The Prime Minister recently announced that Australia would no longer "let bad people play us for mugs". With issues including border protection, welfare and bail conditions, Mr Abbott suggested that Australia is overly credulous. "For too long," he said, "we have given those who might be a threat to our country the benefit of the doubt."
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This is true, though he and I have conflicting ideas of who is threatening what in Australia. Putting this aside for now, Abbott's phrase is striking: 'benefit of the doubt'. What exactly does this mean?
The simplest definition is this: when we are knowingly ignorant about someone, we do not assume the worst. Someone might have a record of being aggressive, violent, deceitful and vain, but we cannot say for sure that he did punch, scream, lie or preen, without evidence. And even with evidence, we often have to check someone's accusations: are they plausible, consistent, corroborated? The benefit of the doubt is a simple check on prejudice: we do not charge someone with transgressions or crimes without some proof.
The Prime Minister said that we have given "the benefit of the doubt at our borders". This is simply not true. Immigration legislation describes asylum seekers who come by boat as "unauthorised maritime arrivals". None will settle in Australia: they are turned away or detained, and released to their country of origin or Papua New Guinea. The Prime Minister of PNG, where about a thousand asylum-seekers are incarcerated, has stated that most asylum seekers are "just trying to have economic opportunities," and many Australians repeat this accusation.
However, departmental figures show that approximately seventy percent of asylum seekers are genuine refugees. And of those who appeal, the overwhelming majority are successful. In short: those willing to make the gruelling and hazardous trip to Australia have, not surprisingly, good reasons for doing so.
Despite this evidence, Australia treats asylum seekers as criminals to be refused entry and refuge. And in instances where more evidence might be forthcoming – screening, for example – the government has adopted "enhanced" procedures that sacrifice effectiveness for efficiency. In other words: they increase actual ignorance, but decrease doubt, and the benefit it merits. The consequence of this is a greater risk of refoulement: sending refugees back to the very dangers they sought asylum from.
More damningly, not even children have been given the benefit of the doubt. The Human Rights Commission recently reported ongoing abuse in detention centres, alongside self-harm and mental illness. "Every day that they are in detention," said one charity worker employed on Nauru, "they face the risk of being sexually assaulted, physically assaulted, verbally assaulted. Every day." Even if their parents were economic opportunists – and there is no evidence of this whatsoever – these children would still have committed no crimes in coming to Australia. If anyone deserved the benefit of the doubt, it would be these kids. And yet the Prime Minister feels "no guilt whatsoever" at their imprisonment.
In this light, the Prime Minister's portrait of Australia is misleading. He suggests a kind nation, wary of being too cruel in situations of uncertainty; a nation quick to offer help and slow to make charges of criminality or ethical perversion. But Australia, for all the countless everyday kindnesses of its citizens, treats asylum seekers with contemptuous brutality. There is a bipartisan spirit of political opportunism that has deemed these foreigners 'guilty' well before the boats arrive. Benefit of the doubt? We don't even give them the benefit of international law.
Perhaps we are being played as mugs. But not by refugees. And we're not the ones who suffer most from this game.
Damon Young is a Melbourne philosopher.
