Asylum in Australia

Thousands of refugees have sought asylum in Australia over the past decade,[1] with the main forces driving movement being war, civil unrest and persecution.

[19] Australia's humanitarian program is complex, but the basic structure is one of bifurcation between onshore and offshore processing of claims for people seeking asylum.

While the onshore humanitarian program is common across most signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is Australia's offshore detention policy that is the most controversial and widely criticised by civil society members.

[24] A new "fast track" assessment scheme was introduced in 2014 via the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 [1].

It reached a peak of 20,587 people in 2013 (excluding crew), before falling again to zero two years later:[31] A "fact check" produced by Australian Broadcasting Corporation News and RMIT concluded that then Attorney-General George Brandis' claim in November 2017 that Australia runs the most generous refugee program per capita in the world was misleading.

[35] University of Sydney immigration law specialist Professor Mary Crock says that Australia's history of offshore processing goes back to the 1960s, when Manus Island was set up to take refugees from West Papua.

However, after a while the mainly Afghan asylum seekers noticed, so, concerned that if the ship continued to sail to Indonesia they might jump overboard or riot and harm the crew, decided to head back towards Christmas Island.

In 2003, Julia Gillard, then shadow minister for Population and Immigration, promised that Labor would end the Pacific Solution "because it is costly, unsustainable and wrong as a matter of principle".

[1][48] The primary concern was that abuse of the process could potentially develop in remote locations, and that immigration control would dominate over child protection issues, children being without an effective guardian.

[50] After winning the 2007 election, the Labor Party under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd abandoned the Pacific Solution, installing a more liberal asylum policy.

In October 2009, the Australian customs boat Oceanic Viking was involved in an operation to apprehend 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers and move them to an Australia-funded immigration detention centre on the Indonesian island of Bintan for processing.

By this time, Rudd was struggling in the polls for a number of reasons and had lost the confidence of the Labor Party Caucus, which, fearing defeat in the upcoming election, installed Julia Gillard in his place.

[1] In June 2012, a boatload of asylum seekers capsized in the Indian Ocean between Indonesia and Christmas Island, leading to 17 confirmed deaths, with 70 other people missing.

[58] For the 6 months to June 2014 however, the number has appeared to sharply reduce, with the immigration minister Scott Morrison claiming that there "had (not been) a successful people smuggling venture" in the period.

[63] In July 2013, Rudd, who had recently returned to power as Prime Minister, announced that anyone who arrived in Australia by boat without a visa would not be eligible for asylum.

Immigration law specialist Professor Mary Crock said there was no statistical evidence that offshore processing itself deterred asylum seekers; it was rather boat push-backs that were more successful.

[36] Public opinion seemed to be reflected in the polls at the October 2018 Wentworth by-election, after successful candidate Kerryn Phelps had urged voters to protest 'inhumane' refugee policies by voting for her.

The fast-tracked medical transfers will only apply to the existing cohort of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru, a point that Mr Morrison refuses to concede.

Human rights advocates hailed the decision, with one calling it a "tipping point as a country", with the weight of public opinion believing that sick people need treatment.

[77][78][79] A few days later, after warning about an influx of asylum seeker boats by both Dutton and Morrison, the prime minister announced the re-opening of the Christmas Island detention facilities, implying that this change in the law would provide the signal for people smugglers to begin operating again.

[86] In March 2020, Home Affairs told the Senate estimates committee that "211 refugees and asylum seekers remained on Nauru, 228 in Papua New Guinea, and about 1,220, including their dependents, were in Australia to receive medical treatment".

[88] In September 2021, the Minister for Home Affairs signed a new deal with Nauru to keep an ongoing form of asylum seeker processing centre on the island.

[95] For asylum seekers that arrive in Australia and receive a temporary protection visa (subclass 785),[96] they are given the right to live in the community and are largely given autonomy to choose housing.

The lack of clarity and certainty owing to their undefined legal status therefore deters housing providers from offering leases to asylum seekers.

[95] Compounding this factor is the exceptionally low income for most asylum seekers, arising from their inability to work legally in Australia (an issue that will be comprehensively discussed below).

[97] The impact these general issues have on asylum seekers searching for housing open arrival into Australia is therefore significant and, at times, debilitating, leading to substantial possibility of homelessness throughout these communities.

Until the passage of the Migration and Maritime Powers (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Act 2015 (Cth), the Commonwealth was required to report the percentage of decisions made within 90 days of lodging their application.

[101] This has been received by the community as casting a dark shadow for asylum seekers' experience in Australia, with many of the signees feeling that the agreement creates uncertainty and confusion as to which actions may jeopardise their applications.

[95] Opinion polls show that boat arrivals have always been an issue of concern to the Australian public, but opposition has increased steadily over the previous four decades, according to a 2013 research paper by the Parliamentary Library.

[107] The attempted deportation of the Sri Lankan Tamil Murugappan family was the subject of significant media attention in 2019,[108] which continued until they were allowed back to Biloela in 2022.