REX - Regional Express

currentaffair Fate of the displaced Australia is a popular destination for the world's refugees, writes Jeremy Chunn, but the queue is long and illegal shortcuts are patrolled by sharks – and by politicians. We all came to Australia in boats at one stage. Today, new settlers usually come on jets. About 190,000 spots a year are reserved for migrants, as long as they bring skills and/or money, or have family here. We also make space for refugees: the desperate legion fleeing savageries we don't really comprehend in Australia. There are about 15 million such people in the world; in 2010–11, more than 54,000 of them put their names down for asylum in Australia. We made room for 5,998. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says in most cases, refugees choose to remain close to their borders in hope of returning home one day. Syria is a good example: there are more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees but only 24,800 have made asylum claims to start life again in other countries. Many of the world's refugees will live in squalid refugee camps for years, decades even. The ones who lack the patience and have money may try their luck with criminal smugglers, often on long, risky open-ocean trips aboard crowded boats. Some of them make it here, to take their place in other queues. Some of them drown on the way. The numbers of illegal immigrants to Australia are comparatively paltry: so 28 far, in 2013 (to 22 April), 96 boats have brought 6,036 asylum seekers here – but the political debate and media coverage are grossly overblown. "Our politicians make a big fuss about it but the numbers are not that big," says Professor Stephen Castles from The University of Sydney's Department of Sociology and Social Policy. In the early 1990s, Germany had more than 400,000 asylum seekers annually. Britain in the early 2000s had more than 70,000 a year, though nowadays it takes less than 30,000 a year. "The issue in Australia has been blown out of all proportion," he contends. What hope do you have when order is lost to a clamour for control, as in Iraq, or vengeance, as in Afghanistan? In both cases, imposing democracy may have seemed like a good idea "but it hasn't actually worked out ... in practice", says Castles. "The two countries producing most refugees are countries that have been invaded by western powers, ostensibly to stop conflict. So western military intervention doesn't necessarily solve problems; sometimes it makes them a lot worse." The Australian Government Department of Defence says its role in the reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq is not tied to a policy to stem the

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