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.