Australia is a “bludger” in terms of the assistance it offers refugees, according to World Vision Australia chief advocate Tim Costello.
Speaking as World Refugee Day is marked across the globe, Mr Costelllo said that while Australia postured as a good international citizen, “the reality is that we are bludgers compared to what we could be doing as a wealthy nation” when it comes to assisting the more than 65 million people across the globe who have been displaced from their homes – a figure which includes 22.5 million refugees.
In a statement, Mr Costello pointed out that Australia was ranked 59th in the world for the number of refugees hosted as a proportion of population with 90 per cent of the world’s refugees hosted by developing countries that border conflict zones or fragile states, including Turkey, Uganda, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan. He also noted that Australia is now ranked 17th out of the 29 OECD countries in terms of the amount of foreign aid it provides following a series of cuts to the nation’s foreign aid budget.
“We need to do a lot better if we want to earn our claim of being generous,” he said. “In a world in which one in every 113 people has been displaced – 24 people every minute – Australia can help by increasing our level of aid and we can also welcome more refugees who are fleeing persecution and conflict and give them the chance to rebuild their lives.”
World Vision has called on the Australian Government to lift Australia’s annual humanitarian intake from 16,250 (currently boosted to 27,600 with a special intake of Syrian and Iraqi refugees) to 42,000. The organisation is also calling for an end to offshore detention and the resettlement of people found to be refugees who are now in offshore detention in Australia.
The latest UNHCR Global Trends report, released this week, shows that while the number of people displaced from their homes around the world had remained relatively static over the past year with 65.6 million people forcibly displaced worldwide at the end of 2016 – a figure just 300,000 more than a year earlier, the number of refugees within that figure has risen to 22.5 million – the highest number the world has seen.
The report also showed that some 40.3 million people were displaced inside their own country – down from 40.8 million a year earlier – while some 2.8 million people were seeking asylum.
This article has been re-edited for clarity on refugee figures.
