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Policy on Refugees

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Adopted January 2012

1. End the Liberal and Labor bipartisan policy of keeping refugees out of under the guise of attacking “people smuggling” and “border security”. Ending this policy would include the following measures:

Abolish the concept of a “safe third country” which is used to screen out those who would otherwise be assessed as refugees;
Return Christmas Island, Ashmore and Cartier islands and Cocos (Keeling) islands to Australia's migration zone, thus enabling asylum seekers arriving on these Australian territories to have the same rights as asylum seekers who arrive on the Australian mainland;
Immediately resettle all UNHCR-assessed refugees stranded in Indonesia and Malaysia, neither of which is a signatory to the UN refugee convention;
End the deals with the Indonesian, Malaysian and Sri Lankan governments to stop refugees coming to Australia under the guise of “stopping people smuggling”. End the practice of giving financial aid to the Sri Lankan navy to stop Tamil asylum seekers leaving Sri Lanka.
Abolish the legislation that criminalises people smuggling.
End offshore processing

2. End the policy of mandatory detention, close all detention centres and free all asylum seekers imprisoned within them. Allow asylum seekers to live in the community while their claims are being processed.

3. End the discredited practice of using wrist x-rays to determine the age of young asylum seekers and people accused of people smuggling.

4. Establish a category of complementary protection for those not found to be refugees under the UNHCR definition, but who face persecution if they were to be returned to the country they fled from.

5. End all deportations of asylum seekers

6. Immediately increase the annual refugee resettlement quota for refugees from overseas to at least 26,000. In addition, end the system of quotas for accepting asylum seekers who arrive by plane and boat, and instead accept all asylum seekers who are found to be refugees.

7. Institute a fairer, transparent and more publicly accountable system of assessing claims for asylum. This includes ending the contracting out of asylum claim assessment and ending the inconsistency of decisions. Ensure that assessors are given more accurate country information on which to base assessments.

8. End the ASIO security checks.

9. Stateless asylum seekers must be granted refugee status rather than remaining in mandatory detention.

10. Recognise as grounds for refugee status gay and lesbian discrimination, discrimination against trans people and intersex people and violence against women, where the government in question condones or permits it.

11. Institute a program for accepting climate refugees, especially from countries in the Asia Pacific region, and that this program not results in any reduction in the number of humanitarian refugees.

12. Expand the definition of refugee to include people fleeing economic hardship e.g., where Australian multinationals have destroyed the environment that people depend on for their economic livelihood.

13. No biometric testing of asylum seekers.

14. Establish contact with asylum seekers who have been deported by previous governments to assess whether they are still at risk and in need of asylum.

15. Abolish the Refugee Review Tribunal; replace with a fully independent merits review tribunal for refugees to appeal against adverse decisions.

16. Restore access to all levels of judicial appeal; allow adverse decisions to be appealed on matters of substance as well as matters of law.

17. Extend and ensure adequate funding for specialist services for settlement, including assistance with recognition of skills.

18. Equal access for asylum seekers to the full range of social security, health, housing, transport, education and employment services as other Australians. Access to post-trauma counselling for asylum seekers. Free and widely-available English classes for all migrants and refugees.

19. Abolish the pro-business points system which favours skilled and wealthy migrants.

20. Abolish the requirement for sponsors to pay an up-front bond.

21. Abolish the two-year waiting period for new migrants to access social security payments.

22. End unequal treatment for gay men, lesbians, trans people and intersex people in immigration; recognition of same-sex relationships.

23. Withdraw the requirement to pass a health check-up in order to get a visa.

24. Give preference to places for migrants from poor countries, especially countries in the Asia Pacific region.

25. Abolish all family reunion waiting lists and remove the quota restriction so that partners, siblings, parents and extended families can be reunited in Australia if they choose. End deportations that are likely to result in families being split up.

26. Ensure that no family unit is forcibly separated by Australian immigration assessment processes.

27. End policy of deporting permanent residents who have committed a crime after serving their sentence.

28. Abolish the citizenship test.

29. Abolish the 457 visas and allow workers who come to Australia temporarily or permanently to have the full rights of citizenship.

30. End practice where the immigration department automatically rejects the majority of visitor visa applications from people in Third World countries.

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There are 3 comments on this article

By Rod

1) Where do you propose these unlawful non citizens go if we close the detention centres? What about those rapists coming out of prison awaiting deportation who have had their visas cancelled. Do you want these perpetrators of violent crimes against women wandering the streets?
2) This is not a complete sentence.
3) What's wrong with the safe third country option?
4) Excluding those islands from the Migration Zone is in the national interest. It stops those abusing our protection obligations. It works.
5) What on earth are you on about? If someone is declared not to be a genuine refugee they have no claims. That is the end of the story. Can you not accept that people abuse our protection obligations as a back door into the country when they have no legitimate claims?
6) I agree. People who arrive on our shores unlawfully should be denied entry. We decide who comes to this country, not some criminal people smuggler.
7) This is utterly laughable. What you propose makes a total mockery of our visa system. What you propose is that anyone who arrives here either lawfully or unlawfully can be permanent residents because we won't remove them. What you suggest is surrendering the sovereignty of the state and the rule of law.
8) How do you propose funding this? Think about the burdens this will place on our economy and society.
9)Who should re-settle them and where?
10) This is laughable.
11) Why abolish the Tribunal when it is doing its job?
12) Yeah and clog up our courts and sap taxpayers' money with frivolous claims made by people who have no legitimate claims to refugee status.
13) As a taxpayer I refuse paying for an unlawful non citizen who has no right to be in the country.
14) In what way precisely do current services lack?
15) Free for who? Nothing is free. Taxpayers like myself pay. To the best of my knowledge (and my wife is a migrant from non-English speaking background) lawful migrants do get English classes for which they are not charged, as she did.
16) All permanent residents ARE eligible for citizenship after a qualifying period and subject to passing a pretty basis citizenship test.
17) Skilled and wealthy migrants are able to make a valuable contribution to the Australian community. Having said that, Australia balances this with a generous refugee programme.
18) Not all sponsors have to pay a bond. A bond is used to mitigate the risk posed by high risk visa applicants. It is common sense. The bond is re-paid if the applicant abides by his/her visa conditions.
19) Why?
20) How are they discrimated against under immigration law? Marriage is between one man and one woman. That is the law. Do you also propose that we end discrimination against polygymists wanting to sponsor their many (and no doubt downtrodden) wives?
21) Why? HIV/AIDS is a serious health risk.
22) Yeah, and place an increased burden on taxpayers like myself, rather than selecting those who can help make this country better through their particular skills. We already have a balanced migration programme.
23) So, under what you propose anyone can sponsor any of their relatives, no matter how distant the relationship. Remember, this costs money!

By Maretta Omoa

Does this Charter apply to Papua New Guinea?

By Niko Leka

Excellent policy. Pity that instead of it being a humanitarian issue, its being used by major parties to distract people from the real problems facing us all- neo-liberalism induced climate change. But why is The racist hysteria surrounding refugees so easy to whip up and maintain? Sooner or later most people will wake up to the fact that they're being played by major parties & mass media- but it better be sooner, if we're going to have time to solve the real problems..