Boat trade ends and Sri Lanka now legal source of migrants
Co-operation between Sri Lanka and Australia on fighting people-smuggling has reversed migration patterns, with thousands more Sri Lankans arriving as skilled workers while the flow of illegal boats from the South Asian nation, which peaked at tens of thousands, has now stopped.
The number of Sri Lankans who became Australian citizens jumped 74 per cent to 3456 last year, while there were 4987 Sri Lankans who came to Australia legally with visas for work and for family reunions.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday the rising trends of legal migration were “a guide to what you would continue to expect” as he guaranteed 4000 humanitarian places would be available for people in refugee camps around the world, with high demand from Africa and the Middle East. “The suggestion that the only way you could get to Australia is on a leaky boat is not true,’’ Mr Morrison said after addressing a Sri Lanka-Australia security conference on transnational crime in Canberra.
“If people have a legitimate reason for coming then they can.’’
Mr Morrison said the last illegal boat carrying Sri Lankans was months ago and all 79 on board were sent back to Sri Lanka. The Immigration Minister said stopping the arrival of illegal boats during the past four months had allowed the government to increase the number of places for humanitarian migration from 500 under Labor to 4000 a year.
Responding to the disclosure in The Australian yesterdaythat, on the eve of her move to topple Kevin Rudd as prime minister in 2010, Julia Gillard thought the “loss of control of the borders” was the biggest problem Labor faced, Mr Morrison said it was more than four months since the last successful illegal boat arrival on December 19. “(It) didn’t matter if it was Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard or any of the four immigration ministers that they had, they just had no answers,” he said.
“Now, in just over six months, we have ensured that we are stopping the boats and we are being true to our promises, we are doing exactly what we said we would do and it is having exactly the effect we said it would have.”
Co-operation with Sri Lanka was one of a series of policies that have helped the Abbott government “stop the boats” including turning boats back to Indonesian waters, offshore processing in PNG, temporary visas and the moves by Indonesia and Malaysia to stop entry to their countries without visas.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees figures released last week showed that between late December and the end of last month, the number of asylum-seekers registering had fallen from 100 people daily to about 100 people weekly.
“We must apply the same focus and co-operation that we have achieved on people-smuggling to the broader challenge of transnational crime,” Mr Morrison told representatives of Defence, army, navy and customs of Australia and Sri Lanka yesterday.
Mr Morrison said Sri Lanka and Australia were working together to disrupt people-smuggling syndicates, “to deliver strong messages that Australia will not resettle anyone who arrives illegally by boat, and to improve capacity to address people-smuggling and improve border management”.
“The Sri Lankan authorities are committed to combating people-smuggling and continue to disrupt people-smuggling ventures all over the island,” he said.
“We are very grateful for the enormous efforts of the Sri Lanka Navy, the Sri Lanka Police Force and other law enforcement and prosecuting agencies.”
Mr Morrison later told The Australian: “Our more recent experience over the issue of people-smuggling, which has been very deep and very close, has opened the door to the broader opportunities of the relationship. Significant numbers of Sri Lankans are becoming Australian citizens.”
He said the total of 3456 Sri Lankans who became Australian citizens in 2012-13 represented a 74 per cent increase from 2011-12.
(Source: The Australian)
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Skilled Migrants. what a joke. Most Sri Lankans who arrive in Australia do cleaning for at least a year before they can even get a sniff of a decent job not even related to their skills.The biggest issue is that the professionals who arrive do not speak proper English.
It is a shame that Sri Lankaa’s educated people are leaving the country to go over seas and do all the dirty jobs that no local wants to do.And unfortunately they are finding out on arrival that the grass is not so greener on this as they imagined but choose to stay back and put up with the stress of being broke and desperate in a new country because Sri Lnkan’s have stinking false pride.
This Minister does not have any testicles. It is defect from which he has been suffering for the past 52 years. Please be kind to him in your comments.
well said Andrew, the guy in the photo looks a bit awkward. Is he Aussie? If he is an Aussie, the shows signs of deviant sexual behaviour.
All Auusies are like that. They are married, having wife and kids but the “bloke” mentality drives them towards men.
This Minister Morrison looks like one. Anyway, in Australia, all are equal, gay, hetero, homo, all are equal.
Hi Andrew and Sunil,
Of course, the guy in th photo is an Aussie. Looks like Kabaragoya. Be careful, young men from Sri Lanka, he is after you guys.
Hey you Guys, Phil, Sunil and Andrew,
This person in the photo is definitely an Aussie Gay who paricipates in the Mardi Gras every year.
He looks terrible; he is the Immigration Minister in the Fascist Australian Government. What can you expect for people like this?
They are always thinking of other things and not benefit for country. When this guy comes to Sri lanka, we should introduce him to a few of our guys who hang around tourist places with a handkerchief tied around thier head. That is to show their special trade.
Refer John Perera in Blog 1.
Quite true; Sinhala Buddhist migrants in Australia are cleaning office and cleaning toilets for amny years. Even Sinhala Buddhist Doctors and lawyers and Accountants and Engineers are Taxi Drivers.
Many Sinhala Buddhists are long term in menial jobs.
But, I find all Tamil Sri Lankan migrants in powerful jobs in Government and private. They own big house and luxury cars and children going to expensive private schools in Australia.
However, our Sinhala Buddhist brothers and sisters are mostly doing toilet cleaning jobs and getting dole form Australian Government.
One Tamil man who came to Australia in 2010 in a leaky boat, is owning a big landscape company in Australian City. He employ more than 600 people and most employees are white Australians. He drive around in Rolls Royce. Good on him.