Jon Stanhope, Christmas Island’s outgoing administrator, likens this period in history to the white Australia policy and stolen generations

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

History will judge Australia “very, very poorly” in relation to its treatment of asylum seekers, the outgoing administrator of the Australian Indian Ocean territories has said.



In his last interview as administrator of Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands, where tens of thousands of asylum seekers have landed on boats over the two years of his tenure, Jon Stanhope says this period in Australia’s history will receive the same moral condemnation as the white Australia policy and the stolen generations of Indigenous children.

Sitting in his office a few hundred metres from the jetty where asylum seekers have been brought ashore by Australian navy and customs personnel for years, Stanhope told Guardian Australia on Sunday: “History will treat us very, very poorly in relation to this [treatment of asylum seekers]. It will certainly treat our governments and our policy makers very, very harshly.



“Just as we’ve looked back on the white Australia policy, I have no doubt that my grandchildren and their children will look back at this period in our history and think ‘what did they think they were doing and how did they allow themselves to demean Australia and themselves in that way?’

“I believe that will be the verdict of history. And I believe that will be the verdict of subsequent generations of Labor party members.”

Stanhope served as administrator of the islands from October 2012 and was previously the Labor party chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory for a decade between 2001 and 2011.

He described successive government policies on asylum seekers as “unnecessarily hard-hearted”.

“We’ve implemented and carried through on policies that I don’t believe are appropriate for Australia, or indeed for any nation,” he said.

Stanhope told Guardian Australia that living in such close proximity to the island’s two detention centres had also taken a personal toll on him.

“I do respond emotionally to asylum seekers,” he said, “Even today after seeing thousands, tens of thousands of asylum seekers come here. I see them walking to school now, going for a swim or just sitting on the oval. When I see families out and about, I am affected, it affects me. I feel the effect. I feel. I feel for them.

“The fact that they’re stuck here, the fact that they were pursuing a better life, that they’ve taken great risks, they’ve come here, they’ve been stuck in indefinite detention for 15 months and my heart goes out. I feel a wrench. I have since the day I arrived.”

Stanhope’s comments came days before the incoming islands administrator, Barry Haase, told Fairfax media he had little sympathy for asylum seekers who self-harmed on the island.

“There would be no self-harm in the centre if they hadn’t gotten on a leaky boat and paid thousands of dollars to be there,” Haase said.

In a far-ranging interview with Guardian Australia, Stanhope also spoke of “scandalously unacceptable” standards of care for disabled and elderly people living on the islands.

Stanhope said that the islands are effectively colonies of Australia rather than territories as they had little to no access to democracy and self-government.

“I believe this quite genuinely, that Christmas Island and Cocos Island are, to all intents and purposes within the terms of the UN charter, are colonies.”

Residents of the island cannot vote in Western Australia state elections and are represented in the federal parliament by two senators for the Northern Territory and MP for Lingiari, Northern Territory, Warren Snowdpn.

Guardian Australia spent a week on Christmas Island but was declined access to any detention facilities by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.