The Importance Of Asylum Seekers In Australia

At the beginning of 2013, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that 10.4 million people worldwide were classed as refugees. That is, 10.4 million people that had fled their home country in fear of persecution. In 2011 there were a total of 1,669,725 asylum applications received worldwide, yet only 0.92% of those were made to Australia (Healey 2013). Despite being a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Australia has some of the toughest immigration policies worldwide. Australia, for example, is the only western country to place asylum seekers in mandatory detention instead of allowing them to live in the community while their claims are being processed. Politicians and media organisations have manipulated public opinion …show more content…
On June 27th 1999, John Howard, the reelected Prime Minister, announced a $124 million boost to enhance Australia 's capability to detect and deter 'illegal arrivals '. Most of this boost went to improving Australia 's Coastwatch program, even though only 31% of asylum seekers arrived by boat in the 1998-99 period (Healey 2013). In the same month, the government also legislated for heavier fines and longer jail sentences for those responsible for 'smuggling ' asylum seekers to Australia (Manne 2004). Four months after this new legislation, the Howard government went one step further and announced the introduction of temporary protection visas (TPVs), which has become a contentious policy over time. TPVs granted three years protection to those found to be genuine refugees, but at the end of that period they were required to have their applications …show more content…
The Labor government had attempted to shift the "rhetoric from 'stopping the boats to 'saving lives at sea '" (McAdam 2013). In 2009-10 the number of asylum seekers arriving in Australia raised dramatically, with 6,555 arriving in the year of 2010 (McKenzie & Hasmath 2013). In a recent report, McKay, Thomas & Blood (2011, p.g. 622) found that "while media reports were not overtly racist in their remarks, the online comments posted by readers to articles had strong racist undertones and were often derogatory and demeaning to asylum seekers". Public opinion had begun to rescind back to historical fears of being invaded or flooded with asylum seekers. The 2010 election was once again campaigned on the issue of asylum seekers, not just due to the influx of arrivals but also because both parties strived for tougher policies on border control (Bleiker 2013). In 2012, the Labor government reopened processing centers in Nauru and Papua New