Asylum in Australia has been granted to many refugees since 1945, when half a million Europeans displaced by World War II were given asylum. Since then, there have been periodic waves of asylum seekers from South East Asia and the Middle East, with government policy and public opinion changing over the years.
Refugees are governed by statutes and government policies which seek to implement Australia's obligations under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Australia is a party. Thousands of refugees have sought asylum in Australia over the past decade, with the main forces driving movement being war, civil unrest and persecution. The annual refugee quota in 2012 was 20,000 people. From 1945 to the early 1990s, more than half a million refugees and other displaced persons were accepted into Australia.
Historically, most asylum seekers arrived by plane. However, there was an increasing number of asylum seekers arriving by boat in the late 2000s and early 2010s, which was met with some public disapproval. In 2011–2012, asylum seekers arriving by boat outnumbered those arriving by plane for the first time. Three waves of asylum seekers arriving by boat have been identified: Vietnamese between 1976 and 1981; Indochinese asylum seekers from 1989 to 1998; and people of Middle East origin from 1999.
The visa policy of the current government is to detain persons entering or being in Australia without a valid visa until those persons can be returned to their home country. Australia is the only country in the world with a policy of mandatory detention and offshore processing of asylum seekers who arrive without a valid visa.
Asylum policy is a contentious wedge issue in Australian politics, with the two major political parties in Australia arguing that the issue is a border control problem and one concerning the safety of those attempting to come to Australia by boat.
Laws governing the status of asylum people Historically, Australia was generally viewed as a world leader in resettling refugees, with more than 870,000 refugees resettled in Australia since World War II. Yet Australia is also one of the world's poorest in providing durable solutions to people who come here to claim protection – people seeking asylum – especially if they come by boat. This dichotomy has persisted into the present.
The processing of people seeking asylum that have arrived in Australia for status determination has undergone significant change over the past decade. No longer available; reference to it in this document . The process for refugee status determination is dynamic, with the government's humanitarian program mainly diverging in process between on-shore and off-shore arrivals. While the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) had previously drafted to give effect to Australia's obligations under international law, mainly the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its First Optional Protocol, recent legislative amendments by successive governments have uncoupled the Act from giving effect to the Convention. This has resulted in a softening on the impact of the Convention in interpreting the Act, leading to the government resiling from the protocol set out in the international agreement.Migration Act 1958 (Cth), s 198AA
The Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 introduced by the Howard government was withdrawn after an enquiry by a Senate Committee which reported on the Bill recommended that it should not proceed in light of the evidence presented to it, and it also became clear that it would be defeated in the Senate, with a number of Liberal Senators threatening to vote against it or abstain. Six years later, another bill, designated the Migration Amendment (Unauthorised Maritime Arrivals and Other Measures) Bill 2012, also gave rise to a Senate Committee Inquiry, with one submission showing that it was almost identical to the 2006 Bill, except without a reporting requirement obliging the Minister to table in Parliament an annual report which detailed the arrangements for assessing refugee claims processed offshore as well as information about their accommodation, health care and education. This added to concerns expressed below about the lack of transparency and public scrutiny. However the bill was passed into law, becoming the Migration Amendment (Unauthorised Maritime Arrivals and Other Measures) Act 2013.
A new "fast track" assessment scheme was introduced in 2014 via the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014. The definition of a fast track applicant was narrowed further by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton in an amendment to the definition under the "Migration Act 1958", which changed the date of arrival requirement from January 2012 to August 2012 for parents whose children wished to be put classified as fast track applicants.
Offshore processing
Australia's humanitarian program is complex, but the basic structure is one of bifurcation between onshore and offshore processing of claims for people seeking asylum. While the onshore humanitarian program is common across most signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is Australia's offshore detention policy that is the most controversial and widely criticised by civil society members.Refugee Council of Australia, 'State of the Nation: Refugees and People Seeking Asylum in Australia' (2017) Refugee Council of Australia Reports 1.
Australia is one of two nation-states that currently employ a policy of shifting potential people seeking asylum by boat to other nation-states for processing of asylum claims. This policy receives support from both major political parties.
Legacy caseload In July 2019 it was estimated that there were about 30,000 people living in Australia who are ineligible for permanent residency, because they came to the country by boat before 2014. Recommendations to the government by the Australian Human Rights Commission to help improve the lives of these non-residents, some of whom live in poverty and suffer from mental health issues because of restrictions of their access to financial support and other welfare, and their uncertain futures, was rejected.
Claims processing
A compliance interview, often done with the assistance of an interpreter, is one of the first steps taken by immigration officers to determine if a person is making a valid claim of asylum. If a valid fear of persecution is expressed a formal application for refugee status is undertaken. If permission to stay in Australia is not granted they must be removed as soon as possible. However, under the notion of complementary protection, an applicant who is not deemed to be a refugee may still be permitted to remain in Australia. Complementary protection applies when an applicant/s would face a real risk of; arbitrary deprivation of life; the death penalty; torture; cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment; degrading treatment or punishment. It does not apply when there is no real risk of significant harm, namely when an applicant can safely relocate to another part of the country, or an authority within the country can provide protection.
People who arrived by boat on or after 13 August 2012 are not able to propose that their immediate family members also gain entry to Australia.
A new "fast track" assessment scheme was introduced in 2014 via the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 . The definition of a fast track applicant was narrowed further by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton in an amendment to the definition under the "Migration Act 1958", which changed the date of arrival requirement from January 2012 to August 2012 for parents whose children wished to be put classified as fast track applicants.
Statistics
The pic measurement of historical migration flows are not accurate, as methods of counting and categorisations have changed over the years. Post-war refugee immigrants, from 1947 to 1975, totalled about 297,000 refugees, the majority assisted by the government. Since then, the annual refugee quota has varied from year to year.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 2005 and 2009 Australia was ranked 47th out of 198 countries in the world in terms of the number of refugees hosted, out of those countries who host refugees. In 2012, the Refugee Council of Australia ranked Australia 22nd on a per capita basis in a list of countries that accept refugees. The Council found that in terms of resettlement (as opposed to "receiving") asylum seekers, Australia ranks 2nd in the world overall, 3rd per capita and 3rd as a proportion of GDP. The Council provides a wide range of statistics on its website.
Australia's total refugee and humanitarian intake remained relatively constant between the mid-1980s and 2016, but peaked in 2017:
In 2016-2017 financial year Australia accepted more refugees than it ever had since it started a dedicated humanitarian migration program, with 24,162 migrants settled on humanitarian grounds. The number includes a special intake of Syrian and Iraqi refugees owing to particular circumstances in ongoing conflicts. (This was part of a far broader migration program for the year; the total number of migrants was 225,941.)
The rate of arrivals by boat, the most controversial aspect of Australia's refugee policy, has been exceptionally volatile. It reached a peak of 20,587 people in 2013 (excluding crew), before falling again to zero two years later:
A "fact check" produced by Australian Broadcasting Corporation News and RMIT concluded that then Attorney-General George Brandis' claim in November 2017 that Australia runs the most generous refugee program per capita in the world was misleading. Various complexities of the data are examined in the article, which says that Australia's level of refugee recognition is small compared to other wealthy nations (as well as poorer ones).
Timeline
"White Australia policy": Post-federation - December 1901 The White Australia policy is a term used for the historical policies responsible for the exclusion of non-European origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders (primarily Melanesians) from immigrating to Australia.
World War II refugees: 1930s
In the 1930s more than 7,000 refugees from Nazi Germany were accepted into Australia.Immigration to Australia During the 20th Century . Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Retrieved 23 July 2013. In the eight years after the end of World War II almost 200,000 European refugees settled in Australia. Australia was reluctant to recognise a general "right of asylum" for refugees when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted.
West Papuan refugees on Manus Island: 1960s University of Sydney immigration law specialist Professor Mary Crock says that Australia's history of offshore processing goes back to the 1960s, when Manus Island was set up to take refugees from West Papua. Known as "Salasia Camp", it consisted of a few corrugated iron houses on a bare concrete slab, not far from a beach near the main town Lorengau. Indonesia was preparing a military takeover of the former Dutch New Guinea colony in the 1960s, causing thousands of refugees to flee into the then Australian colony of Papua New Guinea; the first were sent to Manus in 1968 by the Australian government. The camp was built by Australia in order to avoid a diplomatic confrontation with Indonesia, and for this reason they were not granted refugee status. It was not a detention centre; the refugees were free to come and go, but remained stateless until granted citizenship by PNG in 2017.
Vietnamese boat people: 1970s