BY BAG
FROM
CANBERRA
Nkk 24315
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51 RESTRICAE
BERMAR 1980
SAVING
DESI INDEX
PA
REGISTRY Action Taken
ма
8263
Aw 26
RESTRICTED
TO: GOVERNOR
HONG KONG
TEL NO 1 SAVING OF 20 MARCH 1980
AND SAVING FOR INFO TO: FCO
1. We have continued to plug away at senior officials and Ministers to encourage the Australians to increase their quota of refugees from Hong Kong. They tell us that their Mission in Hong Kong has also received representations.
2. Our requests are being given full weight in the review, now nearing completion, of Australia's targets for the intake of refugees in the programme year beginning 1 July 1980 (we are firmly assured by the Australians that they will, before 30 June this year, take the full one thousand refugees from Hong Kong as promised following Sir Jack Cater's visit here). We have of course passed to the Department of Immigration the arguments and statistics contained in FCO telnos 1 and 2 SAVING to Bonn but' we sense that the statistics alone are not
making sufficient impact on the Australians. They need to be convinced that the number of refugees for which you seek resettlement are causing severe administrative, and social
problems in Hong Kong. Indeed some officials have asked whether the refugees in Hong Kong are not perhaps welcome given the general labour shortage. Although we have countered thi 1 argument, the very fact that a refugee can earn money in Hong Kong is in undeniable contrast to the conditions he must endure in the less humane first-asylum countries. Again, although not denying that conditions in the refugee centres are severely cramped, officials claim to have seen little evidence that
local integration proves difficult in the end.
RESTRICTED
13.
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