Melting Pot Frui Salad or Fish Bowl: Australia's Tortuous History of Refugee Migration

Helen R. Ware, University of New England

Australia's government and peoples have difficulty in defining what it is to be Australian but giving a 'fair go' to refugees is sometimes a factor. Since World War 2 Australia has taken in over 900,000 refugees. Usually fleeing war, they came from anti-Soviet Europeans, then Vietnamese, Africans ad today Ezidis, Afghans, Ukrainians and even a few controversial Palestinians. Both Eastern Europeans and Vietnamese shared the Australian value of being communists later Christians were preferred over Muslims. This paper examines Australia's history of refugee immigration since the 1975-76 introduction of reasonable statistics. The core argument is that refugees have been made the whipping-boys, especially if arriving by boat, to protect very high levels of skilled immigration, particularly from Asia. There was a remarkable decline in refugees who fell from 21% of total immigration in 1984-85 to below 10% of total immigrants as skilled migrants rose from 63,000 in 1993-4 to a record net gain of 518,000 in 2022-23. Understanding the sacrificing of refugees requires y exploration of Australian multiculturalism moving from assimilation to integration and self=sufficiency. I close discussing Australia's response to potential 'clmate refugees' including Kiribati and the Australia-Tuvalu Falepilli-Union Treaty.

Keywords: Migrant Populations and Refugees, Population, Environment, and Climate Change

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