Australia should introduce a new Pacific Access visa for islanders who have been displaced by climate change as a way to ward off regional instability in the coming decades, a new has argued.
The paper, published on Wednesday by the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, says 80 per cent of displacement caused by national disasters and climate change occurred in the Asia-Pacific region between 2008 and 2018.
It argues that the Australian government should start planning now for an influx of Pacific Islanders who will find themselves displaced by natural disasters, exacerbated by climate change, over the course of the century.
"There is widespread recognition that planning for mobility is necessary so that people can move before disaster strikes," authors Jane McAdam and Jonathan Pryke write. "Smart migration policies can provide people with choices to take control of their own lives, rather than being displaced when disasters occur."
While existing humanitarian visa frameworks could be used to support climate refugees from the region to come to Australia, the paper argues for a more specific visa pathway.
"Australia should create a Pacific Access Category visa, with appropriate settlement support, for Pacific Island countries which do not have free movement arrangements with other states," it says.
The existing , which allows citizens of the Pacific and Timor Leste to work on Australian farms for nine months of the year, has already seen more than 20,000 people travel to Australia under the scheme.
Despite international border closures, amid fears of critical labour shortages in Australia's agricultural industry.
By comparison, New Zealand already has, for decades, facilitated a that allows residents of Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, and Fiji to apply to permanently migrate to the country. The visa allows the applicant, and their partner and dependent children, to live, work, and study in New Zealand indefinitely, if they are successful in a ballot.
The visa scheme allows 75 Kiribati citizens, 75 Tuvaluan citizens, 250 Tongan citizens and 250 Fijian citizens to migrate each year. Residents of the Cook Islands, Niue and Takelau are automatically considered citizens of New Zealand.
Meanwhile, the United States also has free movement agreements with Micronesia, Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which allows migrants to work and live in the US without a visa.
Director of the Lowy Institute's Pacific Islands Program, Mr Pryke, told SBS News the paper is urging Australia to "get on the same page" as other Asia-Pacific nations.
"We're not calling for anything radical ... we're really just advocating for schemes that are similar to what other major powers in the pacific have been doing for decades," he said.
"The numbers we are talking about would be just a drop in the bucket of Australia's net migration, even post the COVID-19 lockdown. They'd be in the thousands, not the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands."
He described a permanent migration pathway as the "next pillar" of Australia's agreements with the Pacific Islands, building upon the temporary and medium-term migration frameworks, including the new Pacific Labour Scheme and the Seasonal Workers Program, that already exist.
Under a permanent pathway, some conditions including an English language requirement and proof of ability to work would still be required, Mr Pryke envisioned.
"We can deal with it ahead of time, and we don't have to deal with it ahead of crisis," he said.
