• Graeme Hugo
• Department of Immigration and Citizenship

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27 June 2011The displacement of people as a result of persecution is one of the world’s most persistent and pressing issues. Australia has been one of the few countries in the world which has accepted substantial numbers of refugees for resettlement – more than 700,000 thus far. In Australia humanitarian migration is an important and continuing element in national political discourse. Part of this discussion centres around the issue of the costs and benefits of refugee resettlement for the Australian economy and society. By definition, refugees are persons who have left their homes unwillingly, have not planned their migration and have been unable to bring resources with them in their migration. Inevitably there must be greater costs involved in their resettlement than is the case for other immigrants. Against the considerable costs involved in resettling refugees, however, too often there is no attempt to consider the benefits that refugee resettlement bring to Australia. The prime motivation for the refugee-humanitarian program has always been a humanitarian one with Australia accepting its responsibility as an international citizen and a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention for the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Nevertheless this report demonstrates, using careful analysis of secondary and primary data, that humanitarian settlers have also made important contributions to Australia’s economic and social development.

Assessing the contribution of refugee-humanitarian settlers is rendered difficult because migrants’ visa categories are not included in most standard data collections. However, this study demonstrates statistically that the countries of origin of refugee-humanitarian settlers in Australia and those of skilled migrants is almost totally different so that census data relating to those countries of birth are strongly representative of humanitarian settlers. A methodology is thus developed to investigate the characteristics of first and second generation settlers from census data. In addition, data from a number of national samples which identify refugee-humanitarian settlers separately are analysed. However, it was also deemed essential to carry out a substantial primary data collection exercise. This involved a questionnaire survey of over 600 refugee-humanitarian settlers and a large number of in-depth qualitative interviews with humanitarian settlers, as well as a range of key stakeholders.