From compassion to compliance? Trends in refugee and humanitarian migration in Australia

Australia has a long history of offering protection to refugees. In the post-World War II period it has predominantly been involved in an offshore refugee settlement program whereby it has assisted international efforts to assist refugees and resettled almost 600,000 refugees in Australia. In recent years, however, substantial numbers of asylum seekers have arrived on Australia's shores and this has seen the development of an onshore refugee program which is seen as quite separate from the offshore program. This has involved the detention of asylum seekers while their claims for protection are assessed and when they are assessed as being qualified for protection they are given different status to offshore determined refugee settlers. The paper summarises the development of refugee policy in Australia and the evolution of the offshore and onshore policies. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.