Monitoring Asylum in Australia

Asylum-seekers who arrive in Australia without a visa are subjected to a number of punitive measures that can significantly impair their mental health and general well-being. These measures have also greatly impacted their ability to meaningfully engage in the refugee status determination process. They include:

• Waiting up to four years to be granted permission by the Government to apply for protection
• The inability to apply for permanent residency
• The removal of free legal assistance (with only limited exceptions)
• The imposition of an accelerated (fast track) determination process without adequate procedural safeguards
• The indefinite inability to reunite with immediate family members.

There are approximately 30,000 asylum-seekers affected by these measures, labelled by the Australian Government as the so-called ‘legacy caseload’. Negative political rhetoric and the resulting community stigmatisation of this group of asylum-seekers has also had a harmful impact on them.

People who seek international protection have endured traumatic experiences before arriving in Australia and their resilience is eroded by punitive measures they experience in Australia. Many asylum-seekers suffer from clinically diagnosable mental disorders including anxiety, depressive disorders and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).