Australia to keep strict immigration rules

Australia to keep strict immigration rules

CANBERRA (AP): The Australian government rejected suggestions
yesterday it should relax immigration laws and allow low-skilled
Indonesian workers temporary entry as shelter from Indonesia's
economic crisis.

Indonesian Ambassador to Australia Wiryono Sastrohandoyo
Thursday said Australia should consider allowing Indonesian
laborers to enter as guest workers as a way to ease the current
economic and social unrest there.

"Indonesia in the past... has accepted more than 60,000
expatriates and I think a lot of them were Australians," the
ambassador said on Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.

"Under the World Trade Organization, movement of laborers are
to be more and more liberal and we would like to expect that
Australia would also be opening up to our laborers."

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock yesterday rejected the
suggestion, saying it was against government policy to accept
low-skilled migrants, although there were arrangements for better
skilled temporary migrants.

"We have not been a country which has used guest workers. We
have been a country that has seen migration for permanent
residents," Ruddock told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio
yesterday.

Ruddock said there was a big difference between low-skilled
guest workers and Australian expatriates working in Indonesia.

"We send very highly skilled Australians (and) in the same
context, Australia does have temporary arrangements for
(Indonesian) people who fit the same sort of profile," he said.

The worst economic crisis in 30 years has triggered rioting in
several regions of Indonesia, as a collapsing currency sends
prices for food and other goods skyrocketing.