Fawad Ahmed Should Have Been Rejected As A Refugee And Accepted As A Skilled Migrant

Cricket followers will be familiar with leg spinner Fawad Ahmed, who emigrated from Pakistan to Australia and has now played a few one day games for the national team after regularly representing Victoria in state competition.

Now there is some after the fact hand wringing as to whether his refugee claim may have received favourable treatment because of Cricket Australia’s intervention.

His claim for asylum had been in the system for some time. The Dept of Immigration documented their opinion that Ahmed’s refugee case was “borderline”. His claim for asylum was initially rejected by both the Immigration Department and Refugee Review Tribunal.

My point is that this really does matter, but should not have any bearing on whether we let him emigrate here.

Ahmed’s claim for asylum centres around being targeted by the Taliban and their allies for promoting Western values through playing and coaching cricket and being involved with a women’s welfare organisation. This may well be true.

However, even if it is, his remedy was simply to move to another part of Pakistan, say Karachi or Lahore, where as a first class standard cricketer, he would have had no problem socially or with his career. Thus, he is not a refugee in the sense he qualifies for asylum in Australia, or any other country. His application should have been rejected on that basis. The Refugee Review Tribunal were of the same view.

This doesn’t stop us letting him live in Australia.

It is necessary to reject his asylum appeal because he clearly could have escaped persecution by moving to any number of areas in his native Pakistan. The unedifying fiddling with the asylum process by Cricket Australia and others has harmed what little credibility it has.

What should have happened is that someone from the Dept of Immigration or the minister’s office should have contacted Cricket Australia and told them to resubmit Ahmed's application under the normal migration program. He could then have had his application fast tracked because he has skills the country wants. It doesn’t matter what they are. It’s up to us to decide what skills are desirable for migrants to have and which will allow their normal immigration applications to be expedited.

Fawad Ahmed has clearly received some bad advice. In that aspect, he’s hardly Robinson Crusoe. Had this matter been properly handled, as soon as Cricket Australia got wind of his case (which appears to have been early in the piece), he should have been told to resubmit an application under normal migration criteria. It could then have been shepherded through in the same manner as those of wealthy investors or skilled migrants, which the overwhelming majority of Australians are happy to accept, as long as they try to fit in. There’s ample evidence Fawad Ahmed has done exactly this since arriving here.