There are occasional scares in the Australian media about the number of asylum seekers coming here by boat. I have just been reading an excellent publication which helps set this issue in a wider context.

Dr Khalid Koser, Director of the New Threats and Human Security Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, has written The Global Financial Crisis and International Migration: Policy Implications for Australia. It is available free of charge from the Lowy Institute for International Policy website:  (The Lowy Institute, based at Sydney, is an independent international policy think tank).

Dr Koser spoke to his report at a Lowy Institute luncheon on July 8 2009.

There are globally about 200 million migrants - almost the size of the Indonesian population (which is itself one of the world's most populous countries).

Migration is big business.

The migrants are often a source of developing countries providing help to the rich developed world. There are, for example, currently more Malawian doctors practising in Manchester, England than there are in Malawi. 2,000 nurses are "exported" from the Philippines every day. Developing countries then rely on their citizens sending money back - about 40 per cent of Jordan's GNP comes from Jordanians overseas sending money home to the relatives.

There are around 4 million international migrants in Australia, making it the world's 11th largest host country for migrants. Indeed some of Australia's wealth comes from these people.

Australia also does well from student migration: education is now the country's third biggest export industry (after coal and iron ore). The financial importance of the industry is an explanation for the high-level Australian delegation currently in India seeking to reassure people that Indian students are safe when they come to Australia.

As for the boat people that seem to make so many Australians so anxious, it seems that by world standards, the "flood" into Australia is merely a trickle. Australia is one of the few countries that can actually count precisely the number of arrivals - this is how small the number is by international standards. Australia gets a few hundred compared with the international total of about one million.

Most of this migration takes place between developing countries (and not between developed and developing countries). Only the United States in the entire western developed world seems to take the issue in its stride and so there is very little controversy over it.

It is also worth bearing in mind that 97 per cent of the world's population won't migrate in their lifetime.

Dr Koser also explained the distinction between people "smuggling" and people "trafficking". "Smuggling" is a more voluntary activity, where people pay to get moved. But "trafficking" tends to be more coercive eg tricking young women with offers of work overseas and then forcing them to work in foreign brothels.

Overall, the talk (now available as a podcast) and the free publication are both well worth obtaining from the Lowy Institute.

Keith Suter