Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said this week that our country needs to start “calling a spade a spade”.
And that means his department will no longer be using the term ‘asylum seekers’ to refer to those who try and come to Australia by boat, fleeing persecution in their home countries.
Instead, these people will be called ‘illegals’.
Well, Minister Morrison, we think we’ll join you in this “calling a spade a spade” caper and say this:
You sir, are wrong.
As we all know too well, it is not illegal to seek asylum in Australia. Australia is a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and that means refugees have a right to enter our country without authorisation for the purpose of seeking asylum.
Our country’s signature on that document means that behaviour that would normally be ‘illegal’ is permitted. Permitted as in legal. As in, okay by us. As in, within the bounds of the law. As in, not ‘illegal’ at all.
But Mr Morrison hasn’t just got it wrong legally, but also morally.
Words influence our society’s attitudes and behaviours. Language can serve to dehumanise and blame or it can serve to inspire compassion and love. Mr Morrison has chosen the former, and decided to enforce that same language on the thousands of officials under his command.
Words and language have never mattered more than in the emotionally charged debate about asylum seekers.
This is the debate where “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come,” it etched into the national consciousness. A debate where “stop the boats” was a catchphrase that helped win a federal election. A debate where we speak about “queue jumpers”, when there is no queue.
Language can be a game changer. And the game has just been changed for the worse.
Calling people who come to this country asking for our help ‘illegals’ only perpetuates an environment of fear and hate.
And this country should be better than that.
You can tell Minister Morrison how you feel about this decision by emailing his office at scott.morrison.mp@aph.gov.au or calling on 02 6277 7860.
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Top Comments
yes...they should be called ILLEGALS....there were thousand waiting patiently outside Australia for their turn and these people couldn't jump the queue coz they didn't have money to bribe smugglers....its different with those rich welfare-seekers....so lets call them ILLEGALS WELFARE-SEEKERS..
Most of you obviously have no idea of what is going on, time and time again it has been proven that many people coming here on boats are in fact economic refugees, there is nothing positve about arriving on a boat, and it opens the door for the wrong type of person to get here, as most of them do throw away their I.D., the going price for a people smuggler is $10,000 US, would it not be better and cheaper to jump on a plane? No cant do that because you need papers to do that, OK, some of you are thinking maybe they dont have papers? Most of them come via Indonesia, how did they get there from their home country with no papers? Another mystery here, If you had a spare $10,000 US and wanted to get a boat here, all you would need to do is get 1 or 2 mates together and pool your spare cash 3 people would have $30,000 US, do you realize how much $30,000 US would get you in Indonesia? a proper seaworthy boat and a skipper with a safe passage ensured,but they know if they do that their chances of resettlement would not be good, so they choose to hand money over to organized criminals that teach them how to play the system, they are just out of Indonesian waters, the skipper jumps on a smaller boat, heads back to home and they damage the main boat knowing full well the Australians will come to their aid. If people out there are falling for this then it is a poor reflection on the mindset of many. And as for the Middle Eastern issue, why is it that the N.S.W. have had to form a 'Middle Eastern crime task force'? the truth is there is a problem with crime in that community and this is also seen in many other countires in the world, so a spade is a spade and there is nothing wrong with Mr Morrison's comments nor that of people that do voice their concerns about Middle Eastern crime, and just writing people off as bigots, racist, redneck etc, will not help this debate in any way, shape or form.