An announcement on Australia’s intake of Ukrainian refugees is expected this week, with 3000 visas already granted to Ukrainians since the invasion began. But it’s difficult to know what to expect given this country’s recent history of brutal border policies. As Crikey’s Bernard Keane advocates for a mass intake of Ukrainian refugees, here’s a breakdown of Australia’s history of migration amid conflict overseas.
World War II
Prior to having any formalised migration act or refugee policy, Australia selected 170,700 displaced people from camps across Europe to come to Australia in the aftermath of World War II. This program saw a continual influx of European immigrants from 1945 to 1952.
Notably, the Migration Act was established in 1958, and the final remnants of the White Australia policy was abolished in 1973.
Vietnam
The first boat carrying Vietnamese refugees arrived in Darwin Harbour on April 26, 1976. As the US defeat in Vietnam became inevitable, massive emergency evacuation efforts began, including Operation Babylift. This effort saw orphaned Vietnamese children flown around the world, including to Australia. But most post-war refugees to Australia arrived on flights after a selection process in refugee camps across Vietnam. This program saw 80,000 Vietnamese migrants arrive in Australia across the decade following the war. Temporary visa holders from Vietnam as well as Laos and Cambodia were also granted residency.
Cambodia
From 1989 to 1991, a small number of people arrived by boat from Cambodia. This influx coincided with the introduction of major amendments to the Migration Act by the Hawke government in 1989, which sought to “improve the ability to curb abuse of the immigration program by people seeking to come to Australia illegally”. As a result, in 1992, immigration detention became routine.
Safe havens
In 1999, 4000 displaced Kosovars were granted “safe haven” in Australia. The “short-term” humanitarian measure begins as a three-month visa, with the potential for extension. Later that year 1450 East Timorese were granted the same visa.
But in the first half of 2000 both groups of refugees were instructed to return to their country of origin, with some being sent against their will. Others resisted further, and were placed in detention in Australia. Some Kosovars undergoing treatment for trauma were granted three-year visas.
The “Pacific solution” was introduced in 2001, enforcing offshore processing of asylum seekers.
Syria
In September 2015, a one-off intake of 12,000 refugees from Syria was announced by the Abbott government. This coincided with the peak of the conflict, which had been unfolding for years since the Arab Spring in 2011.
Afghanistan
In January 2022 the government pledged to provide 15,000 visas to Afghan nationals after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. The visas will provide places to migrants over a four year period. 145,000 Afghan nationals have applied for visas, with a Senate committee hearing only 1000 permanent visas had been granted as of February.
I very much agree with the tone and substance of this story but have to ask. Why did you omit Myanmar from the country cases? It is directly relevant to Australia, but the story of government actions, on visas and sanctions and support for democracy in general, is so sad as to be terrible.
To nitpick a bit. The changes to the Migration Act in 1988 were quite fundamental, going from loose policy-based decisions on visas, to regulations-based decisions with applicants having to satisfy particular criteria . Since then it’s just become more and more complex and sometime in the future another Government Minister will decide it needs to be resimplified.
With the change, the Government abolished one of the grounds for applying for permanent residence in Australia- ‘on compassionate or humanitarian grounds’, compassionate being family-related (and being codified quite specifically in the new regulations) and humanitarian being just that. Needless to say, lots of people applied to stay on these grounds. Once the humanitarian ground was abolished, it pushed applicants into the more lengthy refugee application process which up till then had not attracted many applicants. The numbers would have increased anyway as the world has become more unstable.
And to nitpick even more: the US defeat in Viet Nam came on 30 April 1975, almost exactly a year before the first boatload of Vietnamese refugees arrived in Darwin.
Time to fix these policies. Besides our moral obligations to people in strife it just makes good sense to allow people with enough “get up and go” to get up and go from crappy situations to settle in Australia given we have labour shortages, skills shortages and a people shortage generally.
We need these people, not only the ones that look like us but everyone who is prepared to give the place a go.
Hear, hear.
So… not that many…?
Remember that amongst earlier ‘British’ immigrants there were also many descendents of refugees and asylum seekers from the centuries before.
For example waves of French Huguenot (Calvinist protestant) migrations over a century plus to UK/Ireland especially late 17th century, and late 19th century saw significant Jewish immigration to UK due to economic hardship and anti-semitism in Central Eastern Europe.