Former Aussie PM hits out

2003-05-06 11:03

Melbourne - Former conservative prime minister Malcolm Fraser lashed out on Tuesday at Australia's immigration policy, saying it contained a "significant element of racism".

At the launch of a book about asylum seekers in detention centres, he said the government's policy of mandatory detention for all illegal immigrants was "very wrong", but unlikely to be changed.

Fraser, who led a Liberal-National coalition government from 1975-83, also likened mandatory detention to the unlamented "White Australia" policy under which non-whites were banned as migrants up to the 1960s.

"Evil may be too strong a word to use in relation to them, but the way the policy is carried out denies basic rights of asylum seekers," he told reporters here.

Fraser, whose ministry in the early 80s included current Prime Minister John Howard, has become one of the Howard government's most persistent critics on either side of politics.

He also attacked Howard's close relationship with the United States, claiming it was highly dangerous.

Fraser said he understood the need for Australia to have a close alliance with the United States. "But to make the United States the be all and end all of Australian policy is highly dangerous for the long-term future of this country," he added.

His latest barrage came as Howard ended a visit to the United States in which he was a guest at President George W Bush's Texas ranch and during which Howard declared the US-Australia alliance the strongest it has ever been.

But he reserved his most stinging criticism for mandatory detention which he said was contrary to international conventions to which Australia had committed itself as far back as 1954.

"I think there's a significant element of racism in the policy," he said.

He told how he had come to hate any element of racism or sectarianism, saying that wherever they occurred in the world they had to be opposed.

But he said the opposition Labour Party was no better, as it began Australia's current immigration policy and opened the immigration detention centres, which he described as "desert prisons".

"I don't see any sign that either the government or the Labor Party would change the policy in ways that I would regard as adequate and significant," he said.

He said many people would have believed there was no chance of overturning the White Australia policy after it was defended by former conservative Prime Minister Robert Menzies in 1949.

But like that policy, he was hopeful that Australia's mandatory detention policy would also be overturned eventually.

- AFX