Rudd's open door to illegals

From The Sunday Telegraph:

The Rudd government's relentless claims that "push" factors - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unrest in Pakistan - have been responsible for driving more refugees to our shores are proving to be hollow.

The "pull" factors - Labor's softening of the Howard government's hard line against people-smugglers and opportunistic asylum-seekers - remain the principal factors in the huge increase in numbers of undocumented illegal arrivals in Australia, the biggest since 2001.

Now it is revealed that a refugee advocate Ian Rintoul was in constant mobile-phone contact with boatloads of refugees even as they prepared to leave Indonesian waters for Christmas Island.

According to reports in The Australian newspaper last Friday, Rintoul acted as a conduit for messages between asylum-seekers aboard an illegal people-smuggling boat in Indonesian waters, Pakistani people-smuggling facilitators and Australian authorities.

*snip*

Since Labor came to office, Immigration Minister Chris Evans has moved with ferocious haste to remove possible impediments for queue-jumpers.

There's no doubt the new arrivals reaching Christmas Island, where they are assured of residency permits within 90 days, are jumping the queues administered by the UN High Commission for Refugees and bodies such as the International Organisation for Migration.

Acting under the radar, Evans has surreptitiously removed the character test that used to apply to new arrivals and protected Australians from those whose general conduct was questionable.

Shadow immigration minister Sharman Stone says Senator Evans directed the Immigration Department to disregard a person's character, the provision of bogus documents, behaviour that was disreputable and acts that fell short of criminal fraud.

Evans' latest direction also widens the scope of considerations to allow people who are found not to be of good character to nevertheless enter and remain here in Australia.

This may well be why the Government has done nothing about accused East Timorese human-rights violator and murderer Guy Campos, who is still at large, having entered Australia on a pilgrim's visa for the World Youth Day celebrations last year.

Evans has significantly increased the "pull" factor for illegal entrants by changing rules that required the expectations of the community to be considered when decisions were taken on whether to refuse illegal immigrants entry to Australia or remove them from the country.

Someone who commits serious crimes against the Migration Act is no longer considered to be of character concern.

Further, this minister has personally overturned the decisions of the Migration and Refugee Review Tribunal and the courts more than 1000 times.

Yet he has claimed in his statements that ministerial intervention cannot result in a fair outcome and has stated that he doesn't want to "play God".

Evans has also said he wants to delegate his powers back to tribunals and the department, but has not done so.

As with so many of the public statements of the Rudd ministry, there's a huge gulf between what is said and what is done.

The previous Coalition government managed to halt the number of unsafe and illegal people-smuggling boats attempting the hazardous voyage to Australia.

The Rudd government has abolished almost every barrier to this traffic.

It has discarded temporary protection visas, it has dropped the 45-day rule that required applications for protection visas to be made within 45 days of arrival in this country, and it has now proposed a new category of visa for those who currently are ineligible for refugee protection under United Nations High Commission for Refugees rules.

Waiving the rules for those who can afford to jump the queue, those who have been living safely for the most part in third nations and not in refugee camps, hurts the most needy: those living under blue plastic in camps around the world.

Yet once again, we see the Rudd government secretly destroying policy that clearly worked and replacing it with flawed regulation that relies on ministerial discretion.

Such flouting of the community will is doubtless going to result in increased numbers embracing unwholesome anti-immigration groups.

Full article

"Such flouting of the community will is doubtless going to result in increased numbers embracing unwholesome anti-immigration groups."

We can only hope!

Indians among highest visa rule breachers in Australia

From Business Standard:

Indian students have been placed in the high risk group for visa breaches in Australia along with Bangladeshis and Cambodians, a development that may result in tightening of immigration rules for them.

Based on a review of the student visa programme by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship across all applicant countries, Indians were bracketed with Bangladeshis and Cambodians as a ‘level-four’ risk, which is the second highest risk category.

The student visa programme assessment level was raised from three to four after last year’s review by the Immigration department. No nationalities have currently been placed at level-five, the highest risk category.

Experts say the upgrade may result in significant tightening of rules for Indian students and can affect the demand for their enrolments.

Under the new measure, Indians seeking education in Australia, will now have to prove they have enough funds to survive for the duration of their study and pass more stringent English language tests.

Immigration risk levels for Indian students were upgraded after a department audit that found that in 2006-07, 4.66 per cent of the 58,268 Indian nationals granted visas breached their conditions, compared with an average rate among foreign students of 1.32 per cent, an Immigration department said.

The number of Indian students studying in Australia has risen dramatically in recent years, from 11,313 in 2002 to 96,739 last year, Immigration department spokesperson added.

In 2007-08 the unlawful rate among Indian students was 1.48 per cent of a total 87,145 Indian visa-holders, compared with 0.99 per cent for the average foreign student.

While in May this year offshore applications for Indian students grew by 20 per cent as compared to last year, statistics for this month have till date remained the same as compared to June last year despite the attacks on Indian students being widely publicised.

The number of Indian students enrolled in Australia stood at 47,639 in the period between July 2007 to June 2008. The number was 38,162 in the period between July 2008 to February 2009.

Original article

"The number of Indian students studying in Australia has risen dramatically in recent years, from 11,313 in 2002 to 96,739 last year, Immigration department spokesperson added."

Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with the changes made by the former Howard Government which made it easier for foreign students to apply for permanent residency after they graduate?

As Monash academic Bob Birrell explained in a 2006 article:

In 1999, the Australian Government introduced a suite of reforms to its skilled migration selection system. Among the most important of these was the granting of incentives to former overseas studentsto encourage them to obtain permanent residence on completion of their courses. These incentives included additional points for Australian training and the waiving of the job experience requirement that skilled migrants applying offshore had to meet.

Policymakers thought that persons who had been trained in Australia, in English, would be more attractive to Australian employers than their counterparts trained overseas, especially if the overseas training had been conducted in a foreign language in a non-western educational setting. In mid-2001 new onshore visa categories for overseas students were introduced which permitted foreign students to apply for permanent residence without having to leave Australia, as long as they applied within six monthsof completing their training.

...

In a numerical sense these policy initiatives have been spectacularly successful. There were 5,480 onshore visasissued to principal applicants who were former overseas students under the three student visa subclasses in 2001–02. By 2005–06, this number had grown to 15,383.

These changes, quietly introduced without any public consultation, have effectively transformed Australia's higher education institutions into "visa factories" for foreigners seeking permanent residency. Australia's universities, starved of public funding, have welcomed and encouraged this influx of full fee-paying foreign students. As Dr. Peter Wilkinson noted in his book The Howard Legacy (2007), "the universities market themselves as providing education but they know, and certainly their prospective applicants know, that they are marketing permanent residency visas."

Educational standards have predictably dropped as the universities prostitute themselves for foreign cash. As several reports have pointed out, many of the foreign students granted permanent residency are largely unemployable in their particular fields due to poor English. This means that Australia loses out both ways by accepting sub-standard foreign workers while also degrading the quality of its domestic degrees. Worse still, the selling of permanent residency to foreigners also degrades the value and undermines the meaning of Australian citizenship, given that permanent residency provides an almost guaranteed path to naturalisation.

Rolling out the red carpet for illegal immigrants

From The Daily Telegraph:

Rolling out the red carpet for illegal immigrants

Piers Akerman
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 06:09pm

THE stream of unlawful boat arrivals has shown the Rudd Government’s claim to a “deterrent” factor in its immigration policy is false.

Far from deterring arrivals, the Rudd Government, through Immigration Minister Chris Evans’ department, is encouraging people smugglers.

When the temporary protection visas (TPVs) and temporary humanitarian visas (THVs) were abolished by the Rudd Government last August, those affected were given protection visas called resolution of status.

They were told they had immediate access to the same benefits as a permanent protection visa holder, including Newstart and youth allowances, the adult migrant English program (AMEP), the age pension, disability support pension, family tax benefit and childcare benefit.

They were also given travel rights, eligibility for travel documents and the ability to sponsor their family through the Offshore Humanitarian Program.

The Howard government’s Pacific Solution was introduced in 2000-2001 following 54 boat arrivals. A further six boats arrived the following year but there were none in 2002-2003.

There were fewer than 100 the following year, zero in 2004-2005, 56 people in four boats in 2005-2006, 135 in five boats in 2006-2007, just 25 in three boats in 2007-2008, and in the current year 500-plus and climbing.

On the department website, the Rudd Government acknowledges TPVs were introduced by the previous government to discourage people smuggling and to discourage refugees leaving their country of first asylum.

That is correct. Moreover, Senator Chris Evans did not oppose TPVs when they first came before the Senate.

The department makes the further blatantly political comment that “the evidence clearly shows, however, that TPVs did not have any deterrent effect. Indeed, there was an increase in the number of women and children making dangerous journeys to Australia”.

That is sophistry. There was an initial blip, but as the numbers show, attempted arrivals dwindled until the new policy came into effect.

That policy was not crafted as a deterrent. It was formulated as a sop to shrill asylum-seeker activists.

It delighted them, the Fairfax Press and the ABC, as well as limp elements in the Liberal Party such as Petro Georgiou, Judy Moylan and Bruce Baird, along with scores of people smugglers and thousands of their potential clients.

That deterrence is gone is made clear on the department’s website: “Detention is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time”.

Further, it is clear that the department will do everything possible to make the necessary stay for health, identity and security checks, as acceptable as possible.

Under the Rudd Government, the presumption is that a person who arrives unlawfully should be placed in the community as soon as practicable, the onus of proof is now on the department to justify why they should be detained.

When they must be held, there must be facilities available for recreational, educational and religious activities, specialist medical treatment must be made available as well as multi-language libraries and outdoor sporting facilities.

People in immigration detention can request excursions and departmental policy is to “ensure that evaluation of the request is progressed quickly”, with assurance that “given enough lead time, there are few restrictions”.

And, of course, detainees have access to internet facilities so they can let relatives know they are being cared for.

If they’re unhappy with their treatment, officials are to encourage them to complain. Promotional material in several languages (including Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin and Vietnamese) is displayed informing people in immigration detention that complaints may be made to departmental staff, DSP staff, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Red Cross about any aspects of a person’s detention and that relevant processes are in place to receive and respond to those complaints.

With all the evidence indicating that the Rudd Government has opened the door, it now needs to set up a complaints department for the residents of Christmas Island where those who arrived on unlawfully aboard the growing armada are housed.

The Christmas Island Shire human resources and policy officer Keith Ravenscroft says shipments of fresh food have been raided to feed the 266 asylum seekers currently in detention and to provide for the big number of security staff, immigration and quarantine officers managing the asylum seekers.

“The local people here are not being looked after and their basic fresh food needs are not being met because the asylum seekers get priority over us,” Mr Ravenscroft told The West Australian. “They are eating better than us and yet we (taxpayers) are paying for their food.”

Deterrence? You have to be kidding.

Original article

Visa changes an invitation to illegal immigrants

From the ABC:

The Federal Opposition says a proposed overhaul of the bridging visa system would further soften Australia's border protection policies, sending the wrong message to people smugglers.

A Parliamentary inquiry says there need to be changes to how the system works, including offering applicants increased assistance to health care, legal services and accommodation.

The Greens say the changes do not go far enough, the Opposition's immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone says the recommendations would allow people into the community before they have had their identity and security status checked.

"That is just another message right now that I think is very unhelpful as the people smugglers literally get bigger and bigger boats, and become more and more active in what is a very dangerous and inhumane trade," she said.

"The message says, 'Look, we're not even going to complete all of your identity checks before we pass you into Perth or Adelaide or some other community where you can work, where you'll be given unemployment benefits if you can't get a job, where we'll find you decent accommodation'."

Original article

New boat sparks island tensions

From The Australian:

New boat stokes island tensions

Paige Taylor and Nicola Berkovic | May 25, 2009

AUTHORITIES on Christmas Island were yesterday preparing to process a boatload of 73 suspected asylum seekers - the 20th arrival since September - fuelling tensions among local residents over food shortages exacerbated by the island's swelling population.

The boat was intercepted off Ashmore Island at 7am yesterday, as new figures were released showing the number of skilled overseas workers coming to Australia on temporary 457 visas had plunged to its lowest level in four years.

Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus did not give details of where the passengers and four crew were from. They are due on Christmas Island by the end of the week.

The flood of asylum seekers has swollen the island's population by almost 60 per cent forcing the Department of Immigration to employ a community liaison officer to ease ongoing tensions on the tiny territory.

Immigration officials were confronted for more than two hours at a community meeting last week by about 150 angry residents demanding to know how the Rudd Government intended to ease pressure on the resources of the small island, whose population of 1200 regularly endures supply shortages as a result of late shipments from Perth.

There are currently 464 detainees on Christmas Island and 226 immigration workers, contractors and service providers. The presence of the fly-in, fly-out workforce - many of whom have a daily allowance of about $80 for food on top of their wage - has led to recriminations over scarce and expensive fruit at the local store.

Fresh food flown in from Perth is many times more expensive than in mainland stores - one man claimed last week to have paid $21 for three capsicums.

Some residents have grown resentful that the 29 asylum seekers living in community detention on the island are able to buy fruit on store credit provided by the department.

The department moved quickly to squash rumours that asylum seekers were living on unlimited credit. It issued detailed information showing a family of four asylum seekers on Christmas Island would receive $766 in store credit each fortnight and $300 cash.

Full article

"Fate Keeps On Happening": Australia, Boat People, And The Repressed Immigration Issue

From VDARE.com:

“Fate Keeps On Happening”: Australia, Boat People, And The Repressed Immigration Issue

By R. J. Stove
May 27, 2009

Australia’s leftish Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has displayed a fairly formidable range of literary awareness, running the gamut from free market economist F. A. Hayek (whom he resents) to theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (whom he reveres). This daunting curriculum, though, appears never to have included Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

A pity. Because Rudd’s current political plight calls to mind the maxim of that novel’s intrepid but pragmatic heroine Lorelei Lee: "Fate Keeps On Happening".

The "fate" in question is the 2001 national election, which should have been a disaster for conservative John Howard, head of Australia’s government since 1996. Opinion polls for most of 2001 had Howard well behind.

Then two things happened to save Howard’s career. Most spectacularly, 9/11 helped frighten the electorate into having doubts about the advisability of changing horses in mid-stream. But even before that, in August 2001, there was the MV Tampa affair.

The MV Tampa was a Norwegian cargo ship carrying more than 430 (exact numbers are variously given) Third World asylum seekers, mostly Afghans. Howard—fearful of an anti-immigration backlash led by Pauline Hanson, then at the height of her fame—refused to permit the Tampa to enter Australian waters.

This decision, of course, inspired profuse moaning from the commentariat, international as well as local, about Howard’s "xenophobia”. Such moaning increased in its intensity when he proclaimed: "We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come."

On Election Day, the opposition didn’t have a prayer. Howard returned to office with an increased majority, the first of his country’s Prime Ministers to manage this feat since Harold Holt in 1966.

No adult Australian, least of all in Rudd’s Labor Party, has forgotten the humiliation of this defeat. It has burnt its way into Labor’s collective soul, in a way that other, still more severe Labor losses (such as Gough Whitlam’s landslide routs in 1975 and 1977) failed to do.

Consequently immigration hardly figured in the 2004 election campaign. Labor’s leader that year, Mark Latham, was spectacularly erratic in many respects. But on a few themes he possessed a certain native horse sense. He compelled his party to accept a policy of increased penalties for people-smugglers and for those who overstayed temporary visas. No way was Latham about to tolerate accusations by Howard of being soft on illegals.

Suitably impressed by the resultant bipartisan front against illegals getting special privileges, most people-smugglers ceased attempting to ply their noisome trade in Australia’s vicinity.

Until now.

In 2009, an exclamation by the late Heather O’Rourke in Poltergeist II is newly appropriate to describe the advance of boat people: "They’re baaack!"

On April 16, a fishing boat containing Afghan illegals caught fire, killing five people—not three, as originally reported—and injuring 40 more, many of whom were taken to Royal Perth Hospital. (For footage of the fire, see here.)

In the aftermath of this tragedy, the Rudd Government has been left looking much more rattled than at any time since it stormed to victory at the 2007 election. (At that election, it had deprived Howard not only of the Prime Ministry but of his own parliamentary seat in Sydney. Not coincidentally, Howard had not raised the immigration issue again.

The post-Howard "conservative" Liberal Party opposition, led by Malcolm Turnbull—a prize instance of the pseudo-Catholic pro-abort pol with whom Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and John Kerry have made Americans depressingly familiar—has the scent of blood in its nostrils, for the first time since 2007. Turnbull is accusing Rudd and his cabinet ministers of covering up information about the explosion and its aftermath.

"They know full well what’s happened", Turnbull insists. "They’ve known for some time. They should tell the truth. That’s all we’re asking them to do." [Rudd Braces For More Boat People, By David McLennan, The Canberra Times, April 21, 2009]

Turnbull’s critique is purely technical, however. He has specifically repudiated the Howard era’s border protection policies, which alone, if re-established, might have some chance of restoring the situation to the 2001-2007 status quo. In essence, he is emulating John McCain’s shunning of the issue that hurt McCain so badly with the Republican base.

This is a problem, because while no-one in authority will confirm as yet whether the explosion occurred deliberately or accidentally, what remains indisputable is Prime Minister Rudd’s personal anger at people-smugglers.

Such anger makes a conspicuous contrast with his usual public persona (periodically likened to Harry Potter) of cherubic blandness. But he recently called people-smugglers "the vilest form of human life" and hoped that they would "rot in hell".

Whereas in 2001 it was Labor which found itself trapped in a "damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t" vise apropos illegals, now this unenviable victim status is firmly maintained by Turnbull’s Liberal-National coalition. Turnbull’s natural aggression means that he cannot be seen to agree with Rudd’s policies regarding the illegals, or anything else. This aggression has made him publicly hated without being even remotely respected, a fatal combination in politics, as Machiavelli long ago explained.

Meanwhile, opinion polls (carried out, admittedly, before April 16) had Rudd coasting along on a 74 per cent popularity rating. Those who preferred to see Turnbull take over from Rudd as Prime Minister constituted a grand total of 24 per cent.

The same polls found that the usual mid-term blues had simply failed to occur. Rudd’s own party has been not just unscathed but, rather, strengthened. Labor led the Liberal-National coalition by 58 per cent to 42 per cent. That was actually six points better than the result with which it won office two years ago. (A subsequent poll, reported on May 4, showed a slight decline in Rudd’s popularity. Still, 64 per cent of respondents continued to prefer Rudd over Turnbull.)

So on present trends, Rudd is unlikely to lose the next election, due no later than 2010. Besides, incumbency gives a much greater advantage to first-term Australian Prime Ministers than it does to first-term American Presidents.

To find an Australian national leader who lost office after a single term, à la Jimmy Carter or George H. W. Bush, we must go back to the hapless James Scullin, flung out of the Prime Ministry in 1931, during the Great Depression’s depths. (For newsreel footage of Scullin, see here.) Even Whitlam, chaotic administrator though he was, secured for himself a second term, in 1974.

If the boat people issue continues for long enough to do Rudd serious damage, Australia’s conservatives might have a chance at winning power. Or, who knows, they might even raise the issue of legal immigration, effectively kept out of politics by the usual bipartisan consensus since Hanson’s implosion.

But probably, like the GOP in the U.S., they will opt to play the political game in the approved way—and lose.

R. J. Stove lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Original article

Although it may have criticised the Rudd Government for its soft stance on illegal immigration, it is highly unlikely that the Coalition would ever risk raising the ire of its corporate sponsors in the pro-open borders business community by coming out in favour of lower levels of legal immigration.

The only thing that could possibly force the Coalition to re-assess its blind committment to mass immigration would be the realisation that immigrants, especially those of the non-European variety, overwhelmingly vote for the ALP. As this article points out, John Howard lost his own seat at the last federal election largely due to Bennelong's large Asian immigrant population. The role of the ethnic vote in toppling Howard in Bennelong should have sent a wake-up call to the Coalition that demography is destiny in politics. As Australia's ethnic makeup changes due to immigration, and the non-European minority population soars, the Coalition may find its share of the vote, like the European share of the population, in irrevocable decline.

Time to tell the truth about asylum seekers

From The Australian Conservative:

Time for the Rudd Government to tell the truth about the asylum seekers

Cory Bernardi | May 1 2009

Almost every day, of every week, of every month, I receive at least one email contrasting the payments made to Australian asylum seekers with the payments made to Australian pensioners. Perhaps you too have seen them as part of a viral information campaign. These emails suggest that illegal asylum seekers receive more government assistance than an Australian pensioner.

Indeed, I have raised this with the Minister for Immigration during Senate Estimates and have been advised that the email campaign is absolutely false. On that assurance, I too have rejected the legitimacy of the emails circulated, confident in the knowledge that they couldn’t possibly be true.

Now I am not so sure.

Two days ago, I read a report that the illegal immigrants who are detained on Christmas Island are receiving thousands of dollars in benefits from the Australian Government for breaking Australian law by breaching our border security.

One report has a family of four receiving $1066 per fortnight for food - more than many Australian resident families would receive from the Government when faced with extreme economic hardship.

Of course, the payment made to the illegal arrivals reportedly doesn’t include the free accommodation (yes that’s right - a house in the community, not a jail cell!), internet access and an unrestricted phone card so they can contact family and friends . One can only imagine the reports of the land of milk and honey during these taxpayer funded phone calls.

Frankly, at the risk of being condemned as heartless, I am appalled by this information. These people, who may or may not be legitimate refugees, have already shown themselves to be criminals by breaking the law to enter Australian territory.

Of course there will be the usual cries that the queue jumpers were so desperate to escape a life threatening situation they were forced to take the illegal and risky venture of coming to Australia in a leaky boat. I say that is absolute nonsense.

I cannot recall a single instance where an illegal boat person entering Australian territory had embarked, uninterrupted from their original country of residence. Recent reports are of Afghani or Iranian citizens who have travelled through Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia before paying a people smuggler tens of thousands of dollars for illegal passage to Australia. Hardly the conduct of someone fleeing for their life.

Indeed, recently a group of seventy Afghans were detained in a hotel in Indonesia because they were abandoned by the people smugglers whom they had paid for passage to Australia. One can just imagine their hardship, lounging around the pool, watching satellite TV, waiting for the chance at the good life in Australia.

Of course, the Rudd Government denies that their policies have encouraged the new wave of illegal arrivals into our territorial waters. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that since the immigration laws were softened there has been an influx of boats. Most recently, one of these voyages has met with the tragic loss of life and reinforced the perception that the Rudd Government is not being straight with the Australian people.

I say enough is enough. It is time for a reality check. We have more boats, filled with illegal immigrants, coming every week. Alarmingly, there are reports that when they arrive here, the passengers are offered greater financial support than some Australian citizens and still the Government is in denial.

The Australian people deserve to know the truth of what is causing this influx of illegal immigrants and exactly how their taxpayer dollars are being spent.

We need an independent inquiry to establish the facts surrounding illegal boat arrivals and the use of taxpayer funds that seem to act as an incentive for them to come here.

Cory Bernardi is a South Australian Liberal senator.

Original article

Illegal immigration debate 'set to flare again'

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The debate about asylum seekers could flare again as Australia signals its doors are again open to people smugglers, former immigration minister Philip Ruddock says. Mr Ruddock, one of the key architects of the previous Howard government’s hardline policy against asylum seekers, made the warning following an increase in boat activity in recent months. “I think we’re about to see a very real and substantial debate about these issues in the Australian community again,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

The federal government had relaxed measures aimed at effective border protection, he said. That was likely to send signals abroad that Australia was a more attractive destination for people smugglers, Mr Ruddock said.

People smugglers were corrupt, had little care for people’s lives, and looked very closely at the opportunities that were open to them. “I’m sure that smugglers would be saying to people, `Look if we can get you into Australia, you’ll be able to remain permanently, that’s a very different outcome to what was in place.”

Original article

Australia faces a new wave of illegal immigrants

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Indonesian and Australian police have stopped 14 boats laden with asylum seekers from travelling to Australia this year, including at least three in the past six weeks, as people-smuggling activity accelerates across the archipelago. Four boats have made it to Australian waters. On Thursday, one of them, with 12 Sri Lankans aboard, became the first boat in two years to reach the mainland, near Shark Bay in Western Australia. Government sources said the arrivals, who were being transferred to Christmas Island, would have access to Australian law should they claim asylum.

The previously undisclosed figures on people-smuggling disruption, confirmed by Australian Federal Police, highlight the success of the joint operation combating human trafficking. But the data also points to a spike in asylum seekers trying to come to Australia, a politically sensitive issue for the Rudd Government. This year, the Government softened its policy towards illegal immigrants and has allowed the navy - which intercepts boats - to stand down for two months over Christmas due to a manpower shortage.

Full article

Stricter immigration rules for Indian students, but not for Chinese

From The Australian:

Tougher immigration rules for Indian students

Guy Healy
September 03, 2008

AN immigration crackdown will make it harder to recruit students from India, the fast-growing big market in Australia's $12.5 billion education export industry.

University of NSW's pro vice-chancellor (international) Jennie Lang told the HES all universities were likely to have urged students to get their visa applications lodged and processed before the September 1 change in immigration risk levels, which affects a host of overseas markets.

"We will also be encouraging (Department of Immigration and Citizenship) staff in offshore posts to ensure that university sector applicants are given priority," Ms Lang said.

A spokesperson from the department said "genuine applicants had nothing to fear from the changes".

According to the latest official data, there were 65,000 Indian students in Australia in the year to June, mostly in vocational education. Although they make up a smaller market than the Chinese, the Indian growth rate is much higher: student numbers from India grew by 55 per cent, compared with 19per cent from China.

The China market, however, benefits in the latest revision of immigration risk, which is based on factors such as rates of document fraud, visa overstay and asylum claims, as well as applications for non-skilled residency for a spouse, for example.

*snip*

India was not alone in moving up the risk scale. Visa applicants from Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Jordan, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Romania and Zimbabwe will have to do more to show they are genuine students.

They will have to give extra evidence of their capacity to support themselves financially, especially with savings histories.

The status of these nine countries had been changed "to combat increased levels of immigration risk", the department spokesperson said.

The risk levels are set across various sectors, including English language courses, vocational education and higher degrees.

The higher risk assessment affects all sectors of the Indian education market, which moved up by one level.

Full article

The policy that dare not speak its name

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

And the challenge of migration?

Paul Sheehan
August 4, 2008

Did you know the Rudd Government is implementing the biggest immigration program since the end of World War II, and the biggest intake, in absolute numbers of permanent immigrants and temporary workers, in Australia's history?

Did you know the migration program for 2008-09 has set a target of 190,300 places, a robust 20 per cent increase over the financial year just ended?

On budget night, May 13, amid the avalanche of material released by the Government, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, issued a press release stating, among other things: "The use of 457 visas to employ temporary skilled migrant workers has grown rapidly in recent years. A total of 39,500 subclass 457 visas was granted in 2003-04 compared with an expected 100,000 places in each of 2007-08 and 2008-09." That is a 150 per cent increase in four years.

Did you know the number of overseas students coming to Australia is also at a record high, with 228,592 student visas granted in 2006-07, a 20 per cent increase over the previous year?

Under the Rudd Government, Australia's net immigration intake is now larger than Britain's, even though it has almost three times the population of Australia. To put all this in perspective, the immigration program in the Rudd Government's first year is 150 per cent bigger than it was in the Howard government's first year. The immigration intake is running almost 60 per cent higher than it was three years ago.

On November 14 last year, when Kevin Rudd launched Labor's election campaign, he mentioned at length the challenges of climate change and water shortages: "It is irresponsible for any national government of Australia to stand idly by while our major cities are threatened by the insecurity of water supply." While presenting a commendable shift away from John Howard's inertia on these issues, his policy is breathtakingly inconsistent. Not only did Rudd commit to a policy of building high-energy desalination plants for Australia's main cities, he has also committed Australia to record levels of immigration.

Talk about shifting sands. To quote Rudd in this same keynote speech: "Mr Howard lacked the decency to even mention Work Choices at all during his 4400-word policy speech on Monday. Work Choices has become the industrial relations law that now dare not speak its name."

Rudd did not have the decency to mention immigration once in his 4300-word campaign launch. It is the most glaring inconsistency of his Government.

The immigration figures quoted above do not even include New Zealanders, who are not counted as part of Australia's annual migration program, nor do they include people who have overstayed their visas. Add another 50,000 or so people to an equation which will see a million people added to the population during the three-year term of the Rudd Government. The only element in Australia's immigration program that is not going gangbusters is the refugee and humanitarian intake, which remains static at 13,500 places a year.

It was not until Evans made his first key policy speech last week that I began to appreciate the scale of the Government's selective silences. He began with a ritual bashing of his Liberal predecessor as minister, Kevin Andrews, who is now not even in the Opposition shadow outer ministry and would do his party a favour if he retired.

After the point-scoring Evans got to the essence: "Today I want to announce … [that] mandatory detention is an essential component of strong border control … [but] children and, where possible, their families, will not be detained in an immigration detention centre … Detention that is indefinite or otherwise arbitrary is not acceptable … Detention in immigration detention centres is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time …"

It was not until the last paragraph of his long speech that Evans got to the core point: "In the future, the immigration system will be characterised by strong border security, firm deterrence of unauthorised arrivals, effective and robust immigration processes and respect for the rule of law and the humanity of those seeking migration outcomes."

Sounds like Howard. In other words, the fundamentals of the system are not going to be changed. The Rudd Labor Government is not dismantling the detention system first set up by the Keating Labor. It is not ending the excision of Australian territory from the Immigration Act, which prevents asylum-seekers from entering Australian territory via offshore islands. It is not ending the detention of adults until security and health checks are completed. It is not cutting funding for navy border patrols. It is maintaining the new Christmas Island detention centre, far from Australia's shores, and capable of housing 800 people short-term, as a place to warehouse any new wave of boat people.

The fundamentals have not changed because they cannot change. The electorate holds dear the principle that people cannot determine when and how they will move to a new country, bypassing immigration controls or refugee programs. This is elementary to a nation's sovereignty.

The hysterics in the refugee and mandatory detention debates have always thrown around words like "shame" and "gulags" and engaged in moral relativism, comparing Howard to Saddam Hussein, while refusing to recognise that there are real consequences of failures of immigration policy. Thousands of Australian have paid a heavy price for the failed refugee-vetting processes in the 1970s and 1980s, when many people who should never have been allowed into the country were approved. We are still paying the price.

Labor learned the hard way that to compromise border security is to invite political disaster. This is why the Rudd Government is still talking tough on border security, and has a major immigration policy but dare not speak its name.

Source

Rudd Government to people smugglers: "Australia is open for business once again"

From TheRealists:

Immigration minister takes ‘modern risk management approach’ to Australia’s security

July 30th, 2008

Mandatory detention of asylum seekers, introduced in 1992 and according to former Labor leader Mark Latham one of the “proud achievements of the Keating administration”, has been watered down by the Rudd Government.

Headlines across the world are announcing to would-be asylum seekers that Australia is open for business.

Asylum seekers for the first time in 16 years can now come to Australia, face some routine checks and then be released into the wider community. It’s what our new immigration minister, Senator Chris Evans, likes to call a “modern risk-based approach to detention”.

The immigration minister says that the Howard government policies brought great shame on Australia. He points to the United Nations Human Rights Committee making adverse findings against Australia in immigration detention cases. But being a minister isn’t about avoiding shame. It isn’t about pandering to corrupt organisations such at the UN.

I’m reminded of a BBC reporter who was sent undercover into Pakistan to obtain fake Afghanistan passport in order to pose as an Afghani refugee in the UK. The counterfeiter assured the reporter that all he had to do was show up in the UK with that passport to be allowed asylum; and access to welfare payments. He said that the only countries in the world where they wouldn’t believe he was an Afghani were Afghanistan itself; and Australia. That’s just one example of corruption of the asylum system, and a reason why Australians can feel proud of their tough asylum policies.

The deterrent effect of mandatory detention and a tough immigration stance can also be seen in the figures showing a dramatic reduction of people coming to Australia by boat since the Tampa incident in 2001 made headline news around the world. The success of these policies has been so great that few boats have made the journey to Australian shores since 2001.

The minister would also be advised to speak to some Europeans on the matter of asylum seekers. In Europe hundreds of thousands of people claim asylum each year. A new phrase ‘asylum shopping’ has been coined for asylum seekers who travel from country to country attempting to get the best asylum deal. Now the asylum seekers have a new shop to try.

The Europeans, without the tough policies that Australia has, are powerless to contain the flow of people. Why would Australia want to go down this path?

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the new policy is that under the new system the department will have to justify why a person should be detained. That is, asylum seekers will be given automatic rights to live in the Australian community, with the onus on a government official justifying why the asylum seeker does not have that right. Shouldn’t this be the other way around?

This is a bad signal to be sending out to the rest of the world. The rights of the illegal immigrant will be placed ahead of the right that ordinary Australians have to feel protected in their own country. This is a bad signal to be sending out to the rest of the world, let alone legislating for the Australian people. It is exacerbated by the government saying it will only detaining people “as a last resort”.

The minister for immigration recently said that “The debate about temporary migration, quite frankly, is over”, even as more Australians wake up to the problems of sustained mass immigration. Having reduced our immigration standards the same minister now wants to weaken our asylum policy by introducing a risk-based approach to detention.

In a time when Europe and the Unites States are grappling with ways to contain illegal immigration, now is not the time for the minister to be watering down our immigration and asylum systems and steering Australia closer to their failed policies.

Source

Rudd Govt's changes risk a new wave of illegal immigration

From ABC News:

Coalition warns detention changes risk border protection

By Online parliamentary correspondent Emma Rodgers

Posted Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:23pm AEST

The Federal Opposition says it will not support any changes to Australia's mandatory detention laws amid warnings the changes will weaken border protection.

Under new reforms announced today by Immigration Minister Chris Evans, asylum seekers will no longer be detained once they have been ruled out as a risk to society.

The Immigration Department will now also have to make a case as to why someone should be detained.

Senator Evans has described the approach as more compassionate than the previous government's policy.

The changes have been broadly welcomed by refugee groups but Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison has described the move as a knee-jerk reaction which sends the message that Australia has softened its border protection.

"I think the weakening of Australia's strong immigration detention policy will send a clear message to the region that we are relaxing border control," he said.

"The intelligence we have demonstrates there are still people smugglers in the region ... that intelligence has not changed over the last couple of years."

Senator Ellison has also called on the Government to provide more detail of what will happen when asylum seekers are released into the community and how they will be supported.

"To simply release these people into the community without any support, without any plan as to what is to happen with them shows no compassion for them either," he said.

The Government will be able to make some administrative adjustments in order to implement the changes but laws may also have to go through Parliament.

Senator Ellison says the policy should not be changed.

"We have to have a strong immigration policy and legal system which says, 'If you come to Australia and you have no right to be here then you either return from whence you came or your matter is resolved, and whilst that is being done, Australia has the right to detain you'," he said.

"Certainly the Opposition in the Senate will be taking careful note of what the Government is proposing but we will not agree to anything which relaxes Australia's border protection and we will not agree to anything which diminishes our strong immigration policy in this country."

Full article


More:

Illegals could 'disappear'

July 29, 2008 03:04pm

RELAXING Australia's detention rules could allow hundreds of illegal immigrants disappear into the community, the Federal Opposition says.

Under a new system unveiled by Immigration Minister Chris Evans today, asylum seekers and people caught overstaying their visas will be detained only if they pose a risk to the community.

They will remain in the community until their cases are finalised.

Boatpeople will continue to be detained on Christmas Island but with the aim of resolving their cases in the shortest time possible.

Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said the plan had not been thought through properly and would relax the strong border protection system put in place by the Howard government.

"The fact that we only have six unauthorised arrivals in detention in Australia today demonstrates the past success of the coalition government's strong border protection policies," he said.

"But we don't have the detail as to what is to happen to these people if they're released into the community.

"These people have been found to be overstayers, to have breached their visa conditions, and it is appropriate that they be detained until they're granted a further visa or the matter is resolved one way or the other."

It was inherently difficult to keep track of people living in the wider community, and therefore to deport them, he said.

"As a result of Labor's announcement these people will be allowed to enjoy the benefits of living in Australia and potentially disappear, despite having no substantive visa to remain in Australia," Senator Ellison said.

The decision would send a message to people smugglers in the region that Australia was relaxing its border control, he said.

Source

Welfare payments for illegal immigrants?

From the Courier Mail:

Dole payment plan for illegal immigrants

By Renee Viellaris
June 25, 2008 12:00am

TAXPAYERS would be forced to pay thousands of illegal immigrants the dole under controversial measures now being considered by the Rudd Government.

For the first time asylum seekers and illegal immigrants fighting to stay in the country would be allowed to work and claim welfare benefits while taking the Immigration Department to court.

The proposal will mostly apply to illegal immigrants on tourist visas who fly into the country and then claim asylum when ordered to leave, rather than the stereotype of people who arrive on leaky boats.

They are not in detention centres and are given a so-called "Bridging Visa E" until their cases are sorted out.

The latest figures show there are 5624 people on the visas but the number often swells to as high as 7000.

Although overstayers would pay taxes if they found a job, taxpayers would have to pay millions in Centrelink and Medicare payments to those unable to find work.

As well, taxpayers would have to foot the cost of appeals to the Migration Review Tribunal, the Federal Court, the full bench of the Federal Court and the High Court.

Some court cases last a decade or more. Sources have told The Courier-Mail of one case involving a man who arrived in the 1980s and claimed asylum who was finally kicked out last year after exhausting all his appeal options.

The Opposition has denounced Labor's plan, warning that without safety measures taxpayers would bear the brunt of vexatious claims. It also said illegal immigrants would target Australia if the law was relaxed.

Full article