Please note,  the views and opinions expressed in this scholarship entry (and all other scholarship entries) are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Global Mobility Immigration Lawyers.

Immigration lawyers acting for

asylum seekers are “unAustralian”

The truth said by Peter Dutton

Lawyers representing asylum seekers trying to stay in the country are “un-Australian”, former Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had declared last year. Without a shadow of doubt, he was absolutely correct.

Australia is a unique country for its multiculturalism. For example, when I first came to Australia, I was amazed at how the first question of others when they met someone for the first time was, where do you come from? This clearly evidences how diverse the Australian culture is as it is embedded in people’s mind that Australians come from a variety of ethnicities. People have accepted this, but they should still exercise caution, as not all come legally or with a good intent, especially in the current climate of terrorism.

It is very easy for a terrorist, do disguise himself or herself as an asylum seeker, come into Australia, and possibly commit crimes. The primary reason for this would be the unavailability of identity documents of the person who seeks asylum. Now, due to this, when the Immigration Department takes longer times to process these applications, people start complaining! It is only for our safety that this happens. Hence I can’t find any reason why the lawyers want to support these claims and therefore I believe they may be “unAustralian”.

Another issue is money. The Australian Government pays for everything that asylum seekers use or do, including basic necessities’ fees. Where does this money come from? It comes from hard-working and honest tax payers who have come legally, usually on merit, after much struggle in their life. Surely, they wouldn’t want their tax money to be used here. It also piles on loads of money on the ever-increasing debt of Australia, which is worth billions, in fact, it’s annual interest is more than a billion dollars. Thus, who would want such a system? The lawyers who defend possible unscrupulous people, even though not intentionally, could be considered nothing but “unAustralian”.

How can the asylum seekers ‘demand’ asylum? How can the lawyers defend such ‘demands’? After all, they can only ‘request’ refuge in a foreign country. It depends on the country how to deal with them. Such demanding nature of asylum seekers only encourages me to think in one way- that something wrong is happening as otherwise there is no reason to do so. There is no excuse for lawyers trying to act for such fast-tracking and queue jumping demands. They may be considered “unAustralian” if they do so because this could potentially hurt legal migrants applying on merit who wait for long times to process their own Visa applications.

All in all, there is absolutely no reason for asylum seekers to be concerned about anything, as the Australian government is more than capable to help real needy people. If they revolt against the government, how can the government be sure they are good people? How can they trust them to not revolt against the government in the future? Therefore, without a shadow of doubt, lawyers supporting these claims and demands may be capable of being described by only one word- “unAustralian”. They may unconsciously damage lives of lawful Australian residents if their clients turn out to be terrorists. Furthermore, in the rarest of rare circumstances, legal actions maybe required on the lawyers themselves as they may turn out to be brainwashed themselves, as we have already witnessed, in Europe, how their own people were brainwashed by terrorist organisations such as ISIS and all of these led to calamities.

It must be noted that, Australia, although a very capable country, has its limits. Even if all the asylum seekers are genuine and need urgent refuge, if Australia doesn’t have enough resources, it can’t possibly help them. So I believe that both, lawyers and their clients, need to be patient and accept the decisions of the Australian government, although they may appear to be harsh.