While the Federal Government continues to cast around for other Pacific nations and Cambodia to take in refugees held on Manus Island and Nauru, it has one ready solution right on its own doorstep. It is a place that has been calling out for help to counter its falling population and its prolonged economic crisis. It is an Australian territory and one that is already receiving Australia's financial support.
The locale with the dwindling population is Norfolk Island, positioned 1600km from the New South Wales coast. The former penal colony turned tourist haven has fallen on hard times. The island's population has shrunk from a peak of 2601 in 2001 to 1795 at last count. Meanwhile the island's economic dependence on tourism rendered it particularly vulnerable to the global financial crisis of 2007–8. It has yet to fully recover.
Australia has been financially propping up the Norfolk Island government to allow it to meet its debts. It provided $4.5 million in 2012 and $5.4 million in 2013–4 to ensure the island's sustainability. In exchange the Australian Government has negotiated a reform package with the self-governing island's Legislative Assembly to pull Norfolk Island out of its economic malaise.
The package, titled the Norfolk Island Road Map, took effect as the Territories Law Reform Act (2010). It recommends restructuring the island's economy away from dependence on the one industry of tourism by encouraging diversification. This is to be implemented by lowering barriers to immigration to Norfolk Island and selecting immigrants with skills in trades, agriculture, the professions, business, and management.
The Norfolk Government did its bit. Norfolk's then Minister for Immigration David Buffett set up a working party in 2012 to prepare a campaign 'to grow the island's population' through immigration. Target groups were to be sea-changers, self funded retirees, professionals, 'fly in and fly out workers' and business investors.
But just last month, Australia's Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Warren Truss told Federal Parliament that: 'It is clear that the problems facing Norfolk Island are getting worse, the financial position of the island is deteriorating and the population continues to decline.'
This is where the island's desperate need for a population boost and the Abbott Government's determination to place refugees anywhere other than the Australian mainland are a perfect fit.
The island has lost 25 per cent of its male population aged 25 to 50 since 2011 — a largely similar demographic to Australia's detained asylum seeker