Elibritt Karlsen, Law and Bills Digest Section
Janet Phillips, Social Policy Section
How is Australia responding to the global challenge?
Increasing numbers of asylum seekers and others in need of
humanitarian assistance pose huge challenges for the world’s
destination countries. Australia is one of only about 20 nations
worldwide responding to these challenges through participation in
the United Nations refugee agency’s resettlement program
which involves accepting a set number of refugees on an annual
basis. However, the UN refugee agency’s resettlement program
currently contributes to resettling only a small proportion of the
world’s refugees and about 75 to 90 per cent of refugees
remain in their region of origin, placing the burden on
neighbouring developing countries.
Australia has a highly managed migration system and formally
accepts around 13 000 refugees and other humanitarian entrants each
year under its Humanitarian Program. The majority of these grants
each year go to refugees referred by the UN or to people subject to
human rights abuses overseas who have close ties to Australia. Visa
grants for refugees within Australia (boat and air arrivals
combined) only make up a relatively small proportion of the total
number of refugees accepted by Australia each year—usually in
the region of 17 to 20 per cent.
Number of places available for refugees
Submitted for resettlement by UNHCR
Ten top resettlement countries 2008 |
Country |
Number of places |
United States of America |
56 750 |
Australia |
6 500 |
Canada |
6 140 |
Sweden |
1 900 |
Norway |
1 200 |
Finland |
750 |
New Zealand |
750 |
United Kingdom |
750 |
Denmark |
500 |
Netherlands |
500 |
Others |
1 000 |
Irregular arrivals—what is the solution?
Over the last decade, the immigration debate in Australia has
been largely overshadowed by the issue of asylum seekers arriving
by boat (irregular arrivals). The issue took centre stage in the
2001 federal election when former Prime Minister John Howard
asserted ‘we’ll decide who comes to this country and
the circumstances under which they’ll come’. A
widespread perception in the community that Australia is being
swamped by undocumented asylum seekers continues to strongly
influence government policy. Successive governments have been under
constant pressure to adopt effective measures to address border
security and combat people smuggling. This continues to be an
emotive and divisive election issue, the 2010 federal election
being no exception.
The Labor Government consistently maintained that irregular
migration is a global challenge linked directly to ‘push
factors’ such as conflict and displacement within the region.
In contrast, the Coalition attributed the recent increase in
irregular boat arrivals to ‘pull factors’ driven
predominantly by domestic reform—most notably, Labor’s
decision in 2008 to grant refugees permanent residency and
discontinue processing of asylum seekers in the small Pacific
island State of Nauru. However, prior to the 2010 federal election
Labor announced that it too was exploring options for creating a
regional processing centre in a foreign country. Both sides of
politics agree that people smuggling is an unacceptable organised
criminal activity that endangers innocent people’s lives.
Both have accordingly committed to increased cooperation with
Indonesia and other countries in the region and to creating harsher
mandatory penalties for those convicted of people smuggling
offences. Some commentators though have criticised the introduction
of tougher penalties on the basis that they do not effectively
target people smuggling syndicates—rather, they simply punish
the often unsuspecting Indonesian fishermen who operate the
boats.
Can mandatory detention withstand the test of time?
The policy of mandatory detention (that is the legal requirement
to detain all non-citizens that do not hold a valid visa) was
introduced in the early 1990s. Although it does vary, the majority
of the detention population is usually comprised of people who have
overstayed their visa or breached their visa conditions. However,
the detention of asylum seekers in often remote locations has
received greater public attention. In particular, the duration and
conditions of their detention have been controversial issues that
have plagued successive governments.
Though the policy of mandatory detention has officially
remained, it has been somewhat relaxed in recent years. For
instance, in 2005 the former Coalition Government affirmed in
legislation the principle that detention of minors would only occur
as a measure of last resort. Alternative accommodation was also
made available to vulnerable detainees such as families and
unaccompanied minors. Upon forming government in 2007, Labor
declared that it was committed to treating asylum seekers more
humanely. To this end, it removed the statutory obligation to
charge detainees for the cost of their detention and announced a
series of detention values that the Department of Immigration would
follow. These values emphasised a risk-based approach to the
management of detainees and thus, in principle, detention centres
would only be used as a last resort and for the shortest
practicable time. However, some commentators have criticised the
Government’s recent decision to temporarily suspend the
processing of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan on the
basis that it has led to their indefinite detention. Despite the
fact that the Australian Greens and certain former members of the
Coalition have strongly advocated for the introduction of a
periodic independent review by a tribunal or court of the ongoing
need for detention, neither major party has introduced such a
mechanism.
A new government will inevitably need to address the enduring
and complex problems associated with an expanding detention
population. The issue of providing additional and appropriate
accommodation to avoid overcrowding and a deterioration of
conditions will be a significant challenge.
Library publications and key documents
E Karlsen, J Phillips, and E Koleth,
Seeking asylum: Australia’s humanitarian response to a
global challenge, Background note, Parliamentary Library,
Canberra, 2010, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/BN/sp/SeekingAsylum.pdf
J Phillips, Asylum seekers and refugees:
what are the facts?, Background note, Parliamentary Library,
Canberra, 2010, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/BN/sp/AsylumFacts.pdf
J Phillips and H Spinks, Boat arrivals in
Australia since 1976, Background note, Parliamentary Library,
Canberra, 2010, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/BN/sp/BoatArrivals.pdf
E Karlsen, Complementary protection for
asylum seekers—overview of the international and Australian
legal frameworks, Research paper, no. 7, 2009–10,
Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2009, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2009-10/10rp07.pdf