Fergus and Wesley, two backpackers from Northern Ireland, are on the run in Australia from "people hunters", immigration officers whose job it is to find and deport them for overstaying their visas. Fergus is nearly caught but he escapes by running onto Bondi beach in his underpants and hiding among bathers in the sea.
This is one of the episodes in a comic film called The Craic, starring Jimeoin McKeown and Alan McKee, which is currently a big hit Down Under. The pair are also on the run from the SAS, RUC and paramilitaries, but never mind that.
The real villains of the film are the immigration officers, something which touches a sympathetic chord with many Australians, whose own background may be equally unorthodox.
The Craic highlights the fact that Australia today is a final destination for many people around the world seeking political asylum or a better life. For English-speaking Europeans, such as Fergus and Wesley, it is relatively easy to get in; thousands of British and Irish simply overstay their visas each year. The highest single number of illegal immigrants are British.
But Australia is also experiencing a sharp rise in the number of people trying to enter the country by sea. More boat people have come this year than at any time since the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s. Last year only 300 boat people arrived; this year, the figure is already more than 1,800.
The Australian government is alarmed. This month the Immigration Minister, Mr Philip Ruddock, visited the coastal province of Fujian in China, to try to persuade officials to crack down on people-traffickers who use sophisticated methods like satellite navigation systems. His visit was prompted after 100 people from Fujian came by boat in July. Last week 62 more boat people from China landed in Australia.
However, most of those now arriving by sea come from the Middle East. Take the first week of this month: On November 1st, an Indonesian ship arrived carrying 299 Iraqis, 46 Afghans, four Iranians, two Algerians and a Palestinian. On November 5th, 63 Afghans and 12 Iraqis landed. Two days later 82 people from the Middle East came ashore, followed the next day by 25 Afghans.
It is a risky journey across shark-infested seas. Earlier this year 14 Sri Lankans and seven Afghans drowned. Yesterday Mr Ruddock said that a boat containing would-be immigrants may have sunk near Christmas Island because of bad weather.
At least three syndicates involving Indonesian police, immigration and local government officials are selling Middle Eastern asylum seekers package deals into Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reported last week. It said that the £9,000 deals include hotel accommodation and a place on fishing or freight boats to Australia's northern coast. According to an Australian immigration official in Jakarta, about 2,000 people, mainly from Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, are waiting to depart for Australia. Mr Ruddock said 10,000 more are "packing up" to make the journey.
One Iraqi refugee told a typical story of selling everything he owned in Iran after being told he would have to return to Iraq (and certain death), and of flying with his wife and two children to Kuala Lumpur and then Jakarta, and paying $6,000 to an Indonesian smuggler for the journey to Australia on a wooden fishing boat. Like most Middle Eastern arrivals, they were given permanent residency as political refugees.
Australian newspapers have carried stories about so-called "designer" immigrants, well dressed and with plenty of cash, such as the 25 Afghans found in the bush carrying leather suitcases. Last week the daily Australian reported new arrivals under the headline: "Tide of Illegal Immigrants Washes Over Australia." According to law lecturer Mary Cook, author of Immigration and Refugee Law in Australia, writing in the same news paper, the press and the government are panicking, and the total of 8,257 asylum seekers in 1998-1999 is actually small compared to 51,795 in the UK and 98,644 in Germany. As a signatory to human rights conventions Australia must not return people to their country of origin if they have a "well-founded" fear of persecution on return, she said.
The Australian Liberal-National government is however planning new restrictions: it hopes to replace permanent residency with a three-year temporary permit, to allow the navy to board vessels in international waters, and to refuse asylum to immigrants who have passed through a third country. It cites the cost of £250,000 a day to process, house and sometimes repatriate immigrants.
Over 51,000 people currently in Australia have overstayed their visas, a far greater number than boat people. The Transport Workers' Union has called for the slashing of the visa scheme, whereby working holidays are granted for 12 months to tourists aged 18-25, because of alleged "job-stealing".
Given the present anti-immigrant climate, people like Fergus and Wesley may find it even harder in future to escape the people hunters.