Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 1986, Australia’s refugee and asylum seeker advocacy groups joined together for the first time to create a better understanding and a positive social awareness of refugees in the community when they established the inaugural Australian Refugee Week. Since those very first celebrations, Refugee Week has become an annual event, and this week Australia celebrates Refugee Week for the 24th time. I also note that on 20 June—that is, this coming Saturday—it will be World Refugee Day, a fact acknowledged by the Senate earlier today. Refugee Week provides an important opportunity for asylum seekers and refugees in Australia to be seen, to be listened to and to be heard. It provides those people with the chance not only to share their stories and their cultures but to celebrate the contributions that they have made to our communities.

Almost four years ago, when I made my first speech, I spoke of my concern for the plight of asylum seekers and refugees in Australia. I am still concerned with the plight of those people, but I am also pleased that in the intervening four years many positive improvements have been made. Principally, I am most pleased with the last year’s introduction by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, of the seven key immigration values that will drive the new detention policy and practice into the future. These values take a more compassionate and tolerant stance towards asylum seekers coming to our shores, and they are a step in the right direction in our treatment of those who are fleeing their native lands.

Australian Refugee Week, as I said, is a time to celebrate stories but also a time and an opportunity for all of us to reflect on why there are people who are refugees. It is a celebration of some 740,000 refugees who have made Australia their new home since we became a federation. This year’s theme for Australian Refugee Week is freedom from fear, and that encapsulates the refugee experience. In seeking refuge in Australia, refugees hope to find freedom from the traumatic circumstances that have forced them to flee from their own countries. Freedom from fear focuses our attention on the efforts we should all make to provide protection for refugees and to allow their children to grow up without fear of violence and persecution.

Additionally, this year’s theme will draw attention not just to the fear and atrocities that compel refugees to flee but to the freedom and relief they feel when they are given the opportunity to rebuild their lives in countries like ours, where they should be safe from persecution and violence. As a member of the parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Migration, I have been privileged to share the stories of many refugees and migrants in our country. I have heard firsthand stories of atrocious environments from which many of these people have fled in fear of war and persecution—persecution usually because of their ethnicity, their race, their political or religious beliefs, or their sexual preferences. The things that I have seen and heard as part of my role on the Joint Standing Committee on Migration are, frankly, horrendous, and many of those things are beyond the experience of most Australians.

Usually a refugee will undergo extreme danger in order to flee their country and to find shelter. Often they will spend a considerable period of time in tent camps with thousands of other refugees in countries that can barely accommodate them and with services that are barely adequate, despite the best efforts of many international organisations who attempt to assist them. Many refugees do not have the time or the chance to take many of their belongings, if they have many, with them when they flee their own countries. They become dependent on handouts of food, shelter and clothing. Unfortunately, many people do not make it at all. As I said, those people are fleeing from persecution, war and other atrocities. They experience much adversity and suffer through great obstacles and conflicts. If they are lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp, their fortune is still unknown. Often they are separated from some of their closest family members and await their fate completely unaware of what has happened to the people they have left behind.

In the early 1990s, Australia’s immigration policy was to detain all people who arrived in this country unlawfully. Originally, the persons amongst that group who were asylum seekers and refugees were detained only for a relatively short period of time while their immigration status was resolved. Unfortunately, under the reins of the former government that policy was amended and the time limit was lifted. People began to spend years and years in immigration detention. Prior to the election of the current government, far too many people were spending far too long in immigration detention, with little hope for speedy resolution of their cases.

The Rudd government is currently in the midst of reviewing its immigration policy, aiming to create a fairer and more just system for all. In the Joint Standing Committee on Migration’s ongoing inquiry into immigration detention in Australia, a recommendation was made in the first report for a time frame to be placed on the length of time that unlawful noncitizens should be detained in Australian detention centres. As I said, some refugees and asylum seekers that arrive here have already spent months, if not years, in refugee camps. The last thing any genuine refugee or asylum seeker needs is to be detained again when they are here, so close to the safety that they have been looking for. It is very welcome indeed that the Australian government is now focused on limiting the amount of time, as much as possible, that people spend in detention.

The opposition has claimed that the abolition of the temporary protection visa system has made Australia a soft target for people smugglers and asylum seekers. However, if you look at the statistics globally, the number of asylum seekers has been on the rise for some time. According to the UNHCR, the increase in asylum seekers is reflected in global trends. From 2001 to 2006 there was a global decrease in the number of asylum applications. In 2007-08, however, there was a universal increase of around 11 per cent. In 2008 a UNHCR report showed that asylum claims increased by a staggering 28 per cent, due to an escalation in worldwide insecurity, persecution and conflict. The recent spate of vessels that have been intercepted in our waters cannot be accredited to any policy change. Rather, it merely reflects the global trend and the fact that people always have attempted and always will attempt to find a safer, better future for themselves and their children. That is a goal of those people and it should not be decried and condemned, as it is by so many. We should be grateful that people have that attitude to their future, particularly for their children.

Last month’s budget saw the government increase its humanitarian program up 250 places from this year’s figure of 13,500 places. The regional component of that program will continue to see us focus on the three key regions of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, primarily settling refugees who have been suffering in refugee camps for many years. I am pleased to say Australia is an international leader in the resettlement of refugee women. In 2009-10 Australia will increase the intake of women at risk and their dependants from 10.5 per cent to 12 per cent of the refugee program. Of the approximately 15.2 million refugees worldwide, 44 per cent are aged under the age of 18, and there are 17 countries that currently offer them protection or aid in their settlement.

Australia resettles the third highest number of refugees in the world, following the United States and Canada. In 2009-10 Australia will accept 13,750 onshore and offshore refugees under our humanitarian program. Approximately 1,500 of those people will settle in our home state, Acting Deputy President Hurley, of South Australia, many with the help of advocacy organisations such as the Australian Refugee Association, the longest-serving organisation assisting the settlement of refugees in South Australia and an organisation intimately involved in the celebrations that are part of Refugee Week in South Australia. I commend all of the organisations that assist asylum seekers and refugees to settle in our community. We know that there is much more that needs to be done to assist those people to make it in Australia, but we should always give due regard to the people who do what they can to assist those people to make a new life here.