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More than three-quarters of Australian voters support the granting of permanent protection to refugees who are currently living in Australia on temporary protection visas – an election promise the government has recommitted to as recently as this month, but has not yet enacted.
New polling data from the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW shows 75.2% of voters polled agreed with ending temporary protection for refugees in Australia, including 72% of Coalition voters.
Nearly 20,000 people are living in Australia on temporary protection visas or safe haven enterprise visas, which require refugees to redemonstrate every three or five years that they still suffer from a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country.
Those visas are highly restrictive, preventing family reunion, limiting people’s right to travel – for example, to see family in a third country – and can also carry restrictions around employment and where people live.
The survey on Australian attitudes to TPVs was conducted by associate professor Daniel Ghezelbash, deputy director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, Macquarie University’s Dr Robert Ross, and Behavioural Insights Team leaders Saul Wodak and Ravi Dutta-Powell.
The survey was designed to test the efficacy of different messaging on refugee policy, involving 1,500 respondents in May and June of 2022, representative of the Australian voting public across age, gender and state.
Researchers provided respondents online with basic information on TPVs and asked the question:
Do you support a pathway for these refugees who are already in Australia on temporary protection visas to permanently settle here?
Respondents then rated their support for the proposal on a scale from 0-6 (0 = strongly oppose, while 6 = strongly support).
Some respondents received only basic facts about TPVs, others received facts with additional “values framing”, wording that highlighted various particular ethical or moral contexts about the refugees’ situation.
Support for ending TPVs was very high across all groups participating in the study, regardless of which information they received. The figure of 75.2% total support is across all groups. In the group that received only basic information – that is, no “value framing” – the level of support was 74%.
And the level of support for granting refugees permanent protection was high across respondent groups. Support was strongest among self-identified Greens voters with 85% in favour, while 79% of Labor voters, 71% of independent voters, 70% of Coalition voters, 65% of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party voters and 46% of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation voters were also in favour.
In those who received additional value framing, the study found further increase in support, an increase that was statistically significant but small.
This framing included language such as “refugees on temporary protection are fleeing powerful oppressive states” or “policy change will not compromise the integrity of Australia’s borders”.
Ghezelbash said:
These results show that Australians understand that it’s unnecessary and expensive to continue the temporary protection system, which prevents refugees from being able to feel secure.
There’s no convincing public policy argument for continuing this harm and incurring these costs. People can see that.