Refugees In Australia

For many years refugees have been demonized by the country through the spread of fear and misconception. Furthermore, the disgusting treatment of refugees in the detention camps by the Australian Government has been roundly criticised by the international community.

Another technique used in the documentary to challenge the viewers’ assumptions was the use of narration to present facts about the refugee situation. These facts and figures give the viewers a truthful and realistic picture of the situation. Some beliefs that exist in Australian society are that we are taking in too many refugees; they are criminals, they are taking over Australia, using Australian tax payers’ money and changing our culture. However, we are presented with facts and figures that change our assumptions. For example, more than 30 million people have fled their homes with nothing but the clothes they wear, boat smugglers charge up to and over $10, 000 US dollars, 13, 000 refugees are accepted annually only 2,000 of those refugees arrive by boat. Despite what many people think, like Raye who believed refugees in Australia are “handed everything on a gold platter,” life in detention centres is hard. In Villawood Detention Centre, over 9 months, three detainees committed suicide and 18 caused self-harm.

Since World War 2 and the Vietnam War, Australia has become a multicultural country. Before the Vietnam War, though, the Australian government tried their best to keep Australia ‘white’. After the fear of communism from Vietnam, the government thought it would be in the country’s best interest to try and build up the population in Australia, but only allowing ‘white’ Europeans and British people to come. What is included in this report, is to discover how and why the migrants from non-European countries manage to change the face of modern Australia.

Australia “The Lucky Country”; a stepping stone to a better life. The words of social critic Donald Horne stated in 1964 have been used to describe Australia’s wonderful culture, history and lifestyle. For many 20th century migrants this is what they only knew about the country creating an outburst of migrants arriving into Australia with the desire to seek a better life, escape poverty, war or persecution. They brought along with them a mix bag of emotions; fear and worry, happiness and joy alongside the expectations of the typical Australian life hoping to find acceptance, belonging, freedom and a promising future. However, due to the impact of many polices and historical events that have taken place in the past, the migrant experience has

Political unrest and local war happens around the world all the time. Many people live in a dangerous situation and suffered from violence. Hence, large amount of asylum seeker undertakes a huge perilous, try to cross the ocean and arrive Australia. To deal with this issue, Australian government enacted mandatory detention policy and offshore processing policy, these policies become highly contentious in the community with many arguments and criticisms. This report will focus on the nature and purpose of these immigration policies and the impact towards the asylum seeker as well as the criticism form international. To propose some advice about how the future policies should be framed.

Unfortunately, the narrative concerning refugees and asylum seekers as presented in the media is an overall negative one. Most of the fear present in Australian society is aggravated by media coverage. When discussing the representation of refugees it is important to take into consideration the language that is used and often associated with refugees. In most discussions presented in the national news, refugees are represented as a threat to

Asylum seekers or refugees have fled their countries’ due to volatile circumstances such as war, or fear of prosecution. Upon arrival in Australia they are moved to detention centres. Detention centres hold people who have come without a visa, any non-national and all unauthorised boat arrivals (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2014). These centres hold refugees for indefinite periods and in poor conditions. They are used as a spectacle to represent illegality and a threat to Australian society (Marfleet, 2007, p672).

Australia in terms of immigration, has had a poor history of dealing with people travelling into the country, shown in the beginning of hand picking the majority of Australia 's population. However as the decades have rolled on, whether it be forced or by choice, Australia has become looser and more free in access and treatment within the country and importantly, less discriminatory. In order to see these improvements, the start must be shown, in which is generally summarised by the White Australia Policy.

The number of stories in the Australian print media about asylum seekers has escalated dramatically over the past 15 years, even though the total number of people accepted into Australia under our humanitarian scheme has not significantly increased (Lusher 2007). These stories have seen the dominant framing of asylum seekers as terrorists and criminals, thereby criminalising and dehumanising them and reinforcing "fear of [their] racial, cultural and religious differences” (Aslan 2009, p. 111) among Australians. Such framing tactics were clearly evident in the reporting of the ‘children overboard’ incident of 2001, with media reports, which were later proven to be false (Cottle 2009), framing asylum seekers as cruel, calculating people who were prepared to watch their own children drown in order to ‘invade’ Australia. In framing asylum seekers in such a way, the Australian media capitalised on the pre-existing general unease about race ethnicity in Australia (Jacobs 2011) and public

Culture is always changing. Beliefs, behaviours and presentation, religion and language all form part of what is an individual’s or community’s culture. (Bowes, Grace, & Hodge, 2012, p.75 & 77). Due to its intrinsic nature, when people migrate to Australia, they bring their culture with them. As migrants come from all over the world, and not the one place, their

The 137,000 Vietnamese asylum seekers who arrived in Australia after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 were the first he arrivals to come after the White Australia Policy ended Some came as boat people, while others were from refugee camps in Southeast Asian countries. After the 1980s, family reunion became the Australian government's focus for Vietnamese people seeking to live in Australia.

Citizens often thought those people would bring terrorists, unemployment and infrastructure stress. However, refugees will be able to make out importance in affecting the potential social, cultural and economic contributionsupon their area of resettlement. Australia has a long history of accepting refugees for resettlement and over 700 000 refugees. As a consequence, Australia’s offshore humanitarian programme is heralded as one of the best in the world. Accepting more refugees and boat people into the country is one of the greatest contributions that can make to improving the world around us and enhancing our own living standards. In addition, by having more people in country there are more people to cooperate with, more people to trade with and more people to grow the market. They help supply the economy through participating in the labour market and bring with them diversity, new work approaches and funds. As our wealth and economy grows there is more money for the finer things in life.

Australia has let Syrian refugees into their country and would allow only 12,000 refugees. Australia has immigrated around 13,750 Syrian refugees into our country and have provided help to them. As Syrian refugees have moved into the Australian country, some feel welcome and see a bright future. 5% of Syrian refugees feel unwelcome in Australia, 28% feel welcomed most of the time and 52% feel welcome in Australia. As far as safety goes, 74% of refugees felt safe in Australia, and 56% say their children are living happily in the country. Syrians who moved to Australia feel better to have settled here than staying in Syria. Some Syrians have dealt with discrimination but most of the Syrian population are treated fairly.

Australia has received immigrants for many years, as Jupp (2007) discusses, emigrants from Europe arrived in 1788, opening the way for 160,000 convicts. The Immigration Restriction Act, introduced in 1901 named the ‘White Australia Policy’, was to prevent the admission of non- Europeans into Australia. As the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship state, Australia assesses claims made by asylum seekers under the Migrations Act 1988 and Migration Regulations 1994. There is also an independent review process for people who arrive by sea know as “irregular maritime arrivals” and asylum is granted on individual circumstances after thorough background checks, which in some cases take years. Whilst waiting for their status to be recognised, asylum seekers are required to remain in detention centres (Commonwealth, 2012). The statistics published by the Department of Immigration show that when the Refugees Convention was set up in 1951 around 1.5 million immigrants existed worldwide. Towards the close of 2010 that figure had risen to 43.7 million, comprising many refugees, some 15 million with over 838,000 seekers of asylum and 27million relocated from their country of origin (Commonwealth, 2012). Whilst

This report will explain about refugee’s issues of placement and cultural differences and the capacity of countries adopting refugees. Refugees in any country confront difficulties either relating to placement or cultural differences problems. Every day refugees move to another place for their protection. That’s why; most of the countries were opening their boarder to welcome them in their own countries. But now the situation is different because some of the countries are not able to adopting them anymore due to not having enough spaces, like Germany. On the other side, Australia has lot of space to adapting to refugees, but having some problem with culturally differences and avoiding for entering terrorists. Australia is also multicultural land with a rich combination of cultures, religions, languages and ethnicities. Commonwealth bank and state levels has built-up multicultural strategy structure for all kinds of nations which main aim to concentrate on the needs of refugees and migrants who settle in Australia. However, the acquaintance from multicultural policies and migrant segment has not essentially been included into child safety practices, policy frameworks and legislations.