Sydney, Australia
A group of 40 Anglican Bishops have written to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, calling on him to lift Australia’s national refugee intake.
The call for an increase comes in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. The 40 bishops co-signed an open letter, dated 20th March, during the National Meeting of Bishops.
The letter calls on the government to provide an additional 20,000 additional places for Afghan refugees, in addition to Australia’s usual intake.
Archbishop Geoffrey Smith, Anglican Primate of Australia. PICTURE: Courtesy of the Anglican Church.
While the Morrison Liberal government previously announced it would provide more places for refugees, it has yet to increase Australia’s intake.
The bishops provided qualified praise to the government for helping refugees escape Afghanistan.
“It was heartening to hear the proactive approach you had taken, facilitating 32 evacuation flights and assisting over 4,000 people to escape from Afghanistan,” the letter said.
“We heard and appreciated your reiteration that the initial intake of 3,000 refugees from Afghanistan would be ‘a floor and not a ceiling’.”
However, the bishops expressed disappointment in the government’s follow up efforts. According to the letter, the Department of Home Affairs has received applications from more than 145,000 people in Afghanistan.
“The government’s announcement in January that more places would be provided for refugees has amounted to no additional refugee places and that there would only be 15,000 places allocated to people from Afghanistan within the existing refugee program,” the letter said.
“We feel that providing only 15,000 refugee places over four years from within the existing program is not an adequate response.”
The Anglican bishops’ letter was signed by the Archbishop of Adelaide and Primate, Geoffrey Smith, three other archbishops, the Bishop to the ADF, Grant Dibden, regional bishops, the National Aboriginal Bishop, Chris McLeod, and the Bishop for International Relations, Malcolm Richards.
Australian Government accepts New Zealand offer
The government signalled another change in asylum seeker policy on Thursday when it announced that it would accept an offer from New Zealand to take 150 refugees a year from Australia’s offshore detention program.
The offer was initially agreed to by the Gillard Labor government and the Key government in New Zealand in 2013, but had been left untouched by successive governments.
Despite the shift in policy, the government has yet to formally respond to the Anglican Bishops’ letter at the time of writing, and refugee advocates have expressed concern that asylum seekers will still be left in limbo.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees welcomed the announcement, but said that the arrangement will not apply to many other asylum seekers who are yet to be resettled after the crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine.
“With 112 refugees and asylum seekers today on Nauru, and some 1,100 others in Australia, the arrangement will not be sufficient to cover the needs of all,” said Adrian Edwards, a representative of the commissioner.
The letter is the latest in a long series of calls from Australia’s church leaders for the nation to take more refugees.On 7th February, two Anglican bishops locked themselves in a cage as part of a protest calling on governments to free refugees detained in the Park Hotel in Carlton, Victoria.
In June, 2021, an inter-denominational delegation assembled in Canberra to to meet with immigration minister Alex Hawke. The delegation included representatives from Uniting, Anglican, Catholic, Salvation Army, and other churches. Another delegation,which also included faith leaders, met with the minister in February this year.
