In Crikey last week, Bernard Keane made the point that Australia accepts a disproportionately small number of asylum-seekers given our population size. So, where exactly do we rank in the world in terms of generosity towards displaced persons?
The United Nations Refugee Agency provides a wide range of statistics about refugees and asylum-seekers. The latest monthly data gives the number of asylum-seeker applications by country for 2009 up to and including August. The chart below shows a ranking of the 44 countries who reported accepting asylum-seekers over this period. Australia finds itself well down the list in 20th place. Mind you, the United States ranks a few spots behind us and, despite having a better reputation when it comes to taking refugees, New Zealand is even further behind. Malta is by far the most welcoming country for refugees.
So, how many more asylum-seekers should we be taking to be accepting our fair share? Keane approaches the question by considering the relative size of our population to the population of the world. However, there are many countries that are a source of refugees that could not realistically accept asylum-seekers. So, instead the baseline should be an equal share of asylum-seekers based on the relative size of a country’s population to the combined population of the 44 countries who have been taking asylum-seekers (a total of 1.14 billion).
The magic number, shown as a grey line in the chart, is 197 asylum-seekers per million population. This means that Australia’s fair share for 2009 to August should be 4,197 rather than the 3,666 we have taken so far. So, we could easily accept the 255 Sri Lankan boat people currently seeking asylum in Australia, and still have room for more. Mind you, Australia only just falls below the average rate, ranking just behind Germany which takes in slightly more asylum-seekers than average.
Of course, as Keane noted, it’s not just about population, there’s also the question of money. Australia is a rich country and so ranking asylum-seekers count by size of GDP we do even worse, falling down to 24th place. See the graph below. Surely we can afford to do better!
Political debate on the subject refugees if probably inevitable, but it is worth trying to keep a cool head and get some perspective from the numbers. Australia is a long way away from most of the rest of the world, so it should not come as a surprise that we get only a modest number of asylum-seekers by international standards. Unfortunately, this fact is unlikely to penetrate the consciousness of the more hysterical commentators.
Data sources: asylum-seeker application counts from the UNCHR, population and Gross Domestic Product from the CIA World Factbook.
It doesn’t matter how you play with statistics, the bias of the statistician must also be taken into account. Do-gooders and other members of the chattering classes who get their rocks off by pursuing feelgood factors like support for so-called refugees can play with the numbers as much as they like. Of course Australia could accept another239, but what it was 239,000 or 2.39 million? It’s not a question of whether we can or should accept refugees, it is the method by which we select them and how we control our borders. Self-selection by paying to USD 15,000 to a people smuggler, notwithstanding the justice or otherwise of the individual concerned sends a clear message that due process is to be ignored. This together with the much bigger problem of visa over stayers, especially in the so-called training market is a clear challenge to governance and must be stood up to, otherwise the law of the jungle prevails.
If we are to have an increased asylum seeker quotas, do we use United Nations or self-assessment using people smugglers as the selection process. Judging by the amount reportedly paid for people smuggling, it would seem that an equity basis, the penniless refugees sitting in United Nations campst are much more deserving of sympathy, but they are unable to buy the publicity that the current crop sitting in Indonesia can buy at $15,000 per head. My sympathy is with the penniless refugees who are being bypassed in this sordid process.
The much maligned
Thanks for this. Unfortunately confirms my sighing sadness at our response to this. Its not just the rich-country-can’t-do-more-because-it-threatens-our-way-of-life syndrome. It is also that we have this strange myopia that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD wants to come here. They don’t. They would rather be in the UK or Europe, or Canada. Just because it is close to what is still perceived as the ‘real world’. (Casual question to me by Afghan Hazara taxi-driver in Bamyan last week: “Any other way to get to Australia these days except through the traffickers?”. No people smuggler nicety here. Afghans are aware of Australia’s refugee policy, as they are many countries’ refugee policies. Its called international communications. The Sri Lankans are in our immediate neighbourhood, still we don’t get many coming our way).
What continues to be a theme in the lives of my generation is
Australia’s pitifully unconfident attitude to the world. I am sick to death of brain-challenged politicians and those in the media who pander to a pathetic shut-the-borders on everything that comes in – except the plasma TVs. I guess its the price for living in an oversized island with oversized fears and, in the end, oversized pockets. The more we have the more we seem to fear.
Mr Rudd does not use refugees as a political wedge: he just uses it to keep the door wedged shut on refugees. Tell me what is the ultimate difference between that and Howard’s Way. We had such hopes Mr Rudd, that you speak OK Chinese was a point of pride and a pointer to future possibilities. Where is Paul Keating’s directness when you need it? Like, lets grow up, the world is moving fearfully fast out there, but, like a lot of resource-rich countries, we just lie back and take it rather than leveraging the income for creating stuff, encouraging outward savvy with the world. And being generous – in our own interests.
I just hope against hope for a younger generation who are more engaged with the world, not just the Gallipolli backpackers but those who see the complexities ahead and want to engage with them. Sigh………..
Jan: as evidence in support of your theory that refugees would rather make it to Western countries other than Australia, I was impressed (and somewhat amazed) to discover that a group of Sri Lankan refugees seem to have made it all the way to the West coast of Canada.
Greg Angelo,
We do not protect our borders through the refugee intake. Many people are ‘smuggled’ through official channels and airports. Even Mr. Ruddock admitted that there were over 40.000 people illegaly staying in Australia. They were usually ‘overstayers’, and I understand that under the Howard government there were at least twice as many. I do not have current figures. Student visas are the best example of how one can sneak into the country on false pretences because we are too greedy not to accept the money for a very costly visa. Our borders are wide open for drug traffickers and other ‘scums’ of our planet like weapon smuggling. For some funny reasons we concentrate on a non-issue.
Australia could well treat refugees as human resources. Many of them are highly qualified people who can really contribute to our community.
During the Sudanese refugees hysteria I met a couple of Sudanese refugees working at the university in Adelaide as lecturers. Many Tamils are quite smart in maths and have very good educational background.
On the other hand, an Australian citizen can marry anybody and bring him/her to the country; old, uneducated, non-English speaker, ‘ugly with no dowry’ who will remain with Centrelink for the rest of his/her life. For many no-hopers, spouse visa is the only way to get here.
Greg, people who are in a camp are already safer than the ones that have no access to any camp. Why is it so difficult to understand the obvious? The Convention criteria are not means tested. If you have no money Australia would not accept you, anyway.
Australian Government grants over a hundred thousand permanent visas every year. Not even one tenth of them are protection visas. So, how do YOU play with the statistics?
I have made it clear in other comments on this subject that I do not support the government’s position on those seeking asylum; but these graphs are I think a little misleading for several reasons. For example most of the European countries well ahead of Australia wish they were not. But have porous borders due to being contiguous or nearly so with many of the migrant sources, or at least have a continuous land mass for migrants to utilize.
They don’t, that is the figures, take account of the fact that most of the European countries only have significant migration between the open borders for citizens of the European Union, whereas Australia, and the US for example actively seek migrants. There is a limit to the number of migrants that a country can absorb without social tensions developing. Whether we have the balance right between asylum seeking migrants and ordered migration is of course another matter.