Everytime someone who has the resources to pay people smugglers arrives unlawfully in Australia and is granted refugee status, a place is denied to someone else languishing in the most undesirable circumstances.
-World Refugee Day Statement from Minister for Immigration, Philip Ruddock, June 20, 2000.1
The annual size of Australia's humanitarian program has been set at 12,000 places since 1999-2000. Of these 12,000 places, 4,000 are set aside for people the UNHCR identifies as in need of resettlement.
The remaining 8,000 places are divided between onshore applicants (which include boat people) and applicants under Australia's Special Humanitarian Program (SHP) and Special Assistance Category (SAC), which select refugees (generally with existing links to Australia) according to criteria determined by the Australian government2. Currently the number of people admitted under the SHP+SAC is around 5,000 - these are the "legitimate" applicants. Because Australia is a signatory to the 1951 UNHCR convention, boat people who declare they are seeking asylum must be assessed for a protection visa solely against the UNHCR criteria of being a refugee, rather than the Australian government's criteria. (Note - this category is distinct from the 4,000 refugees sent to Australia by the UNHCR organization through the offshore program.)
In principle, if the number of onshore applicants increases dramatically, the number of people admitted under the SHP+SAC would diminish to compensate, keeping the total humanitarian program within the 12,000-place quota. However in 1999-2000 the entire program fell short of its quota by 2040 places, which were carried over to 2000-01, and only 1733 of these places were used. Therefore, while the number of boat arrivals has increased, Australia has not had to reject any offshore applicants as a result. Freezing the offshore program for the 2001-2002 financial year appears to be an over-reaction.
In summary there is no queue prioritized by need or length of wait, and Australia has not had to reject any applicants to its offshore program due to boat arrivals.
Refugees are not the only people who come to Australia's shores without documentation. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are people who have fled their homes but are still in their home country.6 Often their case is more desperate than refugees as they are still subject to the pressures which caused them to flee their homes initially, and are unable to perform the basic tasks of applying for visas or passports. By definition, IDPs are not refugees and are not protected under international law so Australia has no obligation to help these people under the UNHCR convention. Therefore in general, the only way an IDP could come to Australia would be to come "illegally".
Of the approximately 36 million displaced people worldwide, some 22 million of these are IDPs.6 In a sense, refugees are just the tip of the iceberg.
1. Quoted in Welcoming the Vulnerable? Asylum Seekers in Australia, Edmund Rice Centre.
2. Department of Immigration Statistics: http://www.immi.gov.au/statistics/refugee.htm
3. Department of Immigration Fact Sheet 40: Australia's Refugee and Humanitarian Program
4. Department of Immigration Report "Population Flows: Immigration Aspects 2000 Edition" Section - "The migration and humanitarian program" (part 4), http://www.immi.gov.au/statistics/publications/popflows/popflows.htm
5. Tzvi Fleischer, Coming Attractions, The Review, The Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, March 2000.
6. US Committee for Refugees report on Principal Sources of Internally Displaced Persons. The chart above is based on average values when the USCR report estimates a range.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's, and are not necessarily shared by his employers, benefactors, colleagues, web-hosts, relatives or friends.