AT WHAT COST?

At What Cost? – The Human, Economic and Strategic Cost of Australia’s Asylum Seeker Policies and the Alternatives
A pathway forward – expanding protection and reducing harm
In light of the findings in this report, it is untenable for the Australian Government to claim that Australia is a
constructive global leader or player in this policy area. In the absence of effective regional refugee protection and
support, policies which simply seek to repel or deter asylum seekers who travel by sea do not address the greater
problem of forced displacement in the region.
The Government must consider options to change course and embrace greater regional cooperation in the area
of refugee protection and provide hope to the children and adults who Australia has chosen to abandon to these
punitive polices. This would enable Australia to phase out boat turn-backs and restore its global credibility in the
area of human rights as well as its regional standing and bilateral relationships where those have been harmed by
these policies.
It has long be recognised in the Australian policy debate concerning irregular migration that ‘the only viable way
forward is one that shifts the balance of risk and incentive in favour of regular migration pathways and established
international protections and against high-risk maritime migration.’ 15 Save the Children and UNICEF Australia believe
that this shift can and should be achieved through investing in measures which increase the protection of refugees
and asylum seekers in Australia and in the region, rather than by harsh deterrent policies which cause significant
harm to those fleeing persecution. By doing so, Australia can not only ensure the protection of a much greater
number of refugees but also ensure that its humanitarian migration spending works to enhance, rather than erode,
Australia’s strategic interests in bilateral, regional and global settings.
In this report UNICEF Australia and Save the Children propose a suite of enhanced protective measures in order
to achieve the objectives of resolving the predicament of those transferred to Nauru and PNG and ensuring
safe, orderly and sustainable protection pathways for a much greater number of refugees in the region than the
number currently allowed to enter Australia. Our proposed approach would make more efficient use of Australia’s
resources in this area and is likely to enhance, rather than damage, Australia’s strategic interests internationally. It
also aligns strongly with the recent statement issued by Paris Aristotle, who has advised successive governments on
refugee policy and was one of the members of the 2012 Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers which recommended a
suite of policies aimed at creating a ‘comprehensive regional network’. 16
These recommendations have been devised to work hand-in-hand with one another to achieve these objectives
and should be considered as a system rather than as stand-alone proposals.
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