Dying while waiting in the queue to join families in Australia

The Australian population, apart from the native aborigines are all migrants. But, the system put in place by the white majority government, particularly, after the “Liberals” came to power about 10 years ago, is extremely harsh for certain categories of prospective migrants.

The worst affected are the parents of migrants who have become citizens of Australia, and wish to live in proximity to their off-spring. Before the Howard government came to power, parents could join their children in Australia, under the family re-union scheme, without much difficulty.

Since the Howard government assumed power, new and harsh rules of migration for this category have been enforced, with extreme rigidity, so much so that some parents, who have even been passed for migration, are placed in an ‘inhuman’ queue, sometimes, for years. Some of them have died waiting in this queue!

I know parents who have been in this so-called “queue” for over 6 to 7 years! In other words, they have satisfied all the criteria of the Australian Immigration authorities but are still placed in a “queue” to prevent them from migrating. The reasons given are that they become entitled to government benefits like pensions and free health services.

The irony is that refugees from countries like Somalia, Ethipia, Afghanistan and earlier from Cambodia and Vietnam and many other countries in which wars are on going are allowed in with hardly any criteria.

By C.L. Jayaratne, Colombo 7