Australia Offers Lebanese Asylum-Seekers $10k to Return Home
Australia is offering asylum-seekers in its Pacific immigration camps financial support if they voluntarily return to their home country with the Lebanese offered the highest amount of $10,000 (US$9,400).
Fairfax Media reported that those returning to Lebanon from detention centers on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and the tiny Pacific state of Nauru were offered the highest amount of $10,000.
Iranians and Sudanese were given $7,000 if they dropped bids for refugee status, Afghans $4,000 and those from Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar $3,300, the report in The Sydney Morning Herald said.
The Herald said under the previous Labor administration -- in office until last September -- the payments were much lower, ranging from $1,500 to $2,000.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has not confirmed the figures, but a spokesman said the "return packages" were "tailored to the circumstances of each case".
"The process of voluntary return is conducted in direct partnership with the International Organization for Migration. It has been standard policy and practice for more than 10 years."
Labor's immigration spokesman Richard Marles said the government should be ensuring that asylum-seekers' claims were being properly processed, not issuing "blank cheques".
"When Scott Morrison was in opposition, he opposed Labor's own reintegration packages and now he is offering sums which are triple the amount," Marles told the ABC.
Australia has toughened its policy on asylum-seekers in recent years, with those arriving on unauthorized boats now refused residency in Australia even if they are deemed refugees.
Instead they are held in detention camps on Manus and Nauru and are expected to be resettled in those countries if their claims are valid.
Since the policy was introduced, more asylum-seekers have chosen to voluntarily return to their country of origin while the number of people attempting to reach Australia by boat has dried up, with no boats arriving for six months.
Morrison's spokesman said 283 people had voluntarily returned home from offshore processing centers since shortly after the conservative government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott won power in September.
Refugee campaigners criticized the idea of the payments, and said returning asylum-seekers could still face persecution back home.
"The idea that you would put people in a hell hole like Manus Island, treat them abysmally and then try to bribe them to go back to the appalling circumstances they left shows just how morally bankrupt this government is," Greens party leader Christine Milne said.
21 June 2014, 09:18
26
How Sad!
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran have everything to be the number one destinations for people who seek a better life.
Instead we managed to destroy our economies, cultures and our futures in the name of fighting Israel.
We are living in failed states, we espouse failed ideologies and corrupt religion, transforming it into a tool to kill one another and kill innocents all over the world.
And now we stand begging outside the doors of Australia and every other country in the world. But we still hold on to what made us fail as nations.
21 June 2014, 11:59
06
By characterizing me as a Al Qaeda sympathizer, you are implying that anyone who is against Hezbollah's politics of violence is an Al Qaeda sympathizer.
And following your logic the US government sympathizes with Al Qaeda who by the way was behind the 9/11 attacks.
And you are also implying that Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran are models to follow in terms of education, economic thoughts, human rights and scientific breakthroughs.
And that students should not aim to go to AUB but to The Islamic Republic of Iran University. And instead of immigrating to Australia or the US where Al Qaeda rules, (according to your impeccable logic), they should go to the thriving land of the Islamic Republic of Iran where there is no corruption and tech companies are blooming.
Al Qaeda, ISIL and Hezbollah are evil and their extremist interpretation of religion and their use of violence are excrements of history.
21 June 2014, 17:14
01
You are an idiot for not acknowledging the Wahabists' counterpart, the so called Islamic Republic of Iran, as the current major destabilizing factor in the Middle East.
21 June 2014, 12:13
16
I understand where your racist sectarianism comes from. As a civilian who just wants to work and live a normal life, you have been prevented by doing so since 1975.
In the name of the struggle against Israel, the PLO and their allies wanted to liberate Jounieh.
Next came the Syrians who wanted to liberate Achrafieh in order to get to Jerusalem.
And then came the Iranians who want to liberate Ras Beirut and Solidere in order to wipe out the Zionist entity.
Now comes Al Nusrah and Al Qaeda who want to blow up Dahieh in order to liberate the world from the infidels.
21 June 2014, 12:14
35
We are in the 21st century and the people around us are barbarians who live in the middle ages. Those barbarians are violent, armed and ready to blow themselves up for any reason, (they are killing one another now), and they are all from the same religion.
So you say to yourself that this religion must be evil. In fact Christianity when through the same phase in the middle ages, while Islam was civilized back then.
It might take our region another 100 years to become sort of civilized. Too many barbarians.
21 June 2014, 14:14
03
“I recently read both the Koran and the Bible…, and can assure you that the latter is more bloodthirsty. Evangelical Christians are almost as much of a menace to wise American governance as are Muslim jihadis…
On the whole, however, the Christian religion has adapted to modernity while most Muslim societies have failed to do so, whether by creating an educated mass workforce or producing scientific or technological genius.
The jihadis advancing on Baghdad, fighting in Syria, bombing their co-religionists in Kenya, kidnapping schoolgirls in Nigeria …offer only violent anarchy.
Their desire to promote a new caliphate, ruled by sharia law, reflects a rejection of the West rooted in a pitiful inability to compete with the West in any constructive fashion. Glorious death represents their highest aspiration.
The relative success of such fundamentalism is a measure of the despair pervading many Muslim societies."
21 June 2014, 14:17
03
Above, I quoted Max Hastings, a British journalist, editor, historian and author who wrote this interesting column today where he blames the both the West's interference and the culture pervading the Muslim world today:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2664118/MAX-HASTINGS-Yes-West-fought-Muslim-world-centuries-But-Islam-accept-blame-todays-bloody-chaos.html
21 June 2014, 16:58
11
Trouble follows wherever christians go as well. World war 1, world war 2, hiroshima, slavery of africans, looting the lands of the indians, catholic-protestant war, christian fathers and husbands murdering their daughters and wives for wanting to marry a muslim, christians killing suspected wiches, killing eachother in russia, ukraine, etc etc. All of these are facts, don't even try to deny a single one of them because there are plenty of evidence and news stories about all that i wrote, including in christian and secular media. ALL OF IT, so get down from your high horse. By the way, australia has lots of problems because of lebanese, including from maronite lebanese.
21 June 2014, 17:53
01
One more thing dubailebanese, my point is that religion is something very personal.
Whether one believes in God, Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha or believes in science is not important as far as building successful nations. What matters is respecting political, religious and social freedoms, respecting the law and good democratic governance.
And for your information when religion ruled in the West, the West was backwards.
It was only when religion got kicked out of government and the laws that life started improving.
21 June 2014, 16:59
11
Ashrafieh, you are a trouble maker so why dont you stop yourself? And what have you done to stop the inter christian slaughter going on in eastern europe today?
21 June 2014, 17:11
10
Now, people are actually ready to pay money to get lebanese away from them. Why are they doing that? Just take a look at the comments here and see. When the world doesnt want the lebanese, instead of uniting, the lebanese turn on eachother and to be honest, especially maronites are guilty of creating fitna between and muslims and christians. Most Muslims do not support isil/hezb and their likes yet you want to blame over 1 billion muslims for them meanwhile christians are comitting crimes in every continent as we speak. Should we blame you for that as well? Where would that lead us, this thinking? Stop being hypocrites seeing everything as an opportunity to bash Islam and Muslims. There are many maronites living in the muslim khaleej (likewise muslims living in the west) BY CHOICE, the khaleej can easily replace them if thats what they wanted.
21 June 2014, 17:13
10
But they dont because they are not out to harm you as you try to claim.
21 June 2014, 17:40
01
It goes without saying that the greatest majority of Muslims in this world do not support Hezbollah, ISIL, Al Qaeda, the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime or other extremists.
And indeed you have a lot of criminals from every race, religion and nationality.
But what we are talking about here are extremist ideologies, the way Nazism and Fascism were.
These sick extremists that are blowing people up, (whether it is Hezbollah killing peaceful Lebanese politicians or ISIL beheading Iraqi soldiers), in the name of religion, are a sickness.
As for the UAE, they are a great example of a functioning society in this region. They have become a destination of choice for people the world over.
And if an expatriate has no job in Dubai and is not able to make a living, his only way is out, whatever race, nationality or religion he is.
So as long as you add value to Dubai, you stay in Dubai.
21 June 2014, 17:42
01
I guess you still are adding value dubailebanese but when you will stop doing so in 20 years, you will either emigrate to Canada or come back to your country where you will still have to deal with Hezbollah and ISIL killing one another.
