Do asylum seekers and refugees choose destination countries? Evidence from large‐scale surveys in Australia,Afghanistan, Bangladesh,Pakistan and Sri Lanka

Some literature depicts refugees as more passive than active when selecting a destination country. We draw on surveys of over 35,000 people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia, to show that most potential asylum seekers and refugees of Hazara, Rohingya, Muslim and Tamil backgrounds prefer some destination countries over others and that many refugees from these groups surveyed in Australia specifically had Australia in mind as a destination country. We show how Australia's asylum seeker policy was a key reason why many refugees chose Australia in 2011 and 2012 and that subsequent restrictive asylum seeker policy changes appear to be reflected in potential asylum seeker considerations in 2014. We find that despite the restrictive asylum seeker policy changes, perceptions of Australia as a highly functioning civil society, relative to other potential destination countries, may explain why Australia remains a country of choice for asylum seekers from west and south Asia.     

Simultaneous testing of regression disturbances for heteroscedasticity and non-normality

Drawing on the procedures developed for estimating stochastic frontier production functions, the objective of this paper is to derive a practical two-directional test for both heteroscedasticity and non-normality, when the structure of heteroscedastic-ity is not known to the researchers.     

Influence of Posttraumatic Growth on Mental Health and Well-being Across Respondents Severely Affected by War in Post-conflict Sri Lanka

Previous studies have shown that trauma and stressors are negatively correlated with mental health outcomes in post-conflict environments. This paper investigates if posttraumatic growth (positive psychological change due to traumatic experiences) can beneficially influence mental health and well-being in a post-conflict setting. In July 2012, a pilot survey of 150 people and a cross-sectional multistage cluster survey of 3,029 participants were undertaken in the four Sri Lankan districts most severely affected by war. The response rate was 81 % with a total of 2,460 interviewees including people who have experience living in internally displaced person (IDP) camps (n = 1,505) and people who have never lived in IDP camps (n = 955). Results show the impact of posttraumatic growth on mental health and well-being is higher among those people with experience living in IDP camps compared to people who have never lived in IDP camps. Results also show short-term displacement in IDP camps (1 year or less) is positively associated with greater well-being and mental health relative to people in post-conflict areas who have never been in IDP camps. Conversely, longer-term displacement in IDP camps (more than 1 year) is negatively associated with greater well-being and mental health relative to people in post-conflict areas who have never been in IDP camps.     

Ethnic Minorities and Social Justice in Australian Society

This paper will endeavour to comment briefly on the way in which the issue of social justice has been handled by Australian social policies relating to non-indigenous ethnic minorities in recent times, all of which have developed within a framework of multiculturalism. Hence, what are being considered are multicultural social policies — their goals and objectives as they have evolved over the past two decades. Part of this examination will also involve an exposition of the concept of social justice itself in relation to policy.     

THE POLITICAL FOUNDATIONS OF AUSTRALIA'S PLURALIST SOCIETY

This article examines the political foundations of Australia as a multicultural nation in the context of the republican debate and the prospect of constitutional reform. In establishing a constitutional basis for the pluralism inherent in Australian society as it has evolved over lime demographically and normatively, there are symbolic and functional considerations which need to be addressed. It is argued that the key to restructuring the political foundations lies in a postmodern concept of citizenship based on a rights-based society which gives formal recognition to differences within a liberal democratic framework.