Head I win,
Tail you lose
THOUSANDS of Pacific islanders living in Australia are about to feel the long arm of the law as the immigration department begins a new crackdown on illegal immigrants. The crackdown was sparked by a rapid increase in the number of illegals—up 30,000 to 90,000 in the 10 months to April this year.
And there is no doubt that the government means business. It has trebled its compliance staffand installed new computer systems which link data bases in the immigration department with those in social security and medicare (Australia’s universal health insurance scheme). It will also involve spot checks on employers and on educational institutions.
Although the number of Pacific Island migrants to Australia is small compared to the overall intake, the proportion who
overstay their visas is high. Nearly a quarter of all Tongans coming to Australia end up as overstayers like 10 per cent of arrivals from Fiji most ofwhom are Fiji Indians who fled after the 1987 coups.
The Minister for I mmigration, Gerry Hand, has made it clear that he sees illegals as queue jumpers who threaten the integrity of the immigration programme and, he says, there will be no special treatment for Pacific Islanders.
Once it gets underway the crackdown is likely to take a heavy toll.
One Tongan church minister in Sydney estimates that up to half his congregation is made up ofillegals people who have come to Australia because they have relatives and friends here and because, in Tonga, they have no land and few opportunities for paid employment.
Since the end ofWhite Australian policy, Australia has prided itselfon its “global non-discriminatory immigration policy”, a policy which applies the same rules to all would-be migrants and does not allow for decisions giving one race preference over another.
The immigration programme is supposed to provide a
mixture ofhumanitarian assistance, family reunion, and skilled and business migration to fill the gaps in Australia’s skill base.
For Pacific Islanders it is practically impossible to migrate unless one has a degree or a recognised trade certificate.
Very few Pacific Islanders fall into that category.
Illegal immigration is not a new problem. Most Tongans who are now Australian citizens either began their life in Australia as illegals and took advantage of the 1980 amnesty, or were sponsored by people who gained their permanent residence through that amnesty.
This latest crackdown has not been
accompanied by the amnesty many were expecting and to make matters worse it has gone hand in hand with other changes which have tightened the immigration rules even further.
Until now visitors to Australia, whatever their status, had the right to apply for permanent residence if, for instance, they got married here or were sponsored by an employer.
At the end of October all avenues for illegals and those on visitors’ visas to gain permanent residency were closed. Other new regulations introduced last year have made it almost impossible to sponsor relatives other than parents, spouses or dependent children. So harsh are the new rules that the Bureau of Immigration Research attributes this year’s 25 per cent drop in migration to those changes and to restrictions on “independent” category migrants.
The rationale behind the points test which so many Pacific Islanders fail is to make sure that those people accepted out of the hundreds of thousands who apply are those most likely to get jobs and to settle well.
But of all the migrants to Australia Pacific Islanders make only minimal use of social services. They have families here and a culture which, by placing great importance on helping one another, assists with the process of settling into a new country.
Because they speak English, Pacific Islanders have no more difficulty than others in finding work and might even find it easier to get jobs. There is now a growing belief amongst Pacific Islanders in Australia that it is the immigration rules themselves which have created the problem with overstayers and there’s a feeling that the government is not taking their
problems seriously.
There have been calls for a review of the way the points test applies to people from the Pacific. Demands are also being made for a short-term guest worker migration scheme which would give Pacific Islanders the skills and experience they need without exacerbating the brain drain which takes place under the current system.
The Fiji Indian community is also asking for special consideration. The government says there are 6100 overstayers from Fiji in Australia and most are Fiji Indians who left their country in the wake of the coups in 1987. Some claim they were harrassed and threatened by the army in the immediate post coup period, others just do not want to go back to a country which, through a new constitution, has elevated the political power of the indigenous race and made second-class citizens
out of the rest. Most, having no other option, have applied for permanent residence on humanitarian grounds .. they are quick to point out that it was the indentured labour policy of the Australian company, CSR, and the British government late last century that landed them in Fiji in the first
place.
As yet the Australian government has not granted permanent residence on humanitarian grounds to anyone from Fiji. Unless there is a major shift in policy a lot of very unhappy Fiji Indians are likely to be going home again. Li