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Refugee Update
Sep. 16th, 2014 11:07 amCatch-up time (and how).
Australia's current annual humanitarian intake is 13,750 people, reduced this year from 20,000. That includes both onshore applications (people who arrive by boat without visas or by plane with visas) and offshore applications (asylum seekers and other humanitarian applicants). 4,000 places out of this number have been set aside for Christians and Yazidis fleeing Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten suggested raising Australia's annual humanitarian intake to assist refugees from Iraq and Syria. Liberal Backbencher Wyatt Roy has also proposed a doubling of our annual intake. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has rejected this on grounds of cost and, inexplicably, the backlog of asylum seekers in detention. (IMHO this makes it clear that "stopping the boats" is not the government's goal, and "keeping refugees out" is.)
One Syrian and several Iraqis were returned quote voluntarily unquote from offshore detention in August. In July, the cash offered to those returning was increased. Under the current government these payments have totalled more than $3 million.
Australia's current annual humanitarian intake is 13,750 people, reduced this year from 20,000. That includes both onshore applications (people who arrive by boat without visas or by plane with visas) and offshore applications (asylum seekers and other humanitarian applicants). 4,000 places out of this number have been set aside for Christians and Yazidis fleeing Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten suggested raising Australia's annual humanitarian intake to assist refugees from Iraq and Syria. Liberal Backbencher Wyatt Roy has also proposed a doubling of our annual intake. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has rejected this on grounds of cost and, inexplicably, the backlog of asylum seekers in detention. (IMHO this makes it clear that "stopping the boats" is not the government's goal, and "keeping refugees out" is.)
One Syrian and several Iraqis were returned quote voluntarily unquote from offshore detention in August. In July, the cash offered to those returning was increased. Under the current government these payments have totalled more than $3 million.
