Don’t blame Australia

IF any country has been involved in accommodating refugees in the region on a large scale, it has been Australia and the United States. If Australia had not accepted thousands of Vietnamese refugees after the end of the Vietnam War, they would still be languishing in camps in the region and draining the resources of those countries.

Every claim for refugee status is legally processed, with claimants provided with every legal aid at the expense of the Australian taxpayer to defend their claim through the legal system. Those rejected on the grounds of having a criminal background or posing a security risk continue to drain the country’s legal resources by their repeated use of the system. When they have exhausted every avenue, their countries of origin refuse to take them back. Many have remained to commit crimes from which Australia has learnt some hard lessons.