Two in every five asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat after 19 July 2013 were not sent to offshore detention.
The numbers give lie to the assertions of successive federal governments. When he announced the policy, then prime minister Kevin Rudd said: “Arriving in Australia by boat will no longer mean settlement in Australia.” Scott Morrison’s term as immigration minister is famous for his soundbite delivered to boat arrivals sent offshore: “You will never live in Australia.”
The government argues its hardline deterrence policy must be absolute: there are no exceptions. But in fact exceptions are the rule. It is a rarely acknowledged fact about offshore processing but a matter of deep torment for those who were sent to Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Yasin Abdallah was only 17 in late 2013 when he was forcibly transferred to Manus Island. He is from Darfur, Sudan, and one day wants to become a mechanical engineer. After six years in PNG he was medevaced to Melbourne where he is detained in the Mantra hotel.
He has not been allowed outside for more than eight months. It has always been on his mind that some of his boat mates were never sent offshore – he knows some who are living in Sydney, he says.
He doesn’t begrudge them their luck but doesn’t know why he was chosen. He says he’s come to understand that “everything is possible with this government”.
The stunning scale of exceptions to offshore processing was revealed by department officials under questioning by Greens senator Nick McKim. Home affairs senior assistant secretary Alana Sullivan rejected McKim’s assertion that “a lot of people” were allowed to remain in Australia, responding instead that it was “a small number of people”.
She took the question on notice, however, and the answer turned out to be 40%. Of the 5,191 who arrived by boat since the policy was introduced, 2,074 were not transferred to Manus Island or Nauru [pdf, p4].
By way of explanation, the bureaucrats responded: “The implementation of regional processing arrangements has meant that, in some cases, individuals arriving at different times may be subject to different policy settings and situated in different locations.”
The answer also said individuals must undergo pre-transfer assessments, including health checks.
The home affairs department has not responded to requests for information.
McKim believes it was random: “Offshore detention was always about punishing innocent people by making an example of them. It was always a political decision, and at its heart completely arbitrary and cruel.”
Madeline Gleeson, a lawyer and academic at the University of New South Wales, says officials’ decision-making was never transparent.
“If there was a method to how people were chosen, then – as far as I’m aware – it is a tightly held secret within the department,” she says.
In December 2014 Morrison announced that people who arrived by boat before the start of that year and hadn’t yet been sent to PNG or Nauru would be reprieved from offshore processing [pdf, submission 31, p49].
Sahar Okhovat, from the Refugee Council of Australia, says ill health seemed to be a reason some people remained onshore, but it wasn’t consistent. Many asylum seekers with disabilities or health conditions were transferred. As for why transfers ended, there’s nothing public, in writing. “From what I understand it was simply because there was not enough capacity on the islands,” she says.
Mohammed Kadar was 17 – the same age as Abdallah – when he arrived by boat in August 2013. It was a small wooden boat with two diesel engines. There were a few Sudanese and Syrians on board but the rest were “skinny Somalis” like him.
Upon arrival they were told they’d never settle in Australia. Some returned home, he says, and most of his boat mates were sent to offshore detention. But Kadar wasn’t. Why?
“I don’t know, honestly,” he says. “One of the big questions we ask each other: how was I allowed to stay? It wasn’t fair the way they were doing it.”
Although Kadar wasn’t sent to Manus, the system has not been easy on him either. After all this time he remains in limbo. After two years in detention he was released to community detention and placed on a bridging visa, before finally receiving a five-year temporary visa.
He worked in an abattoir in Tallangatta, in north-eastern Victoria, and now has a mowing business in Adelaide.
He always wanted to study but wasn’t allowed until this year. Finally he has enrolled to begin year 11 in 2021. “I can’t wait. I spoke to the school manager today,” he says. “I’m going to get books! I’m going to celebrate, big time!”
He aims to study social work and eventually become a counsellor.
Kadar has stayed in touch with men in hotel detention in Melbourne and Port Moresby. It’s a complex friendship, on both sides.
“I don’t want to think about it, because there’s nothing I can do to help,” he says. “And most of the time they don’t want to contact you because they see you as a free man.
“I feel bad for them. I was changed by two years in detention. I can’t imagine seven years.”
