The Government has foolishly gone ahead with its plan to allow 4000 Kosovars to come to Australia temporarily. The Government will grant them three-month visas. The theory is that they will return to Kosovo when the situation changes.
The measure is an attempt to at once please people who have been rightly shocked by events in Kosovo and want Australia to help and those who want Australia to have lower immigration. The result is that the Government will please none. Nor should it with such a misguided policy. The theory is that they will return to Kosovo when the situation changes.
The people who will suffer most will be the 4000 who arrive here. They will be given the false hope that they will return to their homeland in three months. There is no guarantee that the situation will allow them to return in that time. In the meantime they will be housed in temporary accommodation. They will be half way around the world. They will be far from home. They will live with only hope. It will be a very costly exercise to bring people half way around the world on a temporary basis.
A better position for Australia would have been to spend the money in Europe on temporary accommodation and to offer permanent residency for up to 4000 Kosovars who feel there is no hope of going home or who feel that starting anew is a better prospect than living in false hope.
Australia is good a settling refugees permanently and has no experience in housing refugees temporarily.
Let’s stick to what we are good at.