AUS
LIA
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER
AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION
•
LONDON
14 February 1985
Dear Lord Eurals,
Thank you for your letter of 7 February about Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong and Australian policy on resettlement.
Australian policy on resettlement of Indo-Chinese refugees, particularly the allocation of places from individual processing centres, reflects a number of considerations:
The first is the size and nature of the case Load. Australia has viewed with concern the continuing heavy burden faced by Hong Kong in coping with over 12,000 Indo-Chinese refugees seeking asylum. Australia acknowledges that this is the largest aggregation of "boat-people" in the South East Asian/East Asian region. At the same time Australia is concerned that a large number of the Indo-Chinese refugees in Hong Kong appear to lack credible claims to refugee status and to third country resettlement as refugees. In the circumstances it considers that voluntary repatriation may be a more appropriate solution for such persons.
A second consideration affecting Australia S attitude to resettlement of Indo-Chinese refugees is that it has traditionally given priority to resettlement of "boat-people" from Malaysia and Indonesia. The attached table sets out the numbers of Indo-Chinese refugees resettled in Australia since 1975 with reference to the countries of first refuge.
A third consideration relates to the sharing
of the burden internationally of resettling Indo-Chinese refugees. Australia regards such burden-sharing
as essential.
It follows from the above considerations that Australia is concerned that the United Kingdom has effectively ceased taking refugees from Hong Kong for resettlement in Britain. The policy and practice of the United Kingdom in the resettlement effort has a bearing on resettlement
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