Australia plans to close doors on African refugees

SYDNEY, Oct 3: Australia will not take any more refugees from Africa until at least the middle of next year, Prime Minister John Howard said on Wednesday, triggering charges of a vote stunt ahead of national elections.

Howard rejected any suggestion of racism, saying Australia’s 13,000-a-year refugee intake was being “rebalanced” from Africa to the Middle East and Asia where the need was more acute.

“It’s not in any way racially based but the programme is just going to be rebalanced, and one of the consequences of that is the reality that there will be no more people coming from Africa until at least July of next year,” the prime minister told public radio.

Howard said it was sometimes difficult for refugees to assimilate into the Australian community.

“It’s just a question of taking a common sense approach and ensuring enough time in order to get people fully integrated into the community,” he said.

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said that even after July there was no guarantee the numbers would be reinstated.

The decision is a marked contrast to the situation two years ago, when 70 per cent of Australia’s refugee intake came from Africa.

Refugee groups accused the government of picking on African refugees in the lead-up to elections expected to be held before the end of November.

Howard’s conservative government is widely expected to lose the election.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said Howard was trying to replicate the boost he received with a tough stance on asylum seekers at the 2001 election.

On the eve of that election, the government refused to accept hundreds of mostly Afghan refugees whom the Norwegian freighter Tampa had plucked from the Indian Ocean.

“They can’t manufacture another Tampa but they’re trying to tap into the same redneck sentiment that they generated in 2001,” Rintoul said.

Opposition Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett said the government was giving credence to far-right former lawmaker Pauline Hanson, who has accused African refugees of bringing disease into Australia.

“There’s no doubt the minister (Andrews) is in part responding to some of the slurs put out by Pauline Hanson,” he said.

Recent violence involving Sudanese youths has raised concerns in Melbourne about how African refugees are integrating into Australian society.

An 18-year-old Sudanese man died earlier this week after being beaten in an apparent gang attack, creating heated public debate amid allegations Sudanese youths were running amok in suburbs of Australia’s second largest city.

Last year, the town of Tamworth in New South Wales state said it did not want any more Sudanese refugees, but later reversed the decision on condition that increased social services were provided to help them settle.

Andrews said that refugees from Sudan and Ethiopia often had low levels of education and had spent up to a decade in refugee camps, making adjustment to Australian life difficult.