Immigration
Chris Evans served as Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in Rudd Government. The Rudd Government maintained Australia's bi-partisan policy in support of a large, multi-ethnic annual intake of immigrants. Kevin Rudd said that he believed in a "Big Australia" and projected a population of 35-6 million by 2050.
The Rudd Government moved in its early months to dismantle several components of the Howard Government's approach to unauthorised arrival immigration policy - it abandoned offshore processing of asylum seekers and temporary protection visa arrangements, which the Coalition said had halted the trade in people smuggling from Indonesia to Australia, but which the Labor Party said were ineffective and inhumane. The issue of asylum seeker policy remained controversial through the term of the Rudd Government. The number of asylum seeker boat arrivals increased throughout the period and the handling of the issue was identified by supporters of Julia Gillard's challenge to Kevin Rudd as a motivating factor in his replacement.
Read more about this topic: Rudd Government
Famous quotes containing the word immigration:
“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)