RECEND IN MI
REGISTRY CO. 51
26 JUL 1977
243/2 HKK 263/332/1
A K Goldsmith Esq SEAD
FCO
CONFIDENTIAL
British High Commission
CANBERRA
12 July 1977
RECEIVED IN
REGISTRY No. 14
CC
UND/J
22 JUL 1977
Your thick,
FA 243/1
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Enter
12/2
22/7
REFUGEES FROM INDO-CHINA
1. It might be useful to set out some of the factors which appear to have led to the DFA's approach for information about supposed BBC World Service announcements that more refugees from Indo-China were to be admitted into Australia (Canberra telegram number 432, 18 July).
2. The DFA were requested to take action by the Department of Immigration in the person of the First Assistant Secretary, Volker, in charge of the Planning Programme and Review Division. His letter to the DFA stated that a number of refugees who landed in Australia from open boats towards the end of June
para 5 of my letter to Murray Simons of 28 June) had told the Immigration Department's interviewing officer that they had been prompted to come to Australia by an announcement they had heard on the BBC World Service.
3. The Department of Immigration, and the DFA, are both apparently quite concerned that it is widely believed in Indo- China that any refugees who turn up here or can get here will be accepted with open arms. (There has apparently been an upsurge of requests for entry from individuals still in Vietnam.) This is not quite the position. Mr McKellar's statement of 10 June (enclosed with my letter of 1 July) was an attempt publicly to dissuade these groups from setting out for Australia, not solely because of the difficulty and danger of such a journey in often scarcely seaworthy boats, but because on arrival they put the Australian authorities in a most embarrassing position. Officials concede freely in private that Australia has no alternative but to admit such groups. But there are apparently quite serious concerns about the health hazards involved; and there is some fear that the Vietnamese authorities might misconstrue and accuse the Australians of encouraging such migration.
14.
I gather, for example, though this is being kept carefully under wraps, that some of the latest batch are suffering from advanced cancer and that there is some real risk of disease (this I suppose has to be seen in the perspective of Australian immigration officers spraying every aircraft as it arrives even from Europe before its passengers are let out). There is a
/political
CONFIDENTIAL