Over the summer of 1999 and early 2000, the number of people seeking asylum in Australia, rose by 450% to 4,175 people, arriving mainly by boat.
By June 2000 detention centres, then located in remote locations such as Woomera and in Western Australia, were experiencing riots and breakouts, as asylum seeker numbers swelled and processing times grew longer.
The 2000 cabinet papers, released on Friday by the National Archives of Australia, show the Howard government was increasingly concerned about how it could eliminate what it saw as the “pull factors” luring asylum seekers to Australian shores.
And it was in 2000 that the seeds of one of the most divisive policies in Australia’s history – the Pacific solution - were sown.
The idea was not fully articulated until after the Tampa crisis, when the Norwegian cargo ship MV Tampa was denied permission to enter Australian waters after rescuing a sinking boat carrying 433 asylum seekers.
The government introduced the border protection bill into the House of Representatives, saying it would confirm Australian sovereignty to “determine who will enter and reside in Australia”.
But the 2000 cabinet papers reveal the debate within the Howard cabinet about Australia’s human rights obligations and how qualms over increasingly tough measures to deal with growing numbers of boat arrivals were put to one side.
“This appears to have been a key moment when cabinet might have paused, reflected upon and improved the implementation of its deterrent strategy,” cabinet historian Chris Wallace writes in her essay about the cabinet papers.
In March, then-immigration minister Philip Ruddock took a submission to cabinet. It began: “A boat carrying 52 Christians from Maluku province, Indonesia, was intercepted on 22 January 2000.”
Wallace writes: “This opening sentence from immigration and multicultural affairs minister Philip Ruddock’s cabinet submission to cabinet’s national security committee quietly foreshadowed a new era of Australian politics which would explode the following year in the Tampa crisis.”
In contrast to Ruddock’s submission, the national security committee’s decision made no reference to the Indonesians’ religion, she says.
On 8 June, about 500 detainees broke out of Woomera, followed by breakouts at the Curtin and Port Hedland immigration reception and processing centres, as they were known.
As Australia prepared to host the Olympics, conditions at the centres were now making news.
An analysis of detention centre breakouts in June, considered by cabinet in November, suggested that “frustration over the perceived delay in issuing protection visas” was to blame. Detainees had false expectations from people smugglers, and actual processing times had increased because of the enormous increase in unauthorised arrivals.
By November cabinet faced “an increasingly non-compliant population, and an increasing number of detainees being refused temporary protection visas”.
Unrest was such that “it is conceivable that matters could go beyond the capacity” of Australasian Correctional Management, the private sector firm to which the government had contracted out detention centre management, and other civilian agencies to manage. Using Australian Defence Force personnel as a last resort was countenanced.
In recognition that detention centres needed to expand rapidly, the expenditure review committee agreed in May to “long-term funding” for the immigration detention centres.
The cabinet papers show the Howard government united on preferring private sector management and that it explored the idea of successful refugees repaying part of the costs of their detention. The idea of “a risk management approach”, instead of detention, was rejected.
The government was also in discussions with the Indonesian government about funding an offshore processing and holding facility in Indonesia, under the auspices of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
At that time asylum seekers transiting through Indonesia were largely in the community and not subject to detention. Cooperation from Indonesian authorities in disrupting people smuggling operations was judged as fragile.
“Sustainability of Indonesian cooperation is dependent to a large extent on the Indonesian government’s assessment of the costs and benefits,” Ruddock said in his submission.
Indonesia had informally sought funding, and Australia not supporting the centre “may cause the current interception and detention arrangement in Indonesia to unravel, resulting in an increased level of unauthorised boat arrivals”, he said.
He acknowledged that “the possibility of human rights abuses in an Australian-funded centre cannot be ruled out”, but went on to argue that “they would be minimised with the direct involvement of the IOM”.
Several other departments expressed qualms. The attorney general’s department voiced concerns about human rights breaches within the centre and specifically warned that any breaches of the non-refoulement obligations by Indonesia could give rise to criticism of Australia. The involvement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in assessing refugee applications mitigated this risk but it was not eliminated, the department said.
“The proposal involves significant risks which would need to be carefully managed,” the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade noted. “These include the possibility of the Australian government being associated with serious human rights violations and of the centre becoming an irritant in the bilateral relationship.”
The department also doubted the centre would stem the flow of refugees to Australia.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet raised the difficulties both countries were already experiencing in returning those judged non-refugees to source and transit countries including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It worried that the centre could fill with non-refugees with little prospect of removal, “but the costs at least would be less than in Australia”.
Cabinet agreed that when Indonesia presented a firm proposal to the International Organisation for Migration for a processing and holding centre there, Australia would negotiate a contribution to the centre via the organisation.
Ruddock’s cabinet submission underpinning this decision is “a key document in the Howard government’s march towards an absolute offshore, extraterritorial approach to the management of unauthorised arrivals by sea”, Wallace writes.
At the same meeting, cabinet considered Ruddock’s submission on sanctions for immigration detainees who engaged in “inappropriate behaviour”. These included a new “non-warrant strip search power” that Ruddock’s submission said was likely to be considered an “overreaction” by those opposed to the detention policies.
The departments of prime Minister and cabinet and the attorney general noted their concerns. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade opposed it outright and reminded cabinet of its own recognition that Australia’s mandatory detention and temporary protection visa regimes had already “taken us close to the minimum standards of treatment the Refugee Convention, international and domestic law, and human rights standards will bear”.
Yet cabinet endorsed Ruddock’s suite of recommendations, including non-warrant strip search powers, with the proviso that a protocol for undertaking searches and examinations be developed jointly by Ruddock and then-attorney general Daryl Williams.
