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Darrell Banks considers the positive impact Australia's boat people can make

While most people entering Australia arrive at one of the country's international airports, relaxed after a comfortable flight, for some the journey is far longer and involves dangers most of us can hardly imagine.

Take Hussain Bashardost, for example.

A member of the Hazara ethnic minority, often targeted and treated badly in their native Afghanistan, Hussain was just sixteen when his family decided that it was in the interests of his own safety to get him out of the country. He was driven to Kabul, the capital, where a family friend paid an organised gang $5,000 to get him to Australia.

Hussain was then flown to Jakarta in Indonesia. He was met at the airport by a man who took him to a tiny one-bedroom apartment, where he lived for the next ten months with eight other asylum seekers some Afghan, some Iranian - all waiting; waiting to hear that their boat was ready to leave. Four times he was driven in an overcrowded truck to the south coast of Java; four times he was squeezed into a fishing boat that really didn't look as if it would last three days at sea, let alone hold 400 people, and four times he ended up back in Jakarta after being caught by the local police. If he hadn't been so determined, Hussain could easily have given up and returned home.

Eventually, though, a boat managed to set sail and after 80 terrifying hours on heavy seas, they finally landed on Christmas Island, Australia's most northerly territory. He had survived in some of the most hazardous waters on Earth, but his ordeal was not yet over. Hussain was then kept in a government detention centre for another nine months before hinally being allowed to stay in the country he now calls home. So was it all worth it? 'Absolutely, Hussain tells me when I meet him in the office of his printing company that now employs six people and has an annual turnover of $500,000.

If I'd stayed in Afghanistan, none of this would've happened.

At best, my life would've been incredibly hard and I would've struggled to have even a basic standard of living. I'm not saying life here has been easy, but at least Australia has given me a chance and I hope your readers can see I'm now paying the country back."

In fact, Hussain is part of a global trend that has attracted the attention of researchers. A number of recent studies agree that immigrants - and in particular immigrants who have fled their own countries - are more likely to start their own businesses than locals, with these businesses then making considerable contributions to the national economies. Theories as to why this might be vary. One idea is that refugees are less worried about risk, as they have already risked everything on their journeys out of their own countries. Secondly, refugees are also often well connected, and may well have friends and families in countries all over the world. Thirdly, they may lack the necessary language skills or qualifications needed to succeed locally and so decide to set up on their own. Finally, they often possess excellent negotiating skills, which they have had to develop on their journeys here.

Such skill sets are often forgotten among all the political debate on the subject of immigration as, of course, is the fact that most refugees have risked their lives many times over to be where they are today. Maybe it's time to recognise it's not just individuals that mature and grow thanks to immigration.

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