Australia moves to prove pitch as migrants' haven

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the allegations were a 'travesty'. Photo / Getty Images

Yesterday, as Chinese dragons and African drums launched the annual multicultural Harmony Day in Sydney, Australia faced renewed claims of mistreatment of asylum seekers and allegations of plans to fuel fear of Islamic migration.

The allegations came as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced new moves to boost tolerance and counter racism in a speech that also urged Australians not to treat Muslims as terrorists or to oppose Islamic migrants.

But as he made the appeal, senior Liberals closed ranks to defend immigration spokesman Scott Morrison against claims he wanted a fear campaign against Muslim migration.

Fairfax newspapers said he had urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on fear of Muslim immigrants, their presence in Australia, and their "inability to integrate".

Morrison declined comment other than to describe the reports as gossip, and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the allegations were a "travesty" against a decent, compassionate and sensitive public figure.

Bowen urged Morrison to explain his position. "I call on him to make it clear that those reports are not accurate, and if they are accurate, for him to change his position and retract those comments."

The Opposition also rejected claims it stole its proposal to fund Queensland flood relief by cutting foreign aid from the far-right National Party.

One Nation's Queensland director, Ian Nelson, told the Australian he posted a call to slash funding of Indonesian schools on the party's website, and within weeks Abbott called for A$500 million ($635 million) in cuts.

"They can deny all they like, but the idea came from us," he said.

But Opposition front bencher Greg Hunt rejected the claim, saying the proposal had come from "the community".

Morrison had earlier been castigated for criticising the use of federal funds to fly 21 relatives to Sydney for the funerals of asylum seekers who died in last year's shipwreck at Christmas Island.

Among them was a 9-year-old Iranian orphaned in the tragedy, who became the centre of an outcry over his forced return to the island.

Yesterday, human rights lawyers launched a legal challenge, claiming his return breached Australia's international obligations.

But late last night, Bowen announced that the boy - and family members caring for him - would be released and moved back to Sydney.

Christmas Island shire president Gordon Thomson had earlier described the government's decision to return the boy and his family to the remote territory as "stupid and silly".

"The boy in particular is in a terrible way," he told ABC Radio.

"I understand that he goes to the gate every time a bus bringing a new group of refugees to Christmas Island turns up at the detention centre.

"He is waiting at the gate looking for his mother and his father."

A house in Sydney close to the family's other relatives is being sought for them to move into.

Further claims of breaches of international treaties have come in a Human Rights Commission report on its November inspection of a detention centre in the remote West Australian outback town of Leonora, 830km northeast of Perth.

The centre houses 200 people - including more than 80 children - in temporary buildings in what the commission said were "harsh" conditions.

Its report said the centre lacked adequate health, medical and psychiatric facilities and "is not an appropriate place to hold families with children, particularly for long periods of time".

In a speech to the Sydney Institute, Bowen launched a new "People of Australia" multicultural policy emphasising the nation as a haven for migrants.

Under the policy the Government is creating a new Multicultural Council, establishing a national anti-racism strategy, and using sports as the centre of a programme to encourage the social mixing of different ethnic groups.

Bowen said that unlike Europe, where multiculturalism had been declared dead or responsible for crime and terrorism, Australia had nurtured its migrants as citizens with equal rights and opportunity.

But in the age of concern about extremist terrorism, it was inevitable questions would be asked about Islamic migration to Australia, despite less than 2 per cent of the nation identifying themselves as Muslim.

He said the vast majority of migrants arrived not to change Australian values, but to embrace them.

The 1990s wave of Bosnian refugees fleeing religious persecution and intolerance had come not to force their beliefs on others but to live in a country which embraced freedom.

Similarly, many Hazara refugees arrived because they had been driven from religious extremists in Afghanistan who saw them as not pious enough.

"To cast all Islamic migrants or all members of any religious group as unworthy of their place in our national community, however, tars the many with the extremist views of the very few and does an injustice to all."
Additional reporting: AAP