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Australian Immigration Essay

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Australia has a rich migration history starting with the first migrants being convicts transported from Britain between 1788 and 1840. Free immigrants began arriving in the 1790’s (Walsh: 2001) The Industrial revolution which caused wide spread poverty and unemployment in Britain, as well as the demand for workers in the wool industry in Australia enticed more free settlers to Australia, followed by the Gold rush in the 1850’s of which the largest group of immigrants were the Chinese. The bringing in of Polynesian labourers to work in the sugar plantations of Queensland also contributed to the population numbers swell. From 1851 to 1861 just over 600,000 people had migrated to Australia from many varied backgrounds and culture. By the …show more content…

(Dept of Immigration and Citizenship, 2009).

Australia today has two programs of immigration one the migration policy which is seen as ‘economically” motivated which has two main components family and skill. The second is the humanitarian program which has three parts refugees, special humanitarian and special assistance. (Holmes et al 2007) As part of the humanitarian program refugees constitute a specific component of Australia’s humanitarian program.

Article 1A of the Refugees Convention defines a refugee as:
“A person who has well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a certain group or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality and is unable or owing to such fear is unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country or who not having a nationality and being outside the country of their former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.” (United Nations High Commission for Refugees(UNCHR) 1951)

Under Australian and international law, a person is permitted to enter Australia for the purpose of seeking asylum regardless of whether they arrive by boat or plane and thus it is entirely incorrect to say that

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