As the number of people in need of protection grows every year, it is imperative that unlawful and unsustainable efforts to push the problem elsewhere be reversed. Bringing Australia’s offshore processing policy to an end is an important first step.
But Australia must also look ahead to the challenges and opportunities that forced migration will create in the coming decade.
There is considerable goodwill right now, with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand all signalling a desire to improve their legal frameworks in this area. For instance, Thailand is developing a new “national screening mechanism” to identify refugees, while the Philippines recently revised its systems for determining refugee and statelessness status and has pending legislation on a number of issues.
In return for governments in Southeast Asia adopting reforms, Australia should significantly increase the number of people it resettles from these countries and create other “complementary pathways” to protection. We should also develop more strategic responses in acute crises, just as we did for people fleeing Ukraine last year.