18th February, 2016
The Refugee Council of Australia has called on the Federal Government to act with more urgency in resettling 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq.
The call follows news that while Canada has reportedly resettled more than 20,000 refugees in less than half the time it’s taken Australia to resettle just 26 while, according to the council, New Zealand has already settled 82 of the 200 Syrian refugees it pledged to resettle by the end of June.
Paul Power, CEO of the council, said the government was "dragging its feet" while the rest of the world was acting much more quickly to resettle Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
He added that some of the non-government organisations engaged as contractors for post-arrival services for refugees had been "left in the lurch" after hiring staff, securing housing and organising other assistance in the expectation that the refugees would have arrived in large numbers some months ago.
Mr Power said there was no shortage of "appropriate applications". "It is a shame for all concerned that the Australian resettlement program is so bogged down in bureaucratic delays, when the governments of Canada and New Zealand have proven that it is possible to move much more swiftly."
– DAVID ADAMS
