19 July, 2013 3:40PM AEST

Malcolm Fraser's refugee solution

Does the former prime minister have the solution to the asylum seeker issue?

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Asylum seekers and border control have become key focus areas for both sides of politics and is set to be a top issue for voters leading into the Federal election.

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has been vocal about what he believes is the solution and has a different view to most of the current leaders.

He told ABC's Annie Gaffney that the figures paint a clear picture.

"Our intake is small, if you look at UN figures in Canada they take 170,000 refugees each year, in Germany 600,000 are taken in each year," he said.

"Politicians say that we're the only target but that's untrue, it's a worldwide problem."


Mr Fraser believes that policy deterrence was never going to be the solution.

"The policy deterrence was always doomed.

"Until the time we stopped processing which was August last year, it was supposed to be a deterrent but until that time 90 per cent of the people from Sri Lanka were accepted as genuine refugees that means they flee terror from their own country.

"If one of their family members has been killed, brutalised or put in jail there is no deterrent that we can create in Australia that will match the terror they flee, the policy of deterrence was always a fraud.

"When refugees stopped going here [Australia] they also stopped going to Europe.

"I don't know any politician that is game enough to talk truthfully on these matters."

A bad example

Mr Fraser believes withdrawing from the UN Convention for Refugees would set a bad example.

"Withdrawing would set a bad example and we've already had adverse publicity as a result of the toxic debate between parties; those sorts of debates don't happen in countries like Canada."

"Really Australia is isolating itself."

Arrival of refugees

If the solution is to let all asylum seekers arrive on Australian shores, what needs to be done once they arrive?

The former prime minister says the solution is simple.

"We should have English language classes freely available, we should allow them to work, they should pay taxes and the Government will make money from those taxes and they would not cost the Australian community," he said.

"We have our values upside down.

"It is not illegal to seek asylum in a safe country if you are in danger for your life in your own country, the convention accepts that.

"In our time we would hear about Australian values, I think the way we are treating asylum seekers now is a perversion of Australian values."

Can Rudd or Abbott solve it?

Mr Fraser hopes both sides of politics will come together to solve the issue.

"What we should do is have a bipartisan policy and both sides should agree on a decent humane policy that they both support.

"They need to support the policy publicly together."

With an election looming Mr Fraser says things will only get nastier.

"I think the government is set to make a tougher, nasty policy for it, I don't see a good outcome coming.

"The tragedy of this is the way that both sides of politics are talking about this as it's encouraging the public to think they are awful, illegal people who deserve no sympathy or support.

"We live in one world; we can't pretend that the problems of the world don't affect us.

"We need to work in a co-operative way with other countries and if we want to isolate ourselves there will be a price to pay and it might be one much greater than people understand," he concluded.