Foreign Minister Alexander Downer announced that the federal government would fly home Australian citizens and residents fleeing the escalating violence in Lebanon. Australia’s evacuation program entails moving its citizens and residents out of Beirut to Cyprus or Turkey via ferry or military vessel and from there the evacuees would be flown home to Australia. The rescue package is expected to cost the government A$25 million. Initial reports indicated that some 400 Australian families were trapped in southern Lebanon. In Tyre, 20 Australians were said to be among those given refuge at a UN compound. As of 22 July, some 1,600 Australians have allegedly fled Lebanon. However, Downer said Australian officials were still trying to determine how many more Australians want to leave Lebanon.
Officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade informed some Lebanese-Australians who turned up at evacuation points in Lebanon with wives younger than 18, that Australia cannot issue spouse visas for their under-aged brides. The legal age for marriage in Australia is 18; hence marriages involving under-aged spouses are not recognized by the government. For this reason some Australian-Lebanese men have opted to stay behind in Lebanon.
According to a report by the Center for Population and Urban Research at the Monash University the influx of skilled migrant workers has reversed the brain drain that plagued the country in the late 1990s. Data for 2004-2005 revealed that the country had a net gain of 44,443 people with a skilled occupation. Moreover, according to the Department of Immigration, many Australians who left to work overseas in the 1990s have also opted to return to Australia.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has called on the federal government to stop the issuance of skilled migration visas and conduct a public inquiry following claims that the system was being misused to exploit foreign workers. The labor unions also launched a A$300,000 ad campaign to draw attention to the abuses of the scheme. Meanwhile, a Monash University study called the Information Communication and Technology component of the General Skilled Migration program a failure. According to the report thousands of foreign IT workers have been brought into the country while Australia’s own graduates struggled to find employment. Computerworld Australia revealed further that among the 3,379 foreign IT workers issued 457 visas in 2004-2005, 1,415 were from India, while only 681 came from the UK, 190 from Ireland and 176 from the US. Indian workers usually had salaries much lower than those of other nationals, observed IT expert Bon Kinnaird.
The West Australian government urged the Commonwealth to act against the widespread employer abuse of the skilled migration schemes, particularly the practice of underpaying the workers, shortchanging them on annual leaves and failing to provide them with proper time and wage records. Norm Marlborough, the minister for state migration issues, said the federal government should ensure that the skilled migrants are adequately protected.
A research by Katherine Betts of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne found that opposition to migration has declined markedly since the start of the Howard administration in 1996 in part because Australians believe the influx of migrants can counter the effects of an ageing population. Betts also found that the more favorable attitude towards migration was also fueled by reforms in the country’s migration program that shifted away from family reunion and towards skilled migration, thus reducing the new migrants’ need for welfare. Meanwhile, Treasurer Peter Costello made another controversial speech pushing for a higher birth rate among Australians to prevent the population from being transformed by immigration.
According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics migrants who spoke English and who held a job in their homeland prior to migration were far more likely to find employment in Australia. Data showed that 71 percent of those who worked before arriving in Australia found a job compared to only 50 percent among those who were jobless in their country of origin. Statistics also revealed that 74 percent of male migrants held a job in their homeland compared to only 56 percent among migrant women.
Indians make up the third largest migrant group in Australia, after the British and the New Zealanders. According to demographer Bob Birrell from the Monash University, the increase in the Indian population in Australia was partly due to the large number of students from India who apply for permanent residency after graduating from local universities. Changes in the skilled migration laws that put a premium on English language proficiency have also favored Indian applicants, who practically grew up speaking the language. According to Indian immigrants, although language was not a problem, they had trouble getting their credentials recognized. Indian migrants say they were attracted by better job prospects, good educational opportunities, modern amenities and the pleasant climate in Australia.
Victoria’s Multicultural Affairs Minister John Pandazopoulos criticized a proposal by Andrew Robb, Parliamentary Secretary to the Immigration Minister, seeking to make citizenship applicants take a compulsory test to evaluate their English language proficiency and knowledge of Australian values. According to Pandazopoulos, the compulsory test was “patronizing and insulting." ACT Multicultural Affairs Minister John Hargreaves also slammed the proposal for allegedly promoting a “policy of exclusion" while his counterpart in the Northern Territory, Kon Vatskalis opined that the test “smelled strongly of racism." However, Robb dismissed the criticisms on the issue as simply political in nature.
The Victorian government’s health promotion foundation, VicHealth, has devised an experimental Building Bridges program that seeks to reduce racial discrimination. The program launched last 18 July promotes inter-ethnic bonding over shared interest in cooking, gardening, art, tapestry and building cars among people of various migrant and refugee backgrounds. Through VicHealth’s funding assistance, some 40 community groups are able to run programs that foster positive interaction among people from different cultures.
Restaurateur Yogalingam Rasalingam became the first person in Australia to be charged with a new people trafficking offense. Rasalingam, who owns four Indian restaurants in Blue Mountain in New South Wales, would face the Sydney Central Local Court on 21 July for subjecting an Indian worker to slave-like conditions. According to police documents, Rasalingam had brought 23-year old Indian national, Anbalagan Rajendran to Australia on 1 June to work as a kitchen help in his restaurants. Rasalingam allegedly took the worker’s passport, made him live in a tin shed behind his home and forced him to work 11 hours a day, seven days a week without pay.
The Refugee Review Tribunal overturned the Immigration Department’s earlier decision denying asylum to West Papuan activist, David Wainggai on the grounds that he had the right to live in Japan. Wainggai was among the 43 Papuan asylum seekers who landed on Cape York on 17 January. However, while the 42 other Papuans were granted temporary protection visas on 23 March, Wainggai was refused protection and remained in detention on Christmas Island. Wainggai’s supporters claimed that the federal government blocked his asylum claim in order to appease Indonesia, which was angered by Australia’s treatment of the Papuan refugees. According to Wainggai’s lawyer, David Manne, the next move is to obtain a visa for his client so he could rejoin the other West Papuan refugees in Melbourne.
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