Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Casey for raising this particular issue. This is an important issue in my electorate, the electorate of the member for Isaacs and in your electorate—and I also know that you are a very strong and enthusiastic advocate for this particular group of people. Just to provide you with some supplementary information on Australian government assistance with respect to that area, in early June alleged Burmese army and State Peace and Development Council sponsored attacks by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army on the Karen National Union resulted in large movements of Karen people across the Thai-Burmese border. Current estimates by the Royal Thai Army and NGOs place the number of arrivals in Thailand, mostly women and children, at between 3,000 and 6,500 people, with more expected.

We strongly urge the Burmese regime to resolve these enduring ethnic conflicts peacefully as a crucial aspect of national reconciliation. The Australian government is providing assistance through both humanitarian aid and resettlement places. I will just touch on the humanitarian aid component of that. Australia will continue and increase its longstanding humanitarian assistance to refugees on the Thai-Burmese border. On 16 June Minister Smith announced that Australia will provide $1 million to improve conditions for refugees living in the camps on the Thai-Burmese border. Australian assistance will be provided through the Thai Burma Border Consortium, which provides food and shelter to displaced people living in the camps, which includes a large number of the Karen people. The $1 million is an increase from the $700,000 provided in 2007-08. These camps represent one of the world’s longest-running humanitarian crises. There are currently 140,000 people in the camps, many of whom have been there for more than two decades—and that is an absolute disgrace. They are unlikely to be able to return across the border to Burma in the near future. This is a human catastrophe; make no mistake about that.

Australia has provided over $6 million to the consortium since 2003—and that includes under the previous Howard government, and I acknowledge that—through Act for Peace, the international aid agency of the National Council of Churches in Australia. This assistance to the consortium is in addition to the support Australia has provided this year to improve the living conditions of the Rohingya people living in Burma and in the camps on the Burmese-Bangladeshi border. The Thai Burma Border Consortium is a consortium of 11 non-government organisations from nine countries and is registered as a charitable company in the UK. The TBBC has been working in Thailand to provide food, shelter, non-food items and capacity-building support to refugees from Burma since 1984. Members include Caritas Switzerland, Christian Aid, Church World Service, Diakonia, DanChurchAid, ICCO Netherlands, International Rescue Committee, the National Council of Churches in Australia, Norwegian Church Aid and the ZOA Refugee Care Netherlands. The TBBC has a head office in Bangkok and four field officers on the Thai-Burma border.

The TBBC provides food and shelter for about 140,000 refugees from Burma in nine camps along the western Thai border, under agreement with the Thai ministry of the interior. The TBBC had a budget of approximately $35 million for 2008 and receives funding from 14 governments, plus the EC. Australia’s assistance to the consortium is in addition to the $8 million Australia has already provided this year to improve the living conditions of the Rohingya people living in Burma and in the camps on the Burma-Bangladesh border. This support is aimed at improving living conditions and economic opportunities; focusing on the provision of food assistance, basic livelihoods and health care; and providing access to credit, saving and income generation schemes. It will be delivered by the World Food Program, $1 million; Care Australia, $1 million; the United Nations Development Program, $1.2 million; and the UNHCR, $2.5 million. A further $2.4 million was provided by DIAC for the support of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh and South-East Asia.

It is important to note that currently Australian sanctions against Burma include travel restrictions on senior figures and associates of the Burmese regime, restrictions on arms sales and targeted financial sanctions against members of the Burmese regime and their associates and supporters.

The second channel through which the Australian government is able to provide assistance to people such as the Karen people is through humanitarian resettlement places. The 2009-10 budget confirmed the size of the Humanitarian Program in response to the global need for resettlement places. Australia will welcome 30,750 people under its Humanitarian Program in 2009-10, an increase of 250 places on the 2008-09 planning levels. There will be an increase of 750 places in the Special Humanitarian Program to 775 places and the refugee component will be set at 6,000.

With the challenges of displacement increasing worldwide, it is more important than ever that Australia steps up to the mark in sharing international responsibility for refugee protection. Burma, and, more broadly, Asia, continues to be one of the main areas of resettlement focus for the Australian refugees program. The treatment of these people by the Burmese government is reprehensible. I would certainly like to thank the member for Casey for raising this very important issue. As I said, he has a large constituency, which he represents very well. I congratulate him, on behalf of those constituents, for bringing to the attention of this place the continuing human rights abuses that occur in Burma. I hope that I have given a full answer to the questions you raised.

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