Politics.

Australia’s new immigration policy is to send boat arrivals to Papua New Guinea.

A few weeks ago I was awoken from my political hiatus when the Australian political leadership changed overnight. For the second time in recent years, the Australian Prime Minister had been replaced through internal party politics outside of a Federal Election cycle. This took me by surprise, and while I was annoyed there was little to be angry over: I had effectively disengaged from Australian politics with my attention now split between local issues in San Francisco - the city I moved to 2 1/2 years ago - and more global issues and movements, especially wherever technology is involved.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I got angry at politics in Australia. Interestingly, I turned to my news source — Facebook — to vent; a whimper on the scale of political activism yet scrolling down my news feed I know my sentiments are not alone.

Somewhere between disbelief and disgust, I write this:
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has just penned a new policy on asylum seekers: send them to Papua New Guinea. (Yes, you read that correctly. The “them” in this case refers to non-visa holding refugees.)

Never mind that over 90% of asylum seeker claims in Australia are granted on the basis that these asylum seekers are legitimate refugees. Never mind that after their first 2 years, refugees go on to have a higher employment rate than the national average and are typically job creators and business founders. Never mind that these refugees - by definition - have left their countries in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster, nor that Australia is a signatory to the UN Refugees Convention wherein we grant them protection.

We in the lucky country have never been so heartless. Not based in fact, nor economic reality, nor obligation to our role within the international community, this policy is an example of hysteria-based politics at its worst.

I expect more from our leadership and you should too.

This is a shameful day for Australia.

And here is where we find ourselves. Australia, ranked no.2 on HDI, is diverting all boat arrivals to our regional neighbor Papua New Guinea, ranked 156th - I believe the worst ranked nation in our region.

Condensing decades worth of history into a small paragraph, I will inform the reader of a mundane reality: the number of boat arrivals to Australia ebbs and flows in strong correlation with international refugee movements, as you might expect. Meanwhile the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants in Australia do not arrive by boat but instead come by plane, overstay their visa, and barely raise a political whisper each election campaign: they are far from an interesting story.

Our national psyche is that of “Fortress Australia”. Cringe-worthy news headlines are salvos in our defense against a naval invasion (they’re “crossing the moat”, you see). Were there any doubt that these boat arrivals are illegitimate in our politicians’ eyes, then photos of our elite SAS troops being deployed to handle the scourge will erase it; their military presence conveys with gravitas the imminent danger that we face — or so would have us believe.

The Opposition, a coalition of the Australian Liberal Party and the National Party of Australia, led by Tony Abbott, previously had the most distasteful policy on asylum seekers (too lengthy for this rant, I’m afraid). Now Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party has decided to make illegal immigration a non-issue at the next Federal Election by one-upping Abbott’s xenophobic stance. What a hero.

It’s dirty populist politics on both sides, and yet these are our choices when it comes time to vote.

I wish I had the answer, but I don’t.

What I’m actually thinking about is this: were we to have electronic voting on a range of issues, could we as a populous do any better? At what threshold could a majority safely override the decisions of our elected officials? (“Yes, thank you, the economy is doing fine but we find your stance on immigration to be abhorrent.”) And why can’t we directly elect leaders to cabinet positions anyway?

It could be better, it could be worse, but our democracy definitely deserves a rethink. In this connected world the context of citizenry is an evolving concept, and that’s a conversation worth having.

[Voting is compulsory in Australia.]