Posted On: 2011-08-11

migration to measure - australia

Is Australia\'s controversial immigration policy still elitist? To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeyma... Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod) Australia is a nation built on immigration. As a controversial refugee swap deal comes into force, this report looks at the country\'s tight controls and asks what life is like for newly naturalized Aussies. Pieter Tiesenhausen satisfies Australia\'s strict points-based immigration requirements comfortably. He is an anesthetist at a small hospital in Queensland, where specialists are in high demand. \"There are no entrenched hierarchies\", he claims. Yet a German doctor and his family were denied permanent residency recently because their youngest son suffers from Downs syndrome. In this much-criticised system integration also remains an issue, ever since young Anglo-Australians clashed with Lebanese immigrants in 2005\'s Cronulla riots. Few of the migrants in this report seem to see a conflict of interests in their dual identities, however. As Australian-Egyptian comedian, Amro Ali, says, \"I do my bit of integrating each morning by spreading vegemite on my Lebanese bread\".