An Uncomfortable Fit: Australia’s Refugee Policy in a Regional Context

Attempting to compare refugee policy in Australia and Malaysia is like trying to compare apples and oranges. Australia is a developed, multicultural society that relies on a large government-sponsored program of immigration to maintain economic growth and labour needs (Colic-Peisker, 2009; DIAC, 2011a). Despite its geographic location, Australia maintains strong ties with Great Britain as the former colonial power as well as with other countries in the Global North. Malaysia is a fast developing post-colonial Asian nation with a rich cultural heritage, a national structure comprising of three major ethnic groups, and strong regional ties with its neighbours. Australia has signed and ratified the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol. Malaysia has neither signed nor ratified the Convention or its Protocol. In order to make any meaningful comparison between Australia and Malaysia these fundamental differences have to be addressed, and the implications of how these differences impact on refugee policy will be explored. In both cases the histories of ‘managing’ migrants and the cultural diversity of populations are open to interpretation, and are inherently political in their nature. As each country struggles to shape its refugee policy, and to work together within a regional and an international context of globalization and transnationalism, these differences pose many challenges.