A new ten-part series of the international current affairs programme. At the Sydney Olympics, Australia was proud to display its multicultural heritage. Now, one year later, its refusal to allow hundreds of Afghan boat people into the country is presenting a rather different image. As the world faces a mounting refugee crisis, Rosie Goldsmith talks to the people who make immigration policy in Australia and with people who have sought asylum in Australia over the past 50 years -from Afghans on the run to refugees from seventies Vietnam and postwar Eastern Europe. What's behind the changes in Australian refugee policy?

Australian immigration policy is reviewed in the light of the country's recent refusal to admit Afghan refugees

Crossing Continents 11.00am R4
The controversy over asylum seekers in Britain is often portrayed as a problem unique to this country, which is very far from the case. On the other side of the world Australia, as we briefly heard when boat people were barred from the country recently, is wrestling with similar troubles only a year after the Sydney Olympics presented an image of Australia as a multicultural haven. Tonight Rosie Goldsmith reports on the Villawood detention centre in Sydney, where conditions are alleged to be so bad that 40 asylum seekers recently tunnelled out. Goldsmith also meets Al Grassby, the "father of multiculturalism", the man who, as Australia's immigration minister in the 1970s, abolished the 'white Australia' policy.