Refugees and detention centres in Australia
Since the Second World War, Australia has resettled approximately 650 000 refugees and other people in need of support. Beginning in the late 1930s with German Jews escaping Nazi tyranny, and continuing through to the present day with thousands upon thousands escaping war and oppression in countries such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, Australia has taken in refugees of
over 40 nationalities. Each year, Australia accepts 6000 refugees. The majority of these have been identified by, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as high-priority refugees. Australia also admits a further 7000 individuals under a Special Humanitarian Program for people who are in
‘refugee-like’ situations. These people require backing and financial support from someone in Australia who will fund their travel and relocation to Australia. Australia is second only to the United States of America (with 52 900) in the number of refugees it permanently resettles, and it is one of only ten countries in the world that allows refugees to resettle for humanitarian reasons.
Many countries will take in refugees only on a temporary basis, giving them temporary documents or keeping them confined to refugee camps.
Refugees around the world
The United Nations estimates that, at the start of 2004, there were over 17 million refugees and ‘people of concern’ worldwide. Of these, 25% were from Central and Southern Africa, 35% from North Africa, Asia and the Middle East, 25% from Europe and 15% from the Asia–Pacific region and the Americas. The majority of these people sought refuge or asylum in neighbouring countries.
In 2004, for example, the country from which the most refugees fled was Afghanistan, with 2 million people escaping the instability of the war between the USA and its allies and the Taliban regime. Consequently, the two countries with the highest refugee intake were Iran and Pakistan, on Afghanistan’s borders, which took in approximately 1 million refugees each. As the danger
gradually subsided during the following year, many of these refugees returned to their homes.
Illegal immigration
Australia’s Migration Act 1958 stipulates that all non-Australian citizens who are unlawfully in Australia be detained and that, unless they are given permission to remain in Australia, they must be removed as soon as practical. Since 1992, Australia has had a policy of placing in detention facilities people who:
• arrive in Australia without a visa
• overstay their visa
• have had their visa cancelled.
Mandatory detention
The Australian Government makes the following arguments in favour of mandatory detention:
• Detainees are readily available during processing of any visa applications and, if applications are unsuccessful, are available for removal from Australia.
• Detainees are immediately available for health checks, which are a requirement for the grant of a visa.
• Unauthorised arrivals do not enter the Australian community until their identity and status have been properly assessed and they have been granted a visa.
• Mandatory detention discourages the growing trade in people smuggling.
In February 2006, there were 885 people held in immigration detention in facilities throughout Australia. Approximately 70% of this number were people in contravention of their visa condition, i.e. they had overstayed their visa . There were 60 people in detention who had arrived on boats illegally. The government has changed its policy regarding the detention of women and children, opting not to detain children in detention centres but instead to place them in residential housing
projects, foster care or other community-based initiatives. The detention of children has been a very controversial issue in Australia. Many argue that Australia has contravened international law with its policy of mandatory detention of asylum
seekers and, in the past, its previous policy of keeping women and children in these centres. In particular, they argue that it has contravened the UN’s 1990 ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’ (CRC), to which Australia is a signatory.
The Tampa affair
In the 2001 ‘Tampa affair’, over 400 asylum seekers en route to Australia from Indonesia in a barely seaworthy boat were rescued at sea by a Norwegian merchant ship after attempting to land on Christmas Island. The affair created a storm of international condemnation of the Australian Government’s increasingly hardline approach to asylum seekers. The government’s refusal to allow the Norwegian ship, the Tampa, to dock at Christmas Island was considered by many to be in contravention of international humanitarian law.
The Pacific solution
Following the Tampa affair, the government passed laws that allowed it to send asylum seekers who attempted to enter Australia illegally to detention centres on Pacific islands—the so-called Pacific solution. Countries including Nauru were given financial incentives to take these people in and detain them. The same legislation also established the ‘Australian Migration Zone’, which removed Australian island territories such as Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands from among those places where people without a valid visa could land and apply for refugee status in Australia.
The cost
Australia’s hardline policy may indeed have been effective in stemming the tide of illegal refugees, but has it come at a cost to our reputation as a caring nation? Has it caused undue suffering to some of the world’s most vulnerable individuals—people who saw Australia as a bastion of hope? Does it highlight a growing sense of insecurity and fear as a nation? Perhaps the most important question to ask is whether we could have achieved the same goals by less extreme means.