Australia's indefinite detention system ends, but anti-immigration sentiment still well alive

Australia's 20-year indefinite detention system for immigrants may have been finally brought to its knees, but systemic problems in governments that gave it life have not.

After the High Court last month ruled that politicians had for too long been punishing people by locking them up in de facto prisons, lawmakers have cashed in on the stresses of the Australian people for political mileage instead of celebrating the end of a cruel regime.

When around 140 detainees - some with criminal records - were freed in accordance with the law, opposition parties accused the government of releasing "criminals" into society.

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That created a media storm and public outrage, or what Australian political writer Rachel Withers termed "selective outrage". On social media and at pub conversations, people are suddenly upset that the government has put them in harm's way.

Right-wing senator Pauline Hanson, famed for her 1996 comment that Australia was being "swamped by Asians", on Wednesday chastised the government in parliament, saying: "You have made it unsafe for a lot of people, and the Australian people are concerned about who is now living among them."

Here's a quick reality check. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that across Australia, more than 170 people - some with "most serious offences/charges" - are released from jail every day. More than 80 per cent of those people are born in Australia. Around 60 per cent of the prison population has been incarcerated more than once, and that's the highest the reoffending rate has been in the past decade, according to a report by Institute of Public Affairs.

Selective outrage indeed.

But these politicians know what they're doing - and Hanson reveals that when she says: "We cannot keep increasing the population entering Australia when the Australian people themselves can't find housing."

It's not the fault of Australians. Along with all the serious problems they face, including the high cost of living and now, a dangerously weakening economy which barely grew in the third quarter, they just don't need another problem in the form of so-called imported criminals.

As one person said online: "When asylum seekers are reoffenders, it ruffles people's feathers because, unlike their own citizens, they weren't our problem until someone went out of their way to ... make them our problem."

But lawmakers egged that on.

Instead of, say, fixing the cause of expensive housing - which evidence has clearly shown isn't driven only by demand, but various factors like red tape and the investor-friendly negative gearing policy - Australian politicians on both sides have chosen to blame immigrants and foreigners who have "flooded" the housing market.

Let's not forget that immigration is exactly what governments use to "fix" the economy, whether through increased spending, or in the current context, easing staffing shortages and therefore inflation.

But this kind of nuance is rarely articulated, certainly not by public figures. They use that vulnerability to their advantage.

Researchers have warned that since the pandemic began, politicians would turn migrants into scapegoats when economies start to fray.

A 2020 study by the University of Queensland said anti-immigration sentiment rises when affluent people fear losing their wealth.

Another paper by Tilburg University in the Netherlands said: "Group thinking is enhanced as a defence mechanism against threats, and thus leads to more favouritism towards the in group and hostility towards the out group".

Polls and posts on social media show it's clear that Australians are most worried about their livelihoods and safety.

But this won't be the first time that public sentiment and migrants have been weaponised by politicians in tough times. On the day of last year's federal election, the former Scott Morrison government leaked information to select journalists about a boat of suspected Sri Lankan asylum seekers trying to enter Australia, and sent text messages to Australians that the government had intercepted the vessel.

Before the September 11 attacks in the United States, anti-Muslim sentiments had been growing globally. In the August 2001 Tampa incident that had become the bedrock of Australia's detention policy, the former John Howard government denied entry to the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa, which was carrying some 430 asylum seekers.

That was also just before a federal election.

And Australia is not alone. This week, Britain announced stricter visa rules to cut immigration.

These are subliminal messages that we can reject, if leaders won't do better.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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