within Australian legislation by focusing on the process of interception of Australian government policies with the migrant groups. The paper will further focus on the transferring procedures of Australia and resettlement of the Indonesian groups by casting light on the issues arising with the procedures taken for Bali resettlement.

The Australian administrative strategy concentrates on the asylum seekers arriving to Australia travelling on water without legitimate visa documentation will ever be granted resettlement in Australia. However, individuals are sent to regions of Nauru or PNG for the processing or local settlement arrangement or in restricted cases identified as resettlement to the third nation. From the Australian government’s standpoint, once individuals have been relocated they developed into the responsibility of communities of Nauru or PNG (Phillips & Spinks, 2013). Furthermore, observing a refugee arrangement between Australia and Indonesia it can be identified that the Australian government-appointed Expert Panel’s 2012 has provide suggestions regarding the ‘bilateral collaboration and support related to the asylum seeker concerns with Indonesians must be highly developed as a matter of exigency (Missbach, 2015). The adjacency of Australia and Indonesia has assisted several asylum seekers arriving by boat Indonesia to Australia, whereby several belong to countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. However, if Australian governmental policies could administer these travel processes through water, then the level of commitment with Indonesia would be considered with utmost significance (McKenzie & Hasmath, 2013). It has been recognized by Pedersen & Hartley, (2015) that Australia with the approval of Indonesia would pose interventions towards the asylum seeker boats travelling from Indonesia to Australia. As per the opinion of McAdam,( 2013), it is important to note that Australia would engage in the process of resettling asylum seekers en routing from Indonesia has been seized by it to Indonesia following to brief evaluation procedures in order to ensure that those individuals have no intentions of harassment or maltreatment in Indonesia.

Expert Panel’s 2012 suggestions on bilateral collaboration with Indonesia

Furthermore, Australia ascertains certain declarations from Indonesia that the nation would explicitly involve in the prevention of non-refoulement of the resettled persons. With the crucial assertion from Indonesia, the nation has not been engaged with Refugee Convention which further comprises the non-refoulement obligation act of Article 33 or the Refugee Directives or Practices. However, it has been noted that Indonesia would provide provisional safeguard to the resettled individuals and expect the authorized responsibilities for further processing. On the other hand, the resettlement arrangements in Indonesia in recent times have been undertaken by the regulative agencies of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) (McAdam, 2013). It has been noted that the UNHCR would not offer any permission to the continual responsibility for the executing under any arrangement between Australia and Indonesia and that they posed utmost disinclination to abide the processing accountability under the relocation type arrangement have further been envisaged. At this juncture, it must be note that Australia must not suppose processing any forms of liability in Indonesia and would further destabilize limited asylum systems being established in Indonesia and at any circumstances the Asian country would be improbable to accept Australia pertaining to the asylum legislative procedures within Indonesia (McAdam, 2014). However, it is not advisable that Australia would execute an effective processing in Indonesia and would further render the country towards uncertain global legal accountability related to any legal infringements in Indonesia (Rowe & O'Brien, 2014).

As per the opinion of Phillips & Spinks, (2013), it is significant to identify the significant barriers to the processing of resettlement which have occurred due to the states’ understanding of inducement towards refuge groups entering into the country. On the other hand, it has been noted that from the Australian standpoint it can be argued that there is no any significant motivation for refugee groups to involve in the arrangement procedures with Indonesia whereby the offshore resettlement processing on Nauru and PNG along with the unilateral sea prohibition provide to the interest of the nation by restricting maritime travels of refugee groups from entering into the coasts of Australia (Klein, 2014).

While several Australian directives have adhered to the reason of unilateral action by not sharing its association with countries in the area whereby Australia contributes to the refugee issues. However, it can be stated that with the approval of Australia to this unilateral logic it will further execute as a major obstacle towards Australia following and considerate under a bilateral processing with Indonesia (Gunningham, 2013). Furthermore, from the Indonesian standpoint, the processing of resettlement with Australia may be perceived to the deficit of incentives and encouragements in entering into the coast of Australia. Therefore, four significant reasons has been recognized for the perceived lack of enticements whereby the first recounts to the way migrant groups and migrant policies have been perceived among the Indonesians (Koser & McAuliffe, 2013). It is important to note that the Indonesian migrant populace is relatively small, and relative to the generalized population and further compared to the immigrant population of other nations. Furthermore, unconstructive standpoints of migrant groups and asylum seekers who influence the national funds and resources and characterize the issues associated with social as well protection aspects (McKenzie & Hasmath, 2013).  However, the viewpoints associated with the irrelevance and unconstructive nature of the refugees and tendencies to cause issues to the state further contradict any aspect of encouragement or incentives for the processing of resettlement purposed for the protection of the nation. Second reason associated with the perception of lack of inducements can be related to the way the administrative bodies have supposed migrants and asylum seekers as the significant responsibility of Australia (Phillips & Spinks, 2013). However, it has been stated that the major section of Indonesians being travelling to Australia  have contributed to the fortified dispute situations and have further led them to develop into a migrant groups. Furthermore, Indonesians believe that as a developing nation, the country has been considerably serving transitory protection to its migrant groups and thereby due to these causes, the country may perceive asylum seekers as one of the fundamental liability of Australia and further be restrained to itself presuppose accountability following the proposed arrangement processing. The third factor explicitly reveals that Indonesia may believe that status quo effectively contributes to the factors associated with its interests and further eliminating any concern related to inducements for new arrangement procedures (Missbach, 2013). The unyielding existing migrant guidelines of Australia may further ease to the arrangement processing in regions of PNG and Nauru, denial towards immigration to maritime interceptions in an efficient way. Thus, Indonesia should reveal detrimental factors as a transit nation on the way to Australia as there would be no prospective relevance of reaching to the coasts of Australia. As a result, Indonesia would have greater inclination towards current state of affairs in comparison to make assumptions to the obligations under the processing of resettlement. Lastly, the processing may be perceived by the Indonesians as a potential destructive factors related to its associations with the other South Asian states. However, particularly the arrangements may cause offense to the non-intervening regulations which have been executed in order to prohibit the migrant discourse within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Furthermore, the standards assume that the Southeast Asian states will not pose any interventions in the status quo of other states thereby Indonesia may be guarded of a processing with Australia as further offending to the guidelines as other Southeast Asian states have been undergoing critical demands in order to assume migrant liabilities if the unitary sovereign state of Southeast Asia operates in the way under the arrangement with Australia. Moreover, Indonesia may be taking into consideration the processing of resettlement to be into the domain of broader regional inclinations and as a component of ASEAN.

Resettlement arrangements in Indonesia

At this juncture, another significant barrier must be identified which is regarded to have contributed as a magnetized factor whereby the aspects of asylum seekers protection will be improved under the arrangement. It has been presupposed by the sovereign state of Southeast Asia that Australia would provide immigration places to the migrant groups practiced in Indonesia and further seek to enhance the conditions for the migrant groups in Indonesia (Missbach, 2013). However, a severe concern has developed in such circumstances whereby these developments would encourage or develop the areas of incentives for more refugees to seek assistance from Australia and Indonesia regarding these arrangements. Though these critical concerns can be comprehended by perceiving from the Indonesian standpoints whereby it has been recognized that Indonesia has been immensely struggling to compact with the unbalanced and irregular migration procedures deriving from Malaysia (Koser & McAuliffe, 2013).

However, the perception that the process of migration to Indonesia may undergo a growth under the arrangement would further pose willingness to pose apprehension and fear towards the Indonesian government whereby these concerns would be associated with the elevated economic expenditures and challenges to social consistency and solidity from the process of migration (Phillips & Spinks, 2013). However, it is important to note that without a properly recognized refugee status determination procedure, Indonesia will not be able to effectively identify the migrant groups from the ones who have been returning to their country on the grounds of not qualified for global security levels (Mathew & Harley, 2014). The factors related to pull or magnetized factors results in creating apprehensive situations on the Australian context as well.  However, prospective related to the augmented rate of migration under the resettlement processing may further interpret into the ambiguity factors associated with the number of immigration regions in Australia may necessitate to provide (McKenzie & Hasmath, 2013). Furthermore, the major section of the migrant groups seeking entrance into Australia in the past consists of distinctive safety requirements.

At this juncture, the issues surrounding to the Bali process must be taken into consideration which is regarded as a fundamental political forum whereby Australia and other nations including Indonesia have engaged themselves into the discourse of obligatory migration disputes (Kneebone, 2014). Furthermore, several members have in recent times explained the concept of Bali process as a deliberate, comprehensive, and nonbinding discussion forum for the regulations discussion, information distribution along with competence building. However, the past Bali process progress such as the Regional Cooperation Model as well as the Provincial Support Office have not been able to offer any vital bilateral or multilateral processing that would offer advantageous factors in concrete methods (Gammeltoft-Hansen & Tan, 2017). Furthermore, the Bali process has been stated to provide states with concealment for functioning and covering a universal hesitation and unwillingness of its associates towards the execution of migrant safeguard (Koser & McAuliffe, 2013). As a result, the Bali process has been creating obstacles and complexities in order to accomplish a constructive migrant safeguard arrangement process between

Barriers to the processing of resettlement

Australia and Indonesia. However, it has been stated that the Bali process may also deliver unproductiveness to reach the areas where the security discussion have concealed migrant protection requirements and the areas where its wide ranging association could hinder intimate cooperation between the neighbouring states such as Australia and Indonesia (Klug, 2014).

Several barriers and complexities have predominantly existed between the Australia and Indonesia arrangement whereby both the nations believe that there have been no significance of reasons or inducements and where the apprehension towards the process of migration can be considered as a magnetizing factor for several other asylum seekers. Thus various investigations have been conducted in order to cope up with these critical barriers. It is further to note that this processing of resettlement can be considered as a method for Australia to share migrant demands with a vital and significant collaborator and further enhance the situation between the political associations.

References

Gammeltoft-Hansen, T., & Tan, N. F. (2017). The End of the Deterrence Paradigm-Future Directions for Global Refugee Policy. J. on Migration & Hum. Sec., 5, 28.

Gunningham, N. (2013). Managing the energy trilemma: The case of Indonesia. Energy Policy, 54, 184-193.

Hirsch, A. L. (2017). The Borders Beyond the Border: Australia’s Extraterritorial Migration Controls. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 36(3), 48-80.

Klein, N. (2014). Assessing Australia's push back the boats policy under international law: Legality and accountability for maritime interceptions of irregular migrants. Melb. J. Int'l L., 15, 414.

Klug, A. (2014). Strengthening the protection of migrants and refugees in distress at sea through international cooperation and burden-sharing. International Journal of Refugee Law, 26(1), 48-64.

Kneebone, S. (2014). The bali process and global refugee policy in the Asia–Pacific region. Journal of Refugee Studies, 27(4), 596-618.

Koser, K., & McAuliffe, M. (2013). Establishing an evidence-base for future policy development on irregular migration to Australia. Irregular Migration Research Program Occasional Paper Series, 01-2013.

Mathew, P., & Harley, T. (2014). Refugee protection and regional cooperation in Southeast Asia: A fieldwork report.

McAdam, J. (2013). Australia and asylum seekers.

McAdam, J. (2014). Refugees: Why seeking asylum is legal and Australia's policies are not. UNSW Press.

McKenzie, J., & Hasmath, R. (2013). Deterring the ‘boat people’: Explaining The Australian government's people swap response to asylum seekers. Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 417-430.

Missbach, A. (2013). Waiting on the Islands of'Stuckedness'. Managing Asylum Seekers in Island Detention Camps in Indonesia: From the Late 1970s to the Early 2000s. Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 6(2), 281.

Missbach, A. (2015). Troubled transit: asylum seekers stuck in Indonesia. ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

Pedersen, A., & Hartley, L. K. (2015). Can we make a difference? Prejudice towards asylum seekers in Australia and the effectiveness of antiprejudice interventions. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 9(1), 1-14.

Phillips, J., & Spinks, H. (2013). Boat arrivals in Australia since 1976. Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services, Parliamentary Library.

Rowe, E., & O'Brien, E. (2014). ‘Genuine’refugees or illegitimate ‘boat people ‘: Political constructions of asylum seekers and refugees in the Malaysia Deal debate. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 49(2), 171-193.