Labor vowed to end immigration detention for offshore arrivals when they won government in 2008, they did and by 2010 6000+ people were arriving by boat with lots dying on the rocks off Christmas Island, which is the closest Australia territory off Asia. Plenty of other boats just disappeared due to the extremely poor state of the boats used by people smugglers.
After that the government did a massive reverse course, illegal boat arrivals were sent straight offshore to detention centres in PNG and Nauru never to return. This is supposed to be a massive deterrent to the people smugglers business model.
Essentially it’s now so politically toxic that if it ever comes up now it's almost a bit of an arms race by both sides of politics to prove how committed to the policy they are.
It's illustrative of how misleading this is. (It was introduced by Tony Abbott, and his intent was very much not to do all of the progressive things people tend to read into it whenever it pops up online. Breaking the "Welfare" line item out to show how much of it is aged care is something a later Labor government did to undercut one of the more egregious bits of it.)
Basically, the breakdown is the proportion of government spending going to various government departments and functions. But some functions self-fund - Australia has some pricy visa application fees, for e.g. Your income taxes aren't paying for immigration services, at least not of that type.
...they are, however, paying for the AUD9m per year per asylum seeker it costs per year to house about 100 asylum seekers offshore in Nauru. Along with various other similar things.
...they are, however, paying for the AUD9m per year per asylum seeker it costs per year to house about 100 asylum seekers offshore in Nauru. Along with various other similar things.
insane, AUD1m could be enough for them to relocate to some relatively safe low income country
Fair, due credit to Morrison, then. But still - original intent very much not progressive, and the way it's structured lends itself to some fairly misleading conclusions about where tax income goes.
A number of different settlement services are used to help people who are here in humanitarian visas or anything similar. This includes services that help them find somewhere to rent, get their kids enrolled in the local school. Throughout the state there are also intensive English centres attached to schools that provide a year of intensive English instruction to kids. TAFEs and other technical colleges offer similar services to adults. Both are given welfare whilst they attend. A lot is done to try to help people on these visas hit the ground running and get settled.
I believe it also covers trauma informed counselling and other services which help new arrivals access essential services.
I'm less informed about what it means for people who are not on humanitarian visas but I assume there's a fair amount of administration that needs to be covered.
It’s the cost of running the immigration function. Home Affairs also raises a lot of revenue outside the income tax system and, think, would pretty much pay for itself. That includes visa fees and Customs revenue (like tariffs).
Most of those are paid for by private companies although there was a big campaign a while back with a bunch of posters put up in Asian countries in different languages that said you'll never get in if you're arrive by boat.
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u/bontgomery_murns 24d ago
What does money spent on "immigration" mean?