Five months into its term the Rudd government delivered on one of its pre-election promises and ended the Temporary Protection Visa program. The TPV program was hatched by the ultra-racist Pauline Hanson and introduced by the Howard government in 1999. It placed successful asylum seekers on three year temporary visas, having to endure the horror of being reviewed and possibly deported after three years.
A 2003 study conducted by researchers at the University of NSW found that a TPV increases the risk of developing depression and post-traumatic stress by 700%.
Announced in the budget was a slight increase in refugee intake, and special humanitarian program increase of 750 places to 13,750 from 2009-10. This number is well down from the beginning of the 1980s when Australia accepted 20,000 refugees each year. Australia has a relatively low refugee intake. Between 2000 and 2002 Germany granted asylum to 40,674 and France 27,482. Poor, third world countries host many more refugees. Thailand hosts 336,000, mostly from Burma, for example.
The budget also contained an additional $49.2 million over four years for vocational English training for migrants. An increase to funding, the slight increase in the refugee intake and ending TPVs has been welcomed by refugee groups. In a press release from the Refugee Council of Australia, CEO Paul Power said on May 13: "We are pleased that the Government has begun delivering on its promises to reform some of the most damaging aspects of the refugee migration system, to ensure that Australia lives up to its international obligations, and to provide practical settlement assistance for refugees and humanitarian entrants".
Melbourne's Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is demanding the government grant work rights. Their press release noted "The real hot budget issue for asylum seekers is work rights. While the Government proposes to increase the Skilled Migration intake by 31,000, they are simultaneously denying 3000 people, already in Australia, the right to contribute to addressing the skills shortage. Research undertaken by the Network of Asylum Seeker Agencies in Victoria (NASAVIC) showed that over 70% of the Victorian asylum seekers had skills and professions on the Governments most wanted worker's list."
On May 16 Refugee Action Coalition NSW held a protest outside the Department of Immigration offices. RAC activist Rachel Evans noted in a press release "We know a Chinese man, Fang Xiao Ping, was in a serious condition in hospital a week ago after he attempted suicide when given a deportation notice. When will Prime Minister Rudd stop these cruel deportations? How many suicides or heart attacks will it take before this government enacts the key recommendation of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's report? HEREOC said the government should end mandatory detention."