Refugee Council of Australia: we want more refugees!
Posted by Ann Corcoran on February 23, 2010
Here is a report from the Sydney Morning Herald today (tomorrow for us in the US) where the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) is insisting that Australia take more refugees. Presently Australia takes around 11,000 but RCOA wants the numbers upped to 20,000.
This RCOA is a consortium of NGO’s that have a financial interest in resettling refugees probably very similar to our Refugee Council USA where all the non-profit quasi-government agencies get together on letterheads (trying to look more muscular) and press releases (like the one the Sydney Morning Herald is writing from) and produce reports advocating for more refugees to be brought to their respective countries—all to keep their member agencies in work.
Shock! Horrors! Australian refugee intake lowest in 35 years!
The number of asylum seekers that make up the nation’s migration intake has fallen to its lowest level in 35 years, prompting calls for Australia to take a greater role in refugee resettlement.
The Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) says Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program has dropped to 6.6 per cent of the nation’s total migration program despite a rise in the number of people seeking resettlement around the globe.
In its annual submission to the federal government, the Refugee Council calls for a five-year expansion of the offshore component of the Refugee and Humanitarian Program.
The council wants the refugee component boosted to 20,000 places per annum, beginning with 1000 additional resettlement places in 2010-11 for highly vulnerable refugees in Asia.
Just a reminder, the Obama Administration is aiming to resettle 80,000 refugees in the US during this year of the Great Recession.
For more on refugee problems in Australia, visit our Australia category with 47 posts on the joys of multiculturalism down under.
6 Responses to “Refugee Council of Australia: we want more refugees!”
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tamana said
will The Government of Australia help poor Afghans !!!! who are still living in Islamabad Pakistan? Thanks Tamana
NorskeDiv said
Hey Jayson, just so you’re aware, the people Australia is accepting aren’t refugees. These are not people who are at risk of persecution due to their religious beliefs or political orientation.
Some of them are of course. But Somalis and most of the rest are coming for economic reasons. Real refugees, like North Koreans, Egyptian Copts, Russian and Chinese Democracy Activists or religious minorities in Muslim countries are left to be killed. Real refugees are being oppressed by someone, so acknowledging that oppression would make international relationships a bit uncomfortable so our respective governments turn a blind eye and let them die. That’s how it was in 1930s with the Jews, no one wanted to accept Jewish refugees. Trade with Germany was so important, why endanger that for a piddling few thousand Jews? (of course the number of Jews trying to emigrate was much smaller than it would be had they been easily allowed to).
The US is no better of course. But modern refugee policy is a farce, why else the focus on RAW NUMBERS. The original idea behind these treaties was to prevent a second Holocaust. If we were serious, we’d identify groups that really are being systematically targeted and try to give that ENTIRE GROUP refugee status. Instead we let in 80,000 people from a grab bag of countries and pat ourselves on the back. If some of the refugees were really at risk of being killed for their beliefs, it’s accidental, not intentional.
Jayson said
As an Australian I certainly am not going to tell you that our refugee policy is perfect. However, Australia has been very committed to its international obligations for a number of decades.
Please do not overlook the fact that we are country still dealing with a history of racism and that this is something we need to address as a primary concern to our nation and to those who will settle here in the future.
Also, in a country of 300 million people (i.e. the USA) the expenditure given to 80,000 resettled refugees is incomparable to that dedicated to those 13,500 (check your data for 2008-2009) in Australia with its 22 million people. If overnight the Australian population reached 300 million and the refugee intake increased to that multiple, we’d be receiving over 200 thousand refugees.
Comment worth noting because we have to laugh sometimes « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] could be connected to Al-ShabaabMuslim immigration killing SwedenRefugee Resettlement Fact SheetsRefugee Council of Australia: we want more refugees!AboutAsylum seekers head for IsraelSomali Migration to Maine: it's the welfare magnet, stupidHow did [...]
ciccio said
You keep accusing the Muslim countries of not doing anything for their own, I can now prove you wrong. They do not wish to see their own persecuted and are more that willing to see them repatriated to their homeland when they are no longer welcome in their country of adoption. One would have thought that Australia would have learned about import of non-indigenous from past lessons but it seems politicians never learn.
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article21058.ece
acorcoran said
Thanks for the laugh! When I get a minute I’ll post it!