Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. I refer to Australia's one-off additional intake of 12,000 people displaced by the Syrian crisis. Can the Acting Prime Minister advise how long it is intended that this resettlement should take? Is it the intention that the government will resettle these people before June 2016?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again I thank the honourable member for her question. The government's decision to take 12,000 refugees from this crisis area is a humanitarian gesture that we have been able to make. It is one that we believe reflects the will of Australian people to again do what we can to provide safe haven for those who have little or no hope of ever returning to their country and living with any kind of reasonable lifestyle. We have said that we want to bring those people to Australia as soon as possible. We will be dispatching a team of Australian officials to assist the UNHCR to identify people who are suitable for transfer to Australia. We will be doing that quickly, and we would like to see these people come to Australia just as quickly as we can.

I have to acknowledge that it will take time to undertake this processing. We need to ensure that, firstly, these are people that the UNHCR have recognised are indeed genuine refugees. We have to do the security checks that are associated with these kinds of arrangements and then make a suitable arrangement to bring them to Australia. We will commence this process just as quickly as we can. Twelve thousand is a large intake, and so clearly it is going to take some time, but our objective is to do it as quickly as possible.