‘Consider and accept’ South African farmers, says Peter Dutton

Peter Dutton tells his department to take claims from persecuted farmers, while revealing the number of applications approved.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has revealed the number of applications to stay approved from South Africa in the past decade. Picture: AAP

A fraction of South Africans seeking refuge in Australia have had their applications approved over the last decade, according to new departmental figures, as Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton instructs his department to accept claims from persecuted farmers.

The Australian can reveal just 41 of 350 applications from South Africans under the offshore humanitarian and refugee program have been accepted since 2008, with 213 people still waiting to hear if their requests have been successful as of May 22

In a letter to Liberal Party federal director Andrew Hirst, obtained by The Australian, Mr Dutton confirmed he had written to his department asking that it “accept and consider” applications from South Africa — including farmers and landowners — alongside those people from the Middle East, Asia and other African regions.

The revelation follows a controversial push from Liberal MPs for a special intake of up to 10,000 persecuted South Africans, which was described as a return to the White Australia policy by Greens leader Richard Di Natale.

In Mr Dutton’s letter, dated July 31 of this year, he said: “I have instructed my department to provide me with advice on the current and future applications and all applications from South Africans will be carefully considered on their merits.

“Decisions are made on all available information provided as part of an individual application and in accordance with the legislative criteria — including comprehensive character and security checks.”

The correspondence to Mr Hirst was written after a resolution was carried at the Liberal Party’s federal council in June calling on the government “to enable the South African minorities targeted by hate crimes to seek asylum in Australia”.

The Australian understands ex-WA Liberal state MP Murray Nixon wanted the motion to specify persecuted European minorities, or white farmers, to mirror a resolution carried at the WA state council’s meeting last year but was defeated.

West Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who has thrown his support behind a special humanitarian intake of persecuted South Africans, said each application should be decided on its merits.

“Certainly based on the farm attacks that we’ve heard about over the last two years I hope that these applications would be considered very seriously,” Mr Hastie said.

The plight of persecuted South Africans has been a focus of Mr Dutton’s for months, after he revealed he had asked his department to “look at ways in which we can provide some assistance”.

“If people are being persecuted — regardless of whether it’s because of religion or the colour of their skin or whatever — we need to provide assistance where we can,” he told 2GB radio in March.

“People make the point on occasion that we’re too generous, but I think in this circumstance we do have to look at the persecution that’s taking place. We have a huge South African expat community within Australia. They work hard, they integrate well into Australian society, they contribute and make us a better country and they’re the sorts of migrants that we want to bring into our country.”

About 60,000 South Africans have come to Australia through the skilled migration program over the past decade, while another 10,000 have come through the family visa system.

There were 91,000 applications under the humanitarian and refugee program in 2016-17 and just over 20,000 places available.