Australian Immigration Policy

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Over the past two years support for far-right wing candidates with rhetoric such as: migrants taking your jobs, Muslims threatening your culture and a lack of security has soared. The trend is clear, xenophobia and division become a political asset, even if the threat is not real.

Did Australia immigration polices changed due to perceived threat of terrorism from the Muslim countries?

In Australia, home to the toughest immigration policy in the western world, is the only developed nation that detains refugees who arrived illegally on its soil indiscriminately. Other western nations (Italy, UK, Germany etc.) release refugees into the community until their refugee status is determined. After the September 11 terror attacks in New York and …show more content…
This included introducing a number of polices to tackle the perceived threat of Islamic terrorism. On September 2001, The Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone) Act of 2001 amended the Migration Act to excise certain territories (among them Christmas Island) from the Australian migration zone. This allowed the Pacific solution to be implemented. Under the policy, asylum seekers arriving without authorisation were sent to Australian-funded detention camps in Pacific Island states, rather than being allowed to claim asylum on the mainland. In October 2001, in his campaign for re-election, then Prime Minister John Howard made the statement “We will decide who comes to this country and under the circumstances in which they come". In August 2004, two important high court decision were also made in support for the government’s hardline immigration policy. The High Court of Australia ruled, in the case of Behrooz v Secretary of the …show more content…
While many decried the apparent turning back of refugee boats at sea, the government said it was for the greater good : “How could we know that one of those migrants is not a potential terrorist”. In Australia, it is not illegal to claim asylum therefore the government is ultimately denying rights to a group of people because of a few or none. This approach is known as utilitarianism. One philosopher known for his utilitarian approach is Peter Singer, a Laureate professor at the University of Melbourne suggested in a recent article that: “Instead of affluent countries simply sealing themselves off, they should give much more support to less affluent countries that are supporting large numbers of refugees. Refugees living securely in countries that border their own are less likely to attempt hazardous journeys to remote regions and more likely to return home once a conflict is resolved. International support for countries bearing the greatest refugee burden makes economic sense”. However of late, he has become a voice howling into the wind: seen but not
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