Australia to increase refugee intake but only for 'persecuted minorities'

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday said that he would increase the number of refugees allowed into the country and also announced that Australia would join US-led airstrikes on the Islamic State group in Syria.

Abbott said it was obvious that many Syrians would never be able to return to their homes as he announced Australia would take an additional 12,000 refugees from the Syria-Iraq conflict.

"This is an important and generous act by Australia," he told parliament of the one-off measure he said would begin as soon as possible. 

"I stress that we are taking people who are persecuted minorities. We are determined to prioritise women, children and families on the borders of Syria in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan."

However, the comments have stirred controversy in Australia with a key minister yesterday saying that his country was looking to largely take in Christians. 

Abbot also announced that his government will pay to support more than 240,000 displaced people in countries neighbouring Syria and Iraq, funding food, water, healthcare and other supplies, at an expected cost of Aus$44 mn (US$31mn).

Abbott's traditionally hardline stance against asylum-seekers has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, with both the opposition Labor and Green parties calling on the government to do more and mass protests taking place over the weekend urging his government to act. 

"All of us were shocked as a nation at the disaster that we saw on our television screens," said Abbott, whose own Liberal Party members had called on him to take more refugees after the image of drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi resonated around the world.

"And all of us as a nation wanted to help."

The prime minister said both the humanitarian response and the stepping up of military measures against the Islamic State group into Syria were in the national interest.

We are acting "with our head as well as with our heart" to help the thousands of migrants fleeing the conflict, he said. 

Australia, which is already part of the coalition fighting IS in Iraq, said the legal basis for extending air operations into Syria was the collective self-defence of Iraq as the group did not respect state borders.

"Destroying this death cult is essential, not just to ending the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East but also to ending the threat to Australia and the wider world," Abbott said.

He added that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “evil though it is,” will not be included as a target, as the campaign will solely focus on IS.

The people have spoken

Rights groups welcomed the increase in refugee numbers - which comes just days after Abbott said the cap on humanitarian visas would not be lifted from the annual rate of 13,750 - but again called on the government to soften its migration rules.

Sister Brigid Arthur, acting chair of the Australian Churches’ Refugee Taskforce, said that people had spoken up in the face of the Syrian crisis and the government had listened.

"I prayed that Australia would open its hearts and its doors to people facing the greatest need for protection," she said, calling on authorities to free other Syrians held in immigration detention.

Australia refuses to resettle refugees who try to come to the country by boat and has a policy of turning back asylum-seeker boats, detaining refugees in Pacific camps and denying them resettlement in Australia even if they are found to be refugees.

Amnesty International also welcomed the extra refugee places but noted that while only a few Syrians had made it to Australia so far, the majority had been left languishing in a detention centre in Papua New Guinea.

Opposition reaction

The Green and Labor parties also welcomed Abbot’s decision to increase the quota of refugee intake, but pushed for higher numbers to be accepted. 

“The Greens are calling for an immediate intake of 20,000 Syrian refugees, over and above the current humanitarian quota, and a boost of funding to the UNHCR. Tony Abbott can do these things today,” the Green Party senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“Unfortunately, Australia has not been leading the response to the Syrian crisis. While countries like Germany, Sweden and Austria have agreed to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees, until now Australia has been lagging behind. We are strong enough to offer people safety and we simply must do better.”

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said it was time for Australia “to show leadership, decency and compassion in response to this crisis”.

“We must do better than this. Labor’s policy is to increase Australia’s refugee intake to 27,000. I want to ensure this includes more refugees from Syria."

The country currently takes in just over 13,000 refugees a year, meaning that Shorten would like to see some 15,000 taken in.