DIMA Annual Report 2000-01

Overview of performance of administered items for outcome one

Statutory self-regulation of migration agents

Description

Since March 1998, the migration advice industry in Australia has been regulated under statutory self-regulatory arrangements detailed in Part 3 of the Migration Act.

Under these powers, the Migration Institute of Australia has been appointed by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs as the industry regulator, known as the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA). The core functions of the MARA include the registration of migration agents, complaints handling and the application of sanctions against migration agents who have breached the Migration Agent's Code of Conduct (Schedule 2 of the Migration Agents Regulations).

As at 30 June 2001, there were 2,429 registered migration agents. During the program year, 144 complaints were received and 126 were finalised.

$1.820 million was budgeted against this item in 2000-01. The final appropriation was $2.037 million.

Key results

The number of registered migration agents grew from 2,180 at 1 July 2000 to 2,429 at 30 June 2001.

Administrative contribution to the secretariat for inter-governmental consultations (IGC) on asylum, refugee and migration policies

Description

During 2000-01 Australia contributed $0.122 million toward the administrative costs of the IGC. The IGC is an informal, non-decision-making forum established in 1985 (with an independent Secretariat established in 1991), to provide an avenue for participating governments to exchange information, consult and develop innovative policy approaches on refugee, asylum and migration issues. The IGC currently comprises 16 participating states in Western Europe, North America and Australia.

IGC activities include information exchange, maintenance of databases and production of various authoritative reports (such as those on asylum procedures, temporary protection, return and trafficking). The IGC also facilitates formal liaison between high-level officials from participating states through an annual Full Round of Consultations and at least one Mini-Full Round per year (the latter focussing on specific issues of concern at the time).

There are also a number of IGC working groups and workshops on specific issues. These meetings provide valuable opportunities for executive-level officials who work on these issues to exchange information and ideas with colleagues in other participating states. Working groups have regular (annual or biannual) meetings to discuss country of origin information, and data on return/transit and smuggling/trafficking. Workshops are one-off meetings which concentrate on specific areas of interest. During the year there were workshops on technology, transit and people smuggling.

Key results

Australia assumed the chair of the IGC in October 2000 for one year and hosted a full round meeting in Katoomba in April 2001. Australia also co-chaired mutually-beneficial joint discussions between the IGC and the Inter-Governmental Asia-Pacific Consultations on Refugees, Displaced Persons and Migrants in Bangkok in April 2001. Australia has used its time as chair to promote the theme of a comprehensive integrated approach to the management of people movements and the need for both cooperative action and an understanding of the interrelationships between asylum, irregular migration and people smuggling, development aid and related issues.

At the April 2001 full round meeting the following issues were considered:

• addressing challenges of people smuggling and irregular movements through caseload analyses of Afghans, Iraqis, Roma and Sri Lankans
  
  
• management and other implications of the asylum/migration nexus (how migration systems and asylum systems impact on each other)
  
  
• interim protection and criminals (including war criminals) in asylum-seeker populations.

The meeting provided a valuable opportunity for Australia to encourage participating states to take a global view and an integrated approach in seeking solutions to these challenges. One and a half days of workshops in Sydney, detailing Australia's migration program, border management and settlement/ integration and multicultural policies followed the Katoomba meeting.

Administrative contribution to the international organization for migration (IOM)

Description

During 2000-01 Australia contributed $0.688 million to the administrative costs of the IOM. The IOM is an international organisation based in Geneva which is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society. As an inter-governmental body, IOM acts with its partners in the international community to help meet the operational challenges of migration, advancing understanding of migration issues, encouraging social and economic development through migration, and upholding the human dignity and well-being of migrants.

Australia encourages IOM involvement in developing regional forums on irregular migration. Along with the UNHCR, the IOM co-sponsored the Inter-Governmental Asia-Pacific Consultations on Refugees, Displaced Persons and Migrants (APC) a forum involving 23 countries in our region. The APC has proven a valuable forum for discussing irregular migration issues among regional countries. For a number of years, IOM has also sponsored a series of regional seminars on irregular migration and migrant trafficking, called 'the Manila process'. In these and other forums, Australia encouraged IOM to take a more active role both within the region and beyond in engaging countries in discussion of important issues affecting people movement and irregular migration, as well as to take operational measures to deliver effective and relevant migration services.

Key results

As part of its Technical Cooperation on Migration Program, IOM organised a workshop on Operational Cooperation to Combat Irregular Migration in Beijing in June 2001.

The workshop was developed primarily in response to a call by Asia-Pacific nations participating in the Manila Process Conference in Jakarta in October 2000, for IOM to organise a capacity-building training seminar on trafficking and irregular migration. They asked that the seminar result in the development of concrete actions or outcomes that participating countries could use in developing responses to irregular migration.

The workshop was targeted at countries in the East and South East Asia region. Countries invited included Australia, Cambodia, PRC, Hong Kong (SAR), Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Following the success of the workshop a similar program may be run for the APC South Pacific sub-regional group next year.

IOM continued its role in transporting East Timorese from Australia and West Timor back to East Timor. IOM plans to facilitate international efforts to develop a border management capacity in East Timor, within the structure of the new administration. In addition, in working with Australia within the framework of a regional cooperation model, IOM played a pivotal role in helping Indonesia and Australia disrupt people-smuggling routes while ensuring that protection needs were met through UNHCR.

IOM and the Government of Switzerland held an International Symposium (the Berne Initiative) in Berne in June 2001 to deliberate on the feasibility of initiating a process of dialogue and analysis among governments of migrant receiving, sending and transit states. The purpose of the initiative was to identify common policy interests, from a global perspective, concerning international migration management and cooperation. IOM now has responsibility for drafting guiding principles for migration.

Asylum Seekers Assistance scheme

Description

The Australian Red Cross (ARC) has administered the Asylum Seekers Assistance (ASA) Scheme under an agreement with the Commonwealth Government since 1993. ASA provides financial help to asylum seekers, determined by the ARC to be without means of support or disposable assets, who have been awaiting a primary decision on their Protection Visa (PV) application for six months or more. The scheme provides help for basic food, shelter and health care. The rate of financial assistance is up to the equivalent of 89 per cent of Centrelink Special Benefit payments. Asylum seekers in need of ASA support within six months of applying for protection can seek an exemption to allow early access to ASA.

ASA is generally only available to those who are awaiting a primary decision from the department on their PV application. Since 1 July 1999, eligibility has been extended to include review applicants in financial hardship who are unable to meet their basic needs and who have no continuing and adequate support. Applications for assistance are considered through the ASA exemption process on a case-by-case basis.

Key results

In 2000-01, 2,691 clients received financial help at a cost of $11.163 million.

Australian Population, Immigration and Multicultural Research Program

Description

The Australian Population, Immigration and Multicultural Research Program (APIMRP) was established jointly by the Commonwealth and State Governments to undertake studies in the areas of migration, migration settlement, multicultural affairs and population trends. The program provides information to help formulate and assess policies of Commonwealth, State and Territory Ministers and departments responsible for immigration and multicultural affairs. In 2000-01 the Commonwealth contributed $0.05 million to the APIMRP.

Key results

A research study on the 'Impact of Immigration on State and Territory Budgets' was commissioned. The study, being undertaken by Access Economics Pty Ltd, will develop a financial model that would indicate the budget impact of migrants in each State and Territory from one to 10 years after arrival. The study is expected to be completed in September 2001.

Temporary Protection Visa cash assistance

Description

A cash payment is made to eligible Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) holders when they are released from Immigration Reception and Processing Centres (IRPC) or Immigration Detention Centres (IDC). Cash assistance is a means-tested payment and any cash or convertible currency owned by the TPV holder is deducted from any payment by DIMA. During 2000-01 the payment rate, which is based on Centrelink Special Benefit and rent assistance and adjusted regularly, reached $218 for adults and $78 for dependent children. This payment is to help TPV holders until Centrelink payments begin.

Key results

Of the 4,456 persons granted TPVs in 2000-01, 3,253 received some level of payment under this item.

Initiatives to address the situation of displaced Afghan and Iraqi refugees

Description

The causes of humanitarian outflows include persecution, conflict, natural disasters and poverty. For any individual, a range of these factors may influence their decision to flee to a country of first asylum or to undertake secondary movements from that country. Australia recognises that the mixed nature of the outflow requires a response that seeks to address both the humanitarian needs of displaced people, along with their protection needs where these people are refugees.

Australia has, therefore, sought to encourage the development of comprehensive, integrated responses to humanitarian outflows, including by addressing the conditions in source and first asylum countries. Countries of first asylum bear a significant burden for the critical role they play in the international protection system, especially in relation to the unresolved and longstanding caseloads in the Middle East and South West Asia.

In particular, the Government has identified the need for a coordinated, international approach to the development of a long-term solution for displaced Afghans and Iraqis. Accordingly, in the 2000-01 Budget the Government allocated $20.8 million over four years for aid initiatives to support the development of such a solution, with a further $4.5 million in 2000-01 to be reallocated for these purposes from AusAID's existing budget.

Key results

In response to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing Afghanistan after 20 years of civil war, compounded by the worst drought in living memory, the allocations made from the $9.5 million available in 2000-01 were:

• $3 million for the World Food Program's drought relief and food activities in Afghanistan
  
  
• $2.5 million to the UNHCR's South West Asia Appeal to help countries of first asylum to receive and maintain asylum seekers from Afghanistan and to strengthen their registration and refugee-status determination programs
  
  
• $1.7 million to the United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) to develop poverty eradication programs in Afghanistan
  
  
• $1.5 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross for emergency programs in Afghanistan
  
  
• $0.8 million to the International Organisation for Migration to assist in stabilising the population in Afghanistan and to develop sustainable return and reintegration procedures.

In addition, the Government announced that it would provide up to $2.5 million from Immigration Portfolio funds to an appeal launched by the International Organisation for Migration to help the Maslakh camp for internally displaced people in western Afghanistan. This brought Australia's assistance to Afghanistan and Afghan refugees living in Iran and Pakistan to $12 million in 2000-01.

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