Australia to accept additional 12,000 Syrian refugees and provide $44 million financial aid
The Coalition party room has agreed to accept 12,000 refugees from persecuted minorities and provide an extra $44 million in financial aid to help deal with the Syrian refugee crisis.
It is not clear whether the full increase will happen this year, or over a number of years.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott had been promising a “generous” boost in the number of refugees.
Today he will also formalise the Federal Government’s plan to allow RAAF jets to conduct air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.
The Federal Government has already flagged that the focus of its intake of Syrian refugees will be minorities that are largely Christian.
But soon after the party-room discussion this morning Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne was stressing the Government was not focused on singling out one religious group.
“Religion is not the issue here, the issue is persecuted ethnic and religious minorities,” he said.
“We have a colour-blind policy in terms of humanitarian support.”
Government backbencher Cory Bernardi has been advocating for a focus on helping Christians, arguing they are the least likely to be able to return to the areas they have fled from.
“The most vulnerable people in the Middle East are persecuted Christians, women, children and families,” Senator Bernardi said.
He said the party room discussion was about permanent settlement.
“We need to provide these people with a permanent abode.”
Previously, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg had suggested considering issuing temporary visas, along the lines of the assistance provided to the Kosovars under the Howard government in 1999.
Additional story
PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has confirmed Australia’s refugee intake will be increased by 12,000 permanent places to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Syria and Iraq.
“THIS is a very significant increase in Australia’s humanitarian intake and it’s a generous response to the current emergency,” he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
Australia will also provide $44 million to support 240,000 displaced people in countries neighbouring Syria and Iraq through the UN refugee agency and other groups.
Mr Abbott said the one-off increase would be on top of the existing annual humanitarian intake of 13,750 places that will increase to 18,750 in three years.The permanent resettlement places will go to those most in need – women, children and families from persecuted minorities.”The government will shortly despatch officials to the region to begin working with the UNHCR to identify potential candidates for resettlement,” he said.
The additional refugees will be subject to the usual security, health and character checks.Mr Abbott thanked state and territory leaders and community groups for their public support.”These offers will be accepted as this is a burden that must be shared by all governments and by the wider community,” the prime minister said.
He denied the government was sending the wrong message to Muslims by limiting the increased refugee intake to persecuted minorities.
“Our focus is on the persecuted minorities who have been displaced and are very unlikely ever to be able to go back to their original homes.“The government is not putting a timetable on taking the additional refugees.
“We want the 12,000 to come in as quickly as possible,” Mr Abbott said.
Topics: refugees, immigration, community-and-society, government-and-politics, federal-government, islam, christianity,unrest-conflict-and-war, abbott-tony, syrian-arab-republic, australia
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