KEY POINTS:
With an election only weeks away, the Australian Government is fighting allegations that is playing to xenophobic voters by slamming the door shut on African refugees.
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has announced that no more Africans will be accepted under the nation's humanitarian programme until next July, swinging emphasis instead to other troubled regions.
Andrews infuriated refugee, human rights and church organisations by pointing to difficulties Africans faced in integrating into Australian society - and allegedly high rates of involvement in crime - as a key reason.
The freeze was announced after Andrews was questioned about the death of 18-year-old Sudanese refugee Liep Gony, who was fatally beaten in Melbourne amid reports of increasing violence by African gangs.
He said the fact that some groups did not seem to be adjusting into Australian life as quickly as hoped had been a factor in the decision, which followed an earlier reduction of the African intake from 70 per cent of the humanitarian total to 30 per cent.
The freeze has been seen by critics as a bid to use the race card in the impending election, echoing the Tampa crisis of 2001 when refugees plucked from a sinking boat by a Norwegian freighter were refused entry.
Prime Minister John Howard's use of special forces to herd the refugees aboard Navy ships and send them to detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea played on popular fears of an unending fleet of boatpeople crossing from Indonesia.
The crisis was seen as a turning point in Howard's flagging campaign, helping to consolidate conservative support behind the Government and at the same time blunt the xenophobic campaign of One Nation Party leader Pauline Hanson.
Andrews said Australia would now take more refugees from the Middle East and conflict-torn regions closer to home. "There are priority spots in other parts of the world, including people that have been displaced from Iraq. The second reason was a concern about the rate of settlement of some people in Australia, which didn't seem to be according to the rate that we would expect for other migrant groups."
Andrews said he had a responsibility to ensure that when people came to the country they were able to adequately settle - but that additional challenges had been detected among recent arrivals from Africa.
He said the decision had been made after confidential advice to the Cabinet, and rejected Victorian Chief Police Commissioner Christine Nixon's assessment that Africans committed less than 1 per cent of crime inher state.
Howard denied the freeze on African refugees had been influenced by racism. The refugee programme had now been rebalanced in favour of the Middle East and Southeast Asia: "It's not in any way racially biased."
But Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes and Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma said Australia needed to continue a policy that gave priority to the worsening plight of refugees and provided a safe haven for those fleeing persecution. "Of course people fleeing war-torn countries or cruel regimes may well have special settlement needs, but this is not a reason to reject them," they said.
The Rev David Pargeter, director of the Uniting Church's Commission for Mission in Victoria and Tasmania, said the decision, made on the eve of an election, "reached deeply into the darkness of racial politics".
Phil Glendenning, director of the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, said the fundamental tenets of a civilised nation should not be abandoned because an election was near.
And Australian National University political analyst Norman Abjorensen told Reuters: "I think the effect of Pauline Hanson and One Nation is stillvery much being felt".
