May 1991
IF Lindsay Esq SPD
FCO
British
High Commission Canberra
Commonwealth Avenue
Yarralumla
Canberra, ACT 2600
I ain,
AUSTRALIA: HONG KONG MIGRATION
Summary
Telephone: (06) 270 6666 Facsimile: (06) 273 3236
Telex: AA 62222
1. No special Australian residency scheme for Hong Kong residents. But second best arrangements provide good
flexibility.
Detail
2. Senator Evans' speech to the Hong Kong Foreign Corre- spondents Club on 22 April comes closest to any text I have seen to stating the Australian Government's position on an Australian residency scheme for Hong Kong people. You will recall that in the exercise aimed at strengthening international support for Hong Kong in early 1990 we pressed the Australians to agree to schemes comparable to those we were introducing. The Home Secretary and Lord Caithness also took up the case on their visits last year. The Australians made haste very slowly. No substantive response to our approaches was forthcoming. We were repeatedly told that Hong Kong migration or a residency scheme formed part of a complex range of issues to be considered by Cabinet as part of a wider ranging review of Australia's relationships with Hong Kong, the PRC and Taiwan.
A
3. In his Hong Kong speech Senator Evans made clear that no special right of abode scheme for Hong Kong residence along the lines of our nationality package will be introduced here as to do so would drive a coach and horses through Australia's non-discriminatory immigration regime.
However, the Australians have uncovered sufficient flexibility within their existing rules to make possible a pretty generous package to Hong Kong employees of Australian companies and a slightly less generous, though nonetheless attractive, arrangement for other Hong Kong people. Senator Evans described these arrangements as "at least as generous, if not more so, the widely publicised US scheme" for executives of US
than
RESTRICTED
companies
A.
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Private notes are available after approval.