| Business |
Howard’s tough stand
AUSTRALIAN prime minister John Howard
has taken a rigid and authoritarian stand to the entry of HIV/AIDS
migrants or refugees to his country.
He intends to approach Parliament to amend the laws to bar those
so afflicted from entering Australia.
Howard indicated that this was a necessary reaction to figures
showing that the number of HIV-positive people moving to the
Australian state of Victoria had quadrupled in the past two years.
As reported, there was no indication whether this influx of
HIV-positive people came from other Australian states or was the
result of a wave of HIV-positive migrants and refugees.
A report published in The National last week indicated that the
rate of HIV infection in Australia had risen by 50%. This blowout
was not attributed to waves of migrants and refugees, but to
community apathy and complacency following years of dwindling
HIV/AIDS infection.
The stated reasons behind this inexplicable and bizarre prime
ministerial intention also included a justification based on
Australia’s rigid ban against anyone who has or has ever had
tuberculosis.
Howard used the phrase “migrants and refugees” when referring to
his projected HIV/ AIDS ban. He did not say that such a ban would
apply to visitors or tourists intending only to visit his country.
Yet that is the fate of hundreds of family members who have been
barred from visiting their relatives in Australia, often with
tragic emotional results for the whole family. Their crime was to
contract tuberculosis.
Of course Howard can justify barring active tuberculosis carriers
on the commendable grounds of protecting his flock from infection.
Probably few would argue with that.
But that ban extends far further, as many in Papua New Guinea have
discovered. We know, for example, of a married PNG citizen whose
spouse is an Australian.
The PNG citizen contracted TB in 1966, and was rid of the disease
within three years. That’s not good enough for Howard and his
cohorts, and the spouse has been forbidden to enter Australia
despite having no indication for 38 years of any tubercular
infection.
Three of the couple’s adult children and six of their
grandchildren are Australian citizens living in that country, but
their parent and grandparent is barred from visiting them.
Perhaps Howard’s proposals re HIV/AIDS will be similarly extended.
We are at a loss to see what the Australian PM hopes to achieve.
Has he stopped to consider the thousands of Australian citizens
who have travelled and often lived for extensive periods in other
countries?
Is he suggesting that they should be tested for HIV/AIDS each time
they seek to re-enter their homeland?
What can be gained from barring migrants with HIV/AIDS while
ignoring Australian carriers of the same disease?
We wonder exactly what the Australian PM is so concerned about.
What proportion of migrants and refugees has arrived carrying HIV
or AIDS?
We suspect it to be a small figure.
And even if it was not, exactly what does the PM fear on behalf of
his countrymen?
The massive publicity campaigns that had such a phenomenal impact
on young Australians a decade or more ago made it perfectly clear
how HIV/AIDS is acquired.
Are we to assume that Howard fears a massive invasion of HIV/AIDS
victims intent on vindictively infecting the Australian
population?
Or is he concerned about some financial impact on the effervescent
Australian economy?
Perhaps the Australian PM trembles at the prospect of tens of
thousands of infected migrants and refugees flooding Australia’s
shores and in an even darker vision, sees that horde daring to ask
for access to Australia’s vast public health machine.
Australia in the Pacific runs the risk of becoming a cold and
impervious bastion immune to any influences or appeals that do not
synchronise with its own plans of regional hegemony.
The tens of millions of kina thrown at HIV/AIDS by Australia is
the kind of grand gesture beloved by Australian leaders and in
particular Howard and his foreign affairs shadow, Alexander
Downer.
The outcome of that munificence has yet to be determined.
But placed beside a heartless and impenetrable barrier against
HIV/AIDS victims, it appears to be thin gruel indeed.
 
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