New Minister's Report Card

18 April 2008: figures provided by Kon Karapanagiotidis, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

Number of countries represented ....................................................................................

Number of rejections ...........................................................................................................

Percentage of cases rejected ............................................................................................

Period within which ASRC received these decisions ................................................

Cases rejected where person was either married or de facto to an Australian
or had a child with an Australian .....................................................................................

Cases rejected where health of person was raised as an issue .............................

Cases rejected where concern for the safety of the person if returned was raised
as an issue .............................................................................................................................

Cases rejected where the person has close family ties with an Australian citizen
or permanent resident .........................................................................................................

What do these findings mean?

These findings are based on the first 29 finalised decisions we have received from the Minister, although it's still too early to get a complete picture of how the Minister will exercise his power.

To give some context, approximately one third of these rejections were strong cases and the other two thirds not so strong although with merit.

These findings are concerning for the following reasons:

• The short timespan within which these decisions have been received. Despite our urging DIAC for the last 3 years to not send us bulk refusal decisions - because they are unmanageable and create a crisis that neither ourselves, other agencies or they can deal with - we had 12 rejections last week alone.
• The refusal of asylum seekers married or defacto to Australians is particularly of concern given the claims of family being so important under this government. We see this as a punitive approach to split up families and in line with the last government's deterrence policy.
• The refusal of asylum seekers who have a child with an Australian troubles us because it can never be in the best interests of a child to separate them from a parent and is a breach of our obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• The refusal of asylum seekers with adult Australian citizen children who if removed have no viable way of being reunited.
• The lack of weight being given in particular to concerns regarding mental health of asylum seekers who are too traumatised to be returned.

An interesting caseload where we have not received decisions yet are asylum seekers with Australian citizen children under 18 who were born here and have been here for at least 10 years. This will be a test of the government's commitment to not splitting families or forcing the removal of Australian citizen children.

Will continue to keep you updated

Kon Karapanagiotidis
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

Thank you to Kon for providing these figures. They prove without doubt, that what many of us have suspected for a long time is now beginning to look like the truth. Kevin Rudd's government is just another version of the same old same old. Therefore, if we want the society in which we live to become truly humanitarian we must be as vigilant and active as we were during the John Winston Howard years. Sad, but true. RAC Vic