Contexts in which the phrase boat people was used in the Senate during the 1970s

• The Minister has a copy of the telegram which I shall call document C. In the telegram I drew the attention of the Minister for Immigration (Mr MacKellar) to the fact that if we were cutting corners in relation to the boat people as political refugees at least we could do the same for Latin American people. [More…]

• Relative your communication Feb 1st File 77/31227 concerning entry to Australia of Argentinian national, Miss Estella Mohaded Stop Disturbed at your insistence that she be treated as normal migrant applicant Stop My submission to you 16 Jan contained Argentinian document Certificate of Solicitude to leave country Stop Such document would surely prove the applicant subject to political duress a situation the boat people contingents have used to the full mulvihill [More…]

• Therefore, she would have to come to Australia like the boat people from Vietnam or appear in one of our embassies throughout the world. [More…]

• J. Ducker, M.L.C., share my concern that we give much less compassion to Latin American cases involving political refugees status than we have to the stream of boat people who besiege Darwin. [More…]

• Might I emphasise that I refuse to accept the direct imposition of people on the Australian Government without your own Ministerial evaluation, but on that basis I have yet to see flexibility in Latin American applicants suffering political duress approach anything like the incessant stream of boat people who claim to be escaping from a Left Wing Asian Government and in that context I enclose Appendix ‘B’ which shows that the girl in question must have encountered some very naive Australian Immigration Officer when interviewed as my stock question to such people would have been how much money had they made from blackmarket operations and been taxed on such money to rehabilitate their war-devastated homeland. [More…]

• A mounting resentment is developing amongst Sydney trade unions (and I spoke at several meetings during the last break) that Latin Americans in countries with military juntas in control backed by their Australian relatives don ‘t get anything like the solicitude given to the boat people. [More…]

• -Has the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs seen a report that the United States Administration estimates that more than 3,000 boat people arrived in Australia last month? [More…]

• I have not seen a report that 3,000 boat people entered Australia last month, which Senator Douglas McClelland told us has been released in the United States. [More…]

• I am unable to say the actual number of boat people who have arrived to date. [More…]

• Another team is processing boat people in Malaysian boat camps. [More…]

• The number of refugees in Thailand is about 110,000 with 7,500 boat people in Malaysia. [More…]

• For this reason treatment is instituted for those people seen in Bangkok and for any of the boat people who arrive in Darwin. [More…]

• In this context I refer to the passage of the six Bills in the nuclear package- each of which in its own way represented part of the dilemma of inter racial relations, particularly the Aboriginal lands legislation- the urgency debate in the Senate about Aurukun and Mornington Island, the debate which involved the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act, the problems we have had with the influx of boat people from Thailand, the refugees from Vietnam and the Papua New Guineans coming into the Torres Strait Islands, the controversy just yesterday over the Booroloola land claim report, our attitude to South Africa and Rhodesia compared with our attitude to other countries and the outbreak of several wars in black Africa, which is now alight with wars. [More…]

• A total amount of $2.3m was ultimately provided in 1977-78 for special appeals for refugees from Indo-China and Thailand and other peoples in Asia, including the boat people. [More…]

• The present position with these boat people is that their applications for refugee status are still under examination by the Depanment of Refugee Status Committee. [More…]

• -The matter of quarantine is of considerable importance to Australia at any time and is doubly of importance as the speed of transport increases and emergencies occur, such as the one involving the boat people. [More…]

• The present position with these boat people is that their applications for refugee status are still under examination by the Determination of Refugee Status Committee. [More…]

• In this morning’s edition of the Melbourne Age I noticed a statement by the Deputy High Commissioner for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Mr Dale de Haan, who said that Vietnam had told him that it will reduce the number of boat people leaving its shores if other countries take Vietnamese refugees on a family reunion basis. [More…]

• -I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs: Is it a fact that the Minister, during the recent Liberal Party Conference, stated that he did not consider what we have called boat people’ to be illegal immigrants? [More…]

• Would it not be reasonable to expect increased numbers of boat people attempting to make the journey? [More…]

• To claim that the refugee situation is out of control because 2,000 boat people have arrived here since 1 975 seems to me to be a gross distortion of the truth. [More…]

• We must realise that in one day in Hong Kong 3,000 boat people arrived and 2,000 arrived on other days. [More…]

• In one sense, this may stop the pressure caused by the arrival of boat people. [More…]

• Honourable senators opposite talk about the boat people ‘. [More…]

• Most of their ancestors were boat people. [More…]

• The boat people arrive in Australia at Darwin, my home town, so obviously I have an interest. [More…]

• I refer to the quarantine situation in relation to the boat people. [More…]

• Part of this approach has been to seek the cooperation of governments in the Association of South East Asian Nations in holding boat people while in transit. [More…]

• I am aware and everybody who meets and discusses this with the boat people must be aware of the variety of reasons that the people are fleeing from Vietnam and Kampuchea. [More…]

• Certainly, the refugee problem, the shortages of food, and the nature of the regime there will tend to aggravate the increase in the number of boat people, and the Government and the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs have been making major efforts in that regard. [More…]

• People constantly ask: ‘Why should we do these things for Asians, for boat people and for people abroad? [More…]

• Certainly, the refugee problem, the shortages of food and the nature of the regime there will tend to aggravate the increase in the number of boat people. [More…]

• Some of them have gone through terrible experiences and we now call them the boat people. [More…]

• Our attitude to refugees and to boat people- however they may be described- and our attitude to the principle of population building generally will be a test of our sincerity and of our determination to develop Australia, not for any reasons of selfinterest but for humanity as a whole and, as the speeches at lunchtime today indicated, for our opportunity to make a contribution to South East Asia, to the South Pacific and to the world at large. [More…]

• When we come to deal with people whom we know as the boat people who come to Australia, they would not have visas on arrival. [More…]

• In Thailand we saw a different group of refugeesmany thousands on the Kampuchean bordersome of whom have been in camps for three or four years and all of whom were refugees by land as distinct from the boat people. [More…]

• We saw many thousands of boat people in Hong Kong and their circumstances could only be deplored and their courage admired. [More…]

• The second is the personal plight and the community reaction to the last of our Australian migrants, the Indo-Chinese refugees and in particular the boat people. [More…]

• The very real problems that have arisen in this country, the resentment, the unfortunate effortscertainly by a minority of people- as a reaction to the arrival of the Indo-Chinese refugees and the boat people is something which I believe community education can assist to overcome. [More…]

• Did the Minister, during the Liberal Party Conference held in Perth in April 1 979, state that he did not consider the boat people’ to be illegal immigrants; if so: [More…]

• does the Minister expect that increased numbers of boat people will attempt to make the journey as a result of his statement. [More…]