THE Immigration Department’s own figures raise questions about Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers, say Australia’s Catholic bishops.
The department’s annual report released on October 28 showed that nine out of 10 boat people who had made it to Australia’s migration zone were granted temporary protection visas (TPVs).
This confirmed their claims for asylum, the bishops said.
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) Migrants and Refugees Committee chairman, Bishop Joseph Grech of Sandhurst, said the figures showed that most boat people coming to Australia were in genuine need of protection.
The department’s report said that between July 1999 and June 2002, 9160 ‘unauthorised boat arrivals’ applied for protection on reaching Australia and, by early this year, 8260 of them had been granted visas.
This represented a 90 per cent success rate.
‘These figures confirm that Australia has afforded protection to some of the most desperate people in the world, including women and children, many of whom have fled the terror of Iraq and Afghanistan,’ Bishop Grech said.
Uniya Jesuit Social Justice Centre associate director, Jesuit Father Frank Brennan has also used the figures from the department’s annual report as an opportunity to renew calls for a change of heart on policies relating to asylum seekers.
Fr Brennan said it was timely to reassess the harsh measures instituted to process these people ‘who were labelled as unlawful queue jumpers’.
‘It is no surprise that Willie Brigitte, the al-Qa’ida operative, came by plane with a tourist visa,’ Fr Brennan said.
Fr Brennan said it was timely to reassess the harsh measures instituted to process these people ‘who were labelled as unlawful queue jumpers’.
This issue is a focus of Fr Brennan’s new book, Tampering with Asylum: A Universal Humanitarian Problem, which was launched at the National Press Club in Canberra last Wednesday.
Former Brisbane Lord Mayors Jim Soorley and Sallyanne Atkinson will launch the book in Brisbane in the Ithaca Room, City Hall, on November 25 at 7.30pm.
There will also be launches in Perth on November 13, Melbourne on November 19, Adelaide on November 20 and Sydney on November 26.
