*Picture: Christmas Island wreck, from ABC News online.
Myth: Asylum seekers are illegal immigrants
FACT: Asylum seekers are neither illegal nor are they immigrants. Immigrants leave by choice and can return at any time. Asylum seekers are forced to leave and cannot return for fear of persecution— such as torture, imprisonment and execution.
FACT: As a signatory to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Australia must provide protection to people fleeing persecution, regardless of whether they arrive by air or by sea.1
FACT: There is no Australian law that criminalises the act of arriving in Australia without a valid visa for the purposes of seeking asylum.2
Myth: Asylum seekers should wait their turn in the queue
FACT: There is no queue or processing system accessible to asylum seekers in their home countries. By definition, to be considered a refugee you must be outside your country of origin.3
FACT: Very few countries in our region are signatories to the Refugee Convention. Asylum seekers who arrive in countries that have not signed the convention, such as Malaysia or Indonesia, are subject to anything from neglect to abuse, torture and indefinite imprisonment.4
FACT: Only 0.5% of the world’s 15.37 million refugees will have access to a queue in 2011. With only around 80 000 places allocated each year for resettlement, if all of the world’s refugees were to join a queue, the wait would be 192 years.5
Myth: More people are seeking asylum by boat because the Labor Party is soft on asylum seekers
FACT: As a percentage of our overall immigration intake, Australia accepts fewer refugees and humanitarian entrants under the Gillard Government than we did under Howard. Refugees made up 7.6% of the total immigration program under Howard, compared with 6.6% under Gillard—this is close to its lowest level in 35 years.6
FACT: The number of boat arrivals depends not so much on domestic policy as ‘push’ factors in countries of origin such as repression, discrimination, ethnic conflict, human rights abuses and civil war. As forcedmigration
expert Dr Khalid Koser has noted: ‘There is wide consensus among both scholars and refugee organisations that conditions in origin countries… tend to be more important than conditions in destination countries… in explaining the movement of refugees.’7
Myth: Australia is being flooded by asylum seekers
FACT: In 2011, 4,565 asylum seekers arrived by boat. At this rate, it would take over 20 years to fill the MCG.
FACT: Australia received less than 1% (15,441) of new asylum applications worldwide in 2011. South Africa received 171,702, USA (76.000), France (52,100), Germany (45,700) and Canada (25,000). That places Australia 32nd in the world for the number of asylum applications it received and 60th based on wealth per capita.9
Myth: Australia takes its fair share of the world’s refugee
FACT: As of 2011, Australia is hosting just 0.23% of the world’s refugees. Of the 10.4 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, the largest numbers are being hosted by Pakistan (1,707,700), Iran (886,500), Syria (755,400), Germany (571,700) and Kenya (566,500).
FACT: More than 80% of the world’s refugees are living in developing nations. Australia ranks 71st in the world for the number of refugees it hosts relative to its population. Based on wealth per capita, that rank drops to 77th.10
Myth: Asylum seekers are a drain on Centrelink and public housing
FACT: Asylum seekers have no access to Centrelink benefits. A limited number of asylum seekers have access to the Red Cross Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme for a certain period of time. The income provided by this scheme is equal to 89% of the Newstart Allowance.11
FACT: Asylum seekers do not get access to public housing and very rarely gain access to transitional housing. Asylum seekers face significantly higher rates of homelessness than the national average.
Myth: We need detention centres
FACT: Between 1948 and 1992, Australia successfully and peacefully resettled 452 000 refugees. At this time, asylum seekers were processed in the community and there was no policy of mandatory detention.
FACT: Australia is unique in the world in its policy of mandatory and indefinite detention. There is a more humane alternative. At approximately 10% of the cost, and without the mental and physical damage, all asylum seekers who arrive by boat can be processed and cared for in the community, just as the majority of plane arrivals are.
FACT: There is now a large body of medical evidence demonstrating that prolonged detention has severe detrimental effects on psychological and physical health.12 There have been six deaths in 2010–11, five by suicide, in Australia’s detention centres. The Ombudsman reports that more than 1100 incidents of threatened or actual self-harm occurred across all places of detention in 2010–11.13
Myth: Australia needs to protect our borders from asylum seekers
FACT: No boat arrival who may have been a potential threat to national security has ever gained entry into Australia. Boat arrivals are subject to the most rigorous security checks of all arrivals into Australia.
FACT: The vast majority of asylum seekers arrive by plane with a valid visa, applying for asylum at a later date while living in the community. None have ever posed a threat to Australia’s national security.
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Where are Australia’s detention centres? For a map of Australia’s Immigration Detention Centres click HERE:
1. UNHCR, Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html
2. Janet Phillips, ‘Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?’ Parliamentary Library of Australia, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bn/sp/AsylumFacts.pdf, 22 July 2011, p. 3.
3. UNHCR, Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, p. 14
4. Amnesty International, ‘Malaysia: Abused and Abandoned: Refugees Denied Rights in Malaysia,’ http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA28/010/2010/en, 15 June 2010. Jessie Taylor, ‘Behind Closed Doors: Examining the Conditions of Detention of Asylum Seekers in Indonesia,’ Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, http://www.law.monash.edu.au/castancentre/news/behind-australian-doors-report.pdf, 3 November, 2009.
5. UNHCR, Press Release: ‘UNHCR calls for more resettlement places,’ 4 July 2011, http://www.unhcr.org/4e11735e6.html
6. Refugee Council of Australia, Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program 2010-11, http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/docs/resources/Intake%20Sub%202010-11.pdf, February 2010, p. 2
7. Khalid Koser, ‘Responding to Boat Arrivals in Australia: Time for a Reality Check,’ Lowy Institute for International Policy, December 2010, p. 6.
8. Parliamentary Library of Australia, ‘Boat Arrivals in Australia since 1976,’ http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bn/sp/BoatArrivals.htm, updated 15 July 2011.
9. ASRC, ‘Australia vs the World,’ www.asrc.org.au/media/documents/australia-vs-rest-world-refugees-asylum-seekers_.pdf .
10. ASRC, ‘Australia vs the World,’ www.asrc.org.au/media/documents/australia-vs-rest-world-refugees-asylum-seekers_.pdf
11. Department of Immigration and Citizenship, http://www.immi.gov.au/media/letters/letters09/le091022.htm 21 October 2009.
12. Phillips C (2009) ‘Immigration detention and health,’ Medical Journal of Australia 192(2): 61–67.
13. Allan Asher, ‘Australia’s immigration detention values: milestones or motherhood statements?’ Commonwealth Ombudsman, http://www.ombudsman.gov.au/mediareleases/ show/190, 29 July 2011.
