Asher Hirsch – This week, home affairs minister Peter Dutton again reiterated the false claim that "there are 14,000 people in Indonesia waiting to get on to boats now".
I've just returned from a research trip in Indonesia, where I spoke to many refugees. Such a claim is not only disingenuous, it also highlights the double standards of Australia's approach to refugee protection in the region.
Refugees in Indonesia don't want to get on boats – they will wait patiently for a fair resettlement process. However, the Australian government is continuously undermining any such process and making life much harder for refugees who are waiting for a solution.
As refugees in Indonesia told Fairfax on Sunday: "If there was a proper humanitarian program, no one would be willing to go by boat." The problem is that resettlement from Indonesia is only a tiny number, and getting smaller.
In 2014, then minister for immigration Scott Morrison announced that no refugees who registered with UNHCR in Indonesia after July 2014 would be resettled in Australia. Globally, resettlement numbers have drastically decreased, with US president Donald Trump considering to decimate the US's refugee resettlement program down to less than 25,000, from Barack Obama's 110,000 cap.
This has created an almost unattainable hope. While there are more than 14,000 refugees and people seeking asylum in Indonesia, only a few hundred are resettled to another country. UNHCR had to tell refugees in Indonesia the sobering fact that most will never be resettled.
Dutton's claim also runs counter to his department's recent policy decisions in Indonesia.
In March 2018, the Australian government announced it would cut funding to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Indonesia. This funding is used to provide basic assistance for refugees and people seeking asylum in Indonesia while they wait for resettlement or another durable solution. This support includes food, medical care and some other social supports.
In order to receive this support, refugees need to be detained by Indonesian authorities, after which they are referred to IOM to provide "migrant care management". Some of this care is provided to refugees still in detention, while others are assisted to live in community houses throughout the archipelago.
However, from March 2018, no new referrals will be helped by IOM, leaving over 4,000 refugees (and any new arrivals) without any support in Indonesia.
Refugees have been stranded in Indonesia for years, without the right to work and with very limited access to any financial or social support. While some may have arrived in Indonesia with their life savings, money is running out. Others are relying on the generous support of individuals and small nongovernment organisations (many of which are run by refugees themselves).
Out of desperation, hundreds of refugees have been camped outside Kalideres detention centre in Jakarta, begging to be detained in order to receive basic food and shelter. Between 2014 and 2017, more than 4,000 refugees have reported themselves to detention centres, leading to overcrowding in what were already inhumane conditions.
Dutton and other Australian politicians talk a lot about their wish to undermine "the people smugglers' business model". This business model is based on the desperation felt by refugees who are seeking protection and have no safe and viable options available to them.
If refugees in Indonesia have access to basic support, if they are allowed to work and have basic rights, and if they get access to a fair and timely resettlement process or other viable long-term options, they won't be interested in anything people smugglers are trying to sell.
If Dutton is indeed concerned about the 14,000 refugees in Indonesia, he will reverse his department's decision to cut support to refugees in Indonesia and work with Indonesia and other countries in the region to address the lack of rights for refugees stranded on the doorstep of Australia.
[Asher Hirsch is a senior policy officer with the Refugee Council of Australia.]