On The Nation: Lisa Owen interviews Eva Orner

Youtube clips from the show are available here.

Like New Zealand, Australia has always been a country of immigrants.

But as the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat grew in the 1990, successive governments fought back with harsher and harsher laws.

Eventually in 2001 they came up with 'the Pacific Solution' - transporting asylum seekers who arrived by boat to detention camps on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru, while they processed their claims.

The conditions in those camps have now been revealed in 'Chasing Asylum' a documentary showing at the International Film Festival.

Producer and director Eva Orner said she wanted to make a movie that would shame Australia, so I began by asking her, why?

Lisa Owen: Now, you said you wanted to make this film so that you could shame Australia. Why?

Eva Orner: I think it’s time. I think the problem is – is that most Australians don’t know about what’s happening in offshore detention and detention in Australia, because of the policy of secrecy. And I thought if people knew about it, they would be ashamed and compelled to act and vote differently, potentially in the upcoming election which has just been, and sadly it didn’t work. And also I wanted to shame Australia internationally. I thought if the film was seen widely internationally, perhaps internationally some pressure could be put on Australia by more than just the UN.

Because the thing is, as you say, the election hasn’t changed anything. Do you think it’s actually achievable to shame Australia over this policy? Because you remember when the UN report came out about systemic breaches of anti-torture conventions at Nauru and Manus Island detention centres, Tony Abbott’s response to that was to simply say, ‘Well, Australians are sick of being lectured by the UN.’ That doesn’t sound like someone who was embarrassed, and other politicians on all sides of the fence seem to support this policy.

I think they support it because they think it’ll win them votes, and I think people vote because they don’t know what’s happening. So I think it’s a matter of ignorance and people not being informed because the government won’t let you inform them. So what I’ve done, and I can say this now because the film is out and we haven’t been put in prison, but what I’ve done is a criminal act. So showing what’s going on in offshore detention in Australia is now a criminal act with two years of jail. That’s in legislation in Australia. So I thought if we got in, showed footage to the country and shocked people, things would change. And since the film came out, a poll came out the week before the election where 48% of Australians now think we are treating refugees and asylum-seekers too harshly. Unfortunately, it didn’t translate into the votes. It did in a little way, because there was a swing against Liberal in a big way towards Labor. The problem is Labor have the same policies. A lot more people voted for the Greens, but at the same time a lot more people voted for Pauline Hanson, so Australia’s really, like the rest of the world, bitterly divided on a lot of issues.

So what’s going on here, do you think? Are Australians xenophobic, or are they just sort of scared?

I think it’s a combination. I think, look, you have to be honest about Australia. We don’t have a great track record all the way back to settlement with our indigenous community. I think there’s been a lot of racism over the years. But at the same time, we have this great multicultural society, so it’s a mix. I think the biggest problem is Australians don’t know what’s going on, and 15 years of a policy of secrecy has a massive impact on the population. And one film can’t change everything, but it can have a trickle-down effect and hopefully inform people that what we are doing is okay. The average Australian— most Australians wouldn’t know we’re the only country in the world that puts children in indefinite detention, so if people can just find out the basic facts and see images, I’m hoping it will change things long term. And it feels like we’re getting to a tipping point where the Australian public don’t accept what’s happening any more.

All right, well, you say that you don’t think they understand exactly what’s going on. Sum it up briefly for us. What are conditions like in these places?

They’re horrific. What you need to know is Australia puts people in indefinite detention. Australia sends people that come by boat to other countries, to developing countries, to two detention centres. One is in Papua New Guinea on Manus Island. One is in Nauru. People on Nauru live in tents; they are mouldy. We are the only country in the world to put children in indefinite detention. There’s no education. There’s no proper food. There’s nothing for them to do, and there’s no future. And when they are resettled after years, some of them are resettled on Manus and Nauru, there’s nothing for them. There are no jobs on Nauru. There’s no jobs on Manus. There’s violence. The locals attack refugees. Women are raped. It’s horrific. The conditions are horrific. People have set themselves on fire and died. One man was killed in a riot on Manus Island. Another man died because he cut his foot and didn’t get medical attention. And this is costing the Australian taxpayer $1.2 billion a year.

Now, the reason you know this, as you mentioned, is that you had cameras in these places where you’re not allowed to film. You talked about the whistleblower legislation that came in that means that you can go to jail for two years if you talk about this stuff. Yet you got people to speak to you. Why did they speak out?

I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people, and you have to remember that over 15 years that the camp’s been running, except for a couple of years, less than a handful of people have spoken out. They’re too scared to speak out. I was relentless. This is what I do. I spent two years. I talked to people. I asked people. People trusted me. I think they knew my work and my reputation, and I think they thought it was important. But it was not easy. It was a really hard film to make. Ultimately this is a film about places you’re not allowed to go to, people you’re not allowed to speak to, and then halfway through the making of the film, it became about if you spoke to people, you could all go to jail. So it was the most impossible story to tell.

But the thing is, as you say now, you’re saying openly that you’ve committed a crime, but have there been any repercussions? Has anyone been charged? Has anything happened?

No. People have lost their jobs. The reason I’m talking about it loosely now is because the film’s been out in Australia for a couple of months and nothing’s happened. The government clearly aren’t going to do anything. But during the making of the film, we had a massive team of lawyers all working pro bono for us, not just human rights lawyers but criminal QCs who were looking at legislation, advising me and my whistleblowers of what our levels of risk were. And when I came back into the country from America just before the film was released, my lawyers were really concerned I’d be picked up at Border Force by the government. I wasn’t. I thought it was all bluff, and that’s why I stood up to what I think is really wrong. But the fact that this exists, this legislation exists, in a democracy is so shocking to me.

Australia, as you mentioned, is now sending what it calls legitimate refugees from Nauru and Manus to resettle in places like Cambodia. Your film explains that the Australian government’s paid $55 million to Cambodia to take these refugees. So how many has Cambodia resettled?

None. Six have been there. This is about a year and a half ago, when the Australian government negotiated this deal – bribed Cambodia to take our refugees, breaking the convention again – the refugee convention of which we’re a signatory. Six people. You have to volunteer to go. We can’t force our asylum-seekers to go there. Six went. None are there now because— And I went to Cambodia to look around and to see what we were offering them for $55 million, and it’s nothing. They were living in a villa. They weren’t allowed to talk to the media. There was no jobs. There was no resettlement. There was no language training. There’s nothing for them. Cambodia has no history of resettlement.

So $55 million Australian for half a dozen people who didn’t end up staying there.

Yeah. Yeah.

So how does the government justify that cost, say, compared to letting these people settle in Australia?

Our government says that the Cambodian situation is a success. They just ignore every bit of common sense, and when challenged about anything, they just say, ‘We’re doing a great job. We’re taking in a lot of refugees.’ Malcolm Turnbull, our prime minister, wrote an op-ed just before the election in our national paper saying we’re third in our refugee intake in the world, which is a complete lie. My lawyer and I wrote an op-ed that rebutted that and said we’re 67th in the world per capita. The government can say whatever they want, and for some reason there’s no repercussions.

But the reality is, isn’t it, that the government is right when it says that this policy has stopped the boats?

No, boats still come. We just don’t know about it. There’s been over 30 boats that have reportedly come to Australia in the last year, but we’re not allowed to see them because of Operation Border Force, or whatever we call it now. Sovereign Borders. Operation Sovereign Borders. The boats come to Australia. There’s no press. A boat came about three weeks ago from Sri Lanka.

So do you still think they’re coming in the same numbers?

No, of course not. It’s greatly worked, but so does building a wall, so we can say we’re like Donald Trump, who wants to build a wall in Mexico. There is a refugee crisis on in the world. There’s 65 million displaced people. They’re not all coming to Australia. The most that ever came to Australia in one year when the camps weren’t operating was 25,000, which is a lot, and no one wants that. People drown. It’s dangerous. But putting them in island hellholes where they’re being tortured and dying and that’s costing a fortune is not a long-term or reasonable solution.

You touch on the world situation with displaced people. Australia has said it will take 12,000 Syrian refugees on top of its annual quota, which is just over 13 and a half thousand, I think it is. So it is presumably doing its bit, isn’t it, taking refugees from other parts of the world?

Well, Tony Abbott, our previous prime minister, announced we were going to take an additional 12,000 refugees last September, so it’s been how many months since that? Almost 10. We’ve taken less than a hundred. In the same time, Canada has taken in 30,000 Syrian refugees, so I would suggest it’s actually not happening. The government hasn’t spoken about it. They won’t give out figures, but we’ve discovered there’s less than a hundred that have been taken. So it doesn’t appear that that additional 12,000 is happening, so again the Australian government can make these announcements and then there’s no follow-up. We’re currently 67th in the world in our refugee intake. That is a fact. We take 13,750 a year, the lowest in decades. The most liberal people in the country are just asking for it to be upped to between 30 to 50,000 a year. No one is saying let everyone in. No one is saying let millions of people come to Australia. And here’s the thing. Millions of people don’t want to come to Australia. It’s a really small amount. In the scale of the world in terms of the 65 million displaced people, we’re saying maybe 50,000. Could we just be a little bit humane, not torture and kill people, not put children in indefinite detention? We’re not radical. We’re just saying that what we are doing is appalling and that in years to come, we will look back on this with absolute shame. And I guess what I wanted to do is bear witness because nobody’s been allowed to show what it looks like, and when you see the footage inside the camp and the state of the refugees there, it’s horrific.

Eva Orner, director and producer of the film, thank you so much for coming in this morning. And people can bear witness to that and see Chasing Asylum themselves. Thank you.

Thank you.

Transcript provided by Able. www.able.co.nz

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