John Howard won a third term in Nov. 2001, primarily as the result of his tough policy against illegal immigration.  
 
This policy has also brought him considerable criticism: refugees attempting to enter Australia?most of them from Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq and numbering about 5,000 annually?have been imprisoned in bleak detention camps and subjected to a lengthy immigration process. Asylum-seekers have staged riots and hunger strikes. Howard has also dealt with refugees through the ?Pacific solution,? which reroutes boat people from Australian shores to camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. In 2004, however, the government began easing its policies on immigration.

Guest