Suchergebnisse

The Fraser government's response to the Indo-Chinese refugee crisis and the presentation, for the first time, of asylum-seekers arriving in Australia by boat is almost universally acclaimed as having been proactive, generous and humanitarian in spirit-the antithesis of both the preceding Whitlam Labor government and subsequent governments, particularly since 2001. Adopting a policy of 'forward selection' of refugees from camps in South-East Asia, the Fraser government was able to stem the flow of boats and oversaw the relatively uncontroversial resettlement of nearly 70,000 Indo-Chinese. However, the author argues that this was not the brave and principled course of action for which Fraser and his immigration ministers are regularly feted, but rather a delayed response that was motivated by fear and desperation rather than pure humanitarian intent. The celebrated outcomes of Fraser's policies belie the self-interested way in which they were constructed and neglect the fact that the government did not act until it was forced. Fraser's policies were neither a departure from the past nor the antithesis of current polices; to the contrary, they were the seeds of the contemporary Australian model of asylum. Adapted from the source document.

When Australia pledged to accept 15,000 Jewish refugees from Europe in 1938, it was applauded by the London Times as "a characteristically generous contribution" and an example for others. Australia's reputation for generous humanitarianism was solidified after the war when it absorbed more than 180,000 of Europe's Displaced Persons and committed to international human rights instruments designed to protect refugees and asylum seekers. This reputation has been used to both defend and critique the nation's contemporary responses to asylum seekers. Recent Australian Prime Ministers have invoked Australia's proud record of refugee resettlement to deflect criticism of their tough border control policies, policies which critics charge repudiate the nation's humanitarian traditions. This article critically reviews the history of Australia's responses to refugees and asylum seekers prior to 1951 and demonstrates that contemporary border control policies are neither a deviation from, nor defence of, a proud humanitarian record. Rather, they embody the migration management approach to refugees that provided impetus for Federation in 1901, governed Australia's response to the Jewish refugee crisis in the 1930s, and shaped its conditional acceptance of the Displaced Persons and the position it adopted in the drafting of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951.

Bain, J. ...: The Asia-Pacific power elite and the soft superpower : elite perceptions of the EU in the Asia-Pacific. - S. 184-213