Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received the following letter from Senator Siewert:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The Abbott government's failure to commit to the intake of an additional 20,000 refugees from Syria, despite escalating conflict and all-time high levels of human displacement.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the four million people who are now fleeing the war in Syria, two million of whom are children. These are not people who are seeking a better life; these are people who are running for their life. If you look at the global context here, what you find is that we are at an unprecedented time in human history where the number of displaced people has reached almost 60 million. Now almost one in 100 people across the planet are either refugees, internally displaced or seeking asylum. And what we see in response to that here in Australia is that our humanitarian impact has been static, it has not changed, it has not responded to what is, in the words of many experts, a paradigm shift in terms of the global displacement of people.

And one of the biggest drivers of that global displacement is the war in Syria. We have four million people registered with the UNHCR who are fleeing for their lives—they are refugees—and that ignores the eight million people who are internally displaced in Syria. On the border of Syria we have Lebanon, which has a population of close to four million people, one million of whom are refugees, many fleeing from Syria. One cannot forget the tragic human stories such as the body of that young child dragged out of the water who has become the human face of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

How should Australia respond? What does a decent, welcoming, strong country do in response to an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe? Do we turn our backs, or do we respond with decency and compassion? The Greens say, 'Let us respond with decency and compassion.' That is why we have called for an immediate intake of 20,000 Syrian refugees over and above the existing humanitarian aid program. Twenty thousand refugees are only a drop in the ocean, as some have said and doing nothing in the global context—as others have said. But making a material difference to the lives of 20,000 people—that, in and of itself, should be enough.

But it is not just that increase in 20,000 refugees that the Greens have called for. We have also said that there has to be an immediate injection of funds to the UNHCR so that they can do their job of processing people and help them to seek refuge in other countries, given the circumstances in Syria. And yet what has been the response of this government? Not one additional place to that already committed. Not one additional refugee settled in Australia. The announcement from the Abbott government that it would increase its humanitarian program last year to 18,000 is set in stone. And in the face of this unfolding catastrophe they have not committed one additional place.

But worse than that: their response in the face of the Assad regime, which is the primary driver of what is happening in Syria, is, 'We will drop bombs from a distance on the people of Syria,' targeting IS and completely ignoring what the underlying driver of that conflict is—and that is the Assad regime. How on earth, when faced with the tragedy that the world is now confronting, can we have a country like Germany saying, 'We welcome you. We'll look after you. We'll provide you with protection.' and have an Australian government that says, 'We will bomb you. From a distance we will—like the coward that is this Prime Minister—drop bombs on you, and we will ignore the plight of those people who need our assistance—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President I rise on a point of order. I think Senator Di Natale should reflect on the language he has used to describe the Prime Minister. I would ask him to withdraw it.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I think that was a breach of the standing orders. It was a personal reflection and I will ask you to withdraw that, Senator Di Natale.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If Senator Bernardi takes offence at the statement that the Prime Minister is a coward then I will withdraw—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. Senator Di Natale, it is not about Senator Bernardi taking offence; it is an offence to the Senate. I simply ask you for an open withdrawal.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to withdraw, Mr Deputy President. The fact remains: we have a choice. It is bombs or it is refuge. We have a choice. This government is seeking the coward's way out. Strong people offer protection; cowards drop bombs from a distance.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would be remiss of me in making a contribution to this debate not to reflect on the history of the Greens movement and what I find the hypocritical nature of this motion before the Senate.

Let me remind the Senate and anyone listening that the Greens were responsible for the very policy agenda implemented by the previous Labor government which saw 50,000 people arrive in Australia illegally and which saw 1,000 or more people drowned at sea because that government did not have the courage and the wherewithal to say that what they were implementing was absolutely wrong. I find it a bit sanctimonious for Senator Di Natale to bring in these emotive arguments, and particularly to characterise this as some sort of humanitarian mission by using the terrible image of that young boy who was picked up from the beach after having drowned at sea.

The facts remain that that terrible image was not brought about by recent events in Syria or Iraq. That boy and his family had lived in Turkey for three years. The money for that boy's father to pay the people smugglers was sent from Canada. The father sent them on that boat so the father could get dental treatment. They were in no fear, they were in no persecution and they were in no danger in Turkey. It was a tragic circumstance, but it is a tragic circumstance that was brought about by very similar policy circumstances to what the Greens espoused when they were running the government with the Labor Party.

People were drowning at sea because of the incentives that were being provided by their cockamamie humanitarian ethos. It is much more humane for people to go through an orderly migration program, to be put in a place where they are safe and where they do not have to take such tempting things.

We know that what is happening in the Middle East is a tragedy. But as the Prime Minister said many moons ago, 'In Syria, there are no good guys. There are bad guys and bad guys.' He was mocked for that. The Greens and others would have you believe that the Assad regime, for all its faults, is somehow worse than what the world is confronting with ISIL, or Islamic State. The barbarism of Islamic State, which is on display for all to see and which is spreading across the Middle East—with far too little resistance, I have to say—needs to be confronted. If they are the enemy of the world then we need to destroy the enemy. That is the simple fact, because if you do not destroy them they will continue to come back again and again. And the Greens would have us destroy the Assad regime rather than destroy ISIL.

When it comes to those who are displaced in the Middle East I make this point: there are millions of them who have not been accepted into many of the Gulf nations, such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Bahrain. They have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees. I would also make the point that these are wealthy nations. In many cases, they are used to the influx of millions of people for the annual visit to Mecca, where millions of Muslims visit Saudi Arabia. They can be accommodated and dealt with accordingly. Why couldn't the same thing be done with those who are displaced in their own region? It is not simply up to the West or Australia to punch above their weight. It needs a global response, and that should start in the Middle East.

With respect to Australia, we already punch well above our weight on humanitarian refugee placements. Per capita, we outdo New Zealand, America, the UK and France, because we are very generous. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that we are going to do our best to allow 4,000 additional persecuted minorities placement and settlement in Australia with their families, with a focus on women and children. Where I go, people would welcome that. People would welcome those who are truly persecuted, who have been displaced and who have been persecuted for decades if not hundreds of years. The Christians in the Middle East are among the most persecuted people on earth. Wherever they go, they are not free to practise their religion. They are attacked, humiliated and mocked. If we can provide safe haven to them, then I say we should do it. And that is what the Prime Minister has said.

I also want to make the point that a lot of the criticism of the efforts that are going on internationally ignores the fact that perhaps the greatest trade going on now is in false Syrian passports. There are enormous records of Pakistani nationals ditching their identities and claiming to be Syrians in order to get refugee status. There is a myth growing up around this that, somehow, to highlight some of the issues with this is to deny there is a problem. Of course there is a problem, but you cannot just open your borders and allow any number of people to come through without serious checks and scrutiny. That has happened in other nations and it happened in Australia under a previous government. We need to be cautious. I urge European nations to be cautious and many of them are exerting some caution. Some of the Middle Eastern nations are also being cautious because they are concerned about the identities of some who are purporting to be refugees.

There is no doubt at all that this is an emotive topic, but, in many respects, much of this has been foretold by Middle Eastern experts for quite a few years. There was a great celebration about this Arab Spring and the opportunities it would open up in the Middle East, but there were some more cautious amongst us who said, 'If you're going to replace a particular form of government or a particular leader, you best be very careful about what you replace it with.' And we are seeing the dislocation. As bad as the Gaddafi regime was in Libya—I spent some time there and I can tell you it was absolutely appalling—what is going on in Libya today is even worse. The Assad regime continues to have a great many negatives attached to it, but, if you look at what is happening in Syria as a result of the intervention by the Islamic State and at what is happening in Iraq and various other places around the Middle East, it is a true tragedy.

Are we being forced to choose between bad and worse? There are no good guys in this argument, but to simply say we should allow another 20,000 people purporting to be Syrian or escaping the Syrian conflict into our country because it is the whim of the Greens party is, I think, absolute folly. We need to continue to have a measured humanitarian migration program in this country. The Australia people want to open their hearts and open the bounty we have in this country to those people who want to come through the appropriate channels. For all the emotion, the rhetoric and the victimhood statements that the Greens and others will want to make, we have to make sure that the facts actually match up with what is in our best interest and with what is actually going on around the rest of the world.

Australia needs to continue both to play a leading role in the battle against Islamic State—I have no doubt about that and no question in my heart—and our very generous humanitarian refugee intake program, which is specifically focused on those persecuted minorities who have no safe haven anywhere in the Middle East, rather than those who, perhaps, can find safe haven in any number of countries in the Middle East. At this stage, I do not believe there is any need for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people to be ditching their identification and trying to get into Europe for reasons of safety. Many of these people have been very safely ensconced, working and housed in places like Turkey for many years. This seems to me to be becoming an opportunistic cycle which is masking the true humanitarian need that is the responsibility of all Western nations. That is the challenge for us—to distinguish between those who are being opportunistic and those are truly in need. Australia will back those truly in need.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Isn't it ironic that some two years ago the Abbott government, when it was elected, reduced Australia's humanitarian intake of refugees by almost one-third. Our intake went down from 20,000 to 13,750, at a time when the UNHCR is reporting the highest figure on record of forcibly displaced people in the world—some 59.9 million. Over one-half of those are child refugees. With more than four million Syrians now having fled their country, the world is dealing with the worst refugee crisis since World War II. Of course it demands an urgent and compassionate response. Of course it demands that our country do its part over and above its annual humanitarian intake. Our intake, as I just highlighted, was already reduced by almost a third two years ago. We must play our part as a global citizen. Australia is a wealthy country, and we are better placed than many nations to make a strong and urgent contribution.

I note the contributions to this debate by those government senators who talk about saving lives at sea. It is a mantra we hear time and time again in this parliament. If the government is serious about saving lives at sea it must do more to resettle those in need, before they have no other choice than to make that perilous journey. That is the situation we are currently in. This is the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. We do not need an immigration minister to fly halfway around the world to have meetings in Geneva to work out what the Australian community already knows needs to happen.

Labor has made a call today for the government to implement an additional 10,000 humanitarian places for refugees displaced by the conflict in the Middle East, for those most in need, determined by the UNHCR, so that they can be settled here, brought to Australia—a safe haven. There have been similar calls from civil society. I noticed that Amnesty International has called for the resettlement of 20,000 Syrian refugees. Both the opposition and civil society are asking our government to do what any good global citizen would do, and that is to increase Australia's humanitarian intake, just like our European neighbours are doing, to help those most in need. It is vital for Australia to support as many Syrian refugees as we can, starting with the people considered most in need by the UNHCR, and on top of that to provide the UNHCR with the support it will need for its ongoing humanitarian relief efforts in response to the Syrian crisis. Labor has called on the government to immediately implement an extra $100 million in that vein.

Why do we do this? We do it because we have the capacity, because we have the ability and because our values tell us to do it. It is simply something we should be doing immediately. We do not need Minister Dutton to come back and tell us about something that we already know needs to happen. In fact, some state Liberal premiers even know that this needs to happen. I note that Will Hodgman, the premier of my home state, and the premier of New South Wales are trying to talk to their Liberal federal counterparts. Where is the government here? It sounds like it is completely alone in its position of not acting on this issue. It is deeply disappointing that Prime Minister Abbott would choose to merely reshuffle the refugee waiting list and displace other people who are in desperate need instead of showing genuine compassion and increasing our overall intake.

Our intake currently stands at 13,750. It is not enough in itself, let alone when you add the Syrian refugees who need settlement and need to come to our country. We have to increase our humanitarian intake, just like we did in 1999, when 4,000 Kosovars came to Australia in desperate need for a global citizen like Australia to act, and just like the 2,000 East Timorese did around the same time, when Australia then acted. That is what is needed again now. That is what Labor is calling for, just like Germany has done. In fact, Germany has been remarkable in its efforts, as have a number of other countries, such as the UK and, dare I say it, Lebanon, in the role it has played. Lebanon, a country one-ninth the size of Tasmania, with a population of some four million people, has taken in 1.2 million Syrian refugees—and here we are debating whether we should increase our humanitarian intake by 10,000 or maybe 20,000 or keep it as it is, at a mere 13,000. We can do way, way better than this.

Germany, another small country in terms of land and size compared with ours, is saying it will take up to 800,000 refugees. We are a rich, wealthy nation. I sincerely ask our Prime Minister to take the politics out of this. This is about head and heart, but both of those things mean that we should act bipartisanly, together, in ensuring that we bring these refugees from the Middle East, from Syria and Iraq, to our shores. I think that is what the Australian public wants, too. I think the Australian public would respect a compassionate government that is frank about its desire to support refugees, protect children from harm and abuse and stop people taking that perilous journey at sea. (Time expired)

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of this motion before us on our intake of refugees from Syria. As the world gathers, mourns and uses its collective strength to respond to what is an unfolding global crisis—a humanitarian catastrophe—it is important that Australia does not isolate itself from our global community. We know there are more refugees and people seeking protection and needing safety than there have been since World War II. And that is not, of course, just from Syria—although there are millions of people who have already had to flee their homes because of the Syrian crisis—but also includes people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Eritrea and many other African nations in particular.

There are more people in the world today who need protection, safety and a helping hand than we have seen since World War II. Australia has to step up, and that means we have to take more people. The Greens, along with civil society organisations, have suggested that at the very least we could take an extra 20,000 people as an emergency intake. It is a pretty small number; it is modest but it would be a meaningful action to show that Australia does at least care about what is going on in the rest of the world. Germany are taking 800,000 asylum seekers this year—that is one per cent of their population—Austria are taking thousands and the UK are now under pressure to increase their numbers. The reason why nations take courage and use their strength to protect people when they are in need is that the way a nation treats refugees is very instructive of how they would treat everybody else if they could get away with it. The reason why we need compassion in today's world is that we are living in a global community, we are incredibly interconnected and we have to take responsibility when our fellow human beings are in desperate need of help.

I travelled to the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan last year and I also went to the settlements and the camps in Lebanon. In Lebanon, one in four people is a Syrian refugee. One of the impacts on that very small country is that schools in Lebanon are now having to run three sessions a day in order to try to ensure that Syrian children, refugees who have had to flee across the border, do not totally miss out on getting an education. That country is struggling under the weight of these people all on its own, with very little help from the international community until now. The push is on and the opening of hearts around the world is happening. People are responding in some of the most wonderful ways—we have seen homes and spare rooms being opened up in places like Norway and Sweden, where people are saying that they have a spare room or that they have space in their house to take in somebody who is in need. Those citizens are demanding action from their political leaders.

Tony Abbott is kidding himself if he thinks that that type of community desire is not happening here in Australia as well—it is and the push is on. Australians want our nation to be a country that stands up when it matters, that helps people in need and does not turn its back when a child is crying out for help. Australians want Tony Abbott to do more. The Prime Minister's glib response in the last week to the rest of the world's grieving over the death of the young Syrian boy found on the shores of Turkey has been an international disgrace. He seems to be stuck like a robot in the mantra of 'stop the boats' and he has not caught up with the fact that we are talking about people—human beings, children—and you cannot just turn your back on them.

Australians want our nation to restore what has previously been a rich history of helping and of taking in asylum seekers and people fleeing for their lives and needing protection—just like we did in the Vietnam War when we took tens of thousands of people, just like we did with Tiananmen Square when we took tens of thousands of people and just like we did when we took people who were fleeing for their lives and caught up in the Kosovo conflict. Australia has done this before and we can do it again but it must mean taking more people, giving more financial assistance and, dare I say it, not dropping bombs on those people who have so far been left behind.

There has been a myth peddled through this parliament in the last 24 hours—Tony Abbott believes that Australia does more than any other country. I tell you what, I would like the Prime Minister to go to Germany and tell Angela Merkel that we do more than her country. It is laughable and it is a sick joke for Tony Abbott to tell us here in Australia to not worry because we are doing more than anybody else—everybody knows that is not the case. Australia has been shutting the door to people in need for far too long and it is time we reopened the door and opened our hearts and acted with decency.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with a great sense of sadness that I stand here today to talk about what is obviously an international situation of quite significant humanitarian impact. One of the things that you always have to do when you are a responsible government of any country is take a responsible and considered approach when you are dealing with these sorts of issues—particularly international issues and ones of the kind of magnitude which we find ourselves being confronted with today.

With in excess of four million Syrian refugees displaced from their country of birth, there is no doubt that this is a significant international issue

But we also need to be very mindful that we are dealing with not just these refugees but also the crisis that is unfolding within the countries of Syria and Iraq themselves. It was a little disappointing to listen to the emotional speech by Senator Hanson-Young that I have just been subjected to. I think it would have seemed a little more genuine perhaps if she had not used it to score political points against the Prime Minister, who I believe is taking a very considered and responsible approach to dealing with this issue that has escalated extraordinarily over the last few weeks.

The government has said today, as it has been saying over previous days, that it will take a considered approach to increasing the level of funding in humanitarian assistance. As we speak, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Dutton, is overseas having discussions with the UNHCR and other agencies in relation to what the best response from Australia would be to assist the international community and others involved in this issue to try and deliver the best possible outcome for those people who find themselves in this extraordinarily unfortunate position. I believe it is difficult for any of us to understand how terrible it would be to find yourself in a situation where you had to flee your country out of fear for your safety, for the safety of your family and for your lives.

The government has been very clear that it believes that the unfolding crisis in the Mediterranean requires a further international response. We as a country were inundated by over 50,000 irregular maritime arrivals over the previous government's reign and we saw the consequences of that number of people arriving in our country, so we can understand that the number of people turning up in Europe are causing a major crisis for those countries.

We already have a significant resettlement program for Syrian refugees. The government has already set aside 2,200 of the 11,000 places, in the offshore component of the current humanitarian program, for the resettlement of Syrian refugees who have fled to their neighbouring countries, and a further 2,200 places were set aside for Iraqis. Nearly 40 per cent of the places available in the offshore component of last year's humanitarian program and 30 per cent of the overall program were set aside for Iraqi and Syrian refugees, so there is no doubt that Australia takes and will continue to take very, very seriously its responsibilities in relation to this issue.

Another thing that we have been very clear about is that vulnerable women and their dependants be able to benefit from the women at risk visa program by making sure they get priority when considering the assistance that Australia is going to offer.

Finally, it is worth noting that, since 2011, the Australian government has provided $155 million for humanitarian assistance in response to the Syrian crisis. Around half of that assistance has been delivered inside Syria, with the remainder being provided to neighbouring countries to assist the refugees and their host communities in their efforts to assist these displaced people. Things like water, food, health care, education, emergency supplies et cetera have been provided. I think a considered and responsible approach to dealing with this crisis is what is needed now.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week, the whole world has been party to a Syrian family's grief. Their anguish is painfully personal. Their tragedy, unfortunately, is not. It is shared not only by the parents of the countless children who have died while they were trying to reach safety but by the parents of the estimated 12,000 children who have been killed in Syria in the fighting that has claimed their schools and their homes and that ultimately claimed their lives. The numbers are so big as to be unimaginable—over 220,000 people dead and more than 11 million people displaced inside and outside of Syria's borders. These figures tell us what anyone with a heart knows: the fighting in Syria is more than a security issue; it is a global humanitarian crisis.

Weeks ago, the member for Sydney pointed out that this was the case and suggested that this humanitarian crisis required humanitarian assistance. In response, the Minister for Foreign Affairs joked about picnic hampers for terrorists. Well, last week's harrowing images changed that conversation. There is no room today for glib remarks about the suffering of millions.

It is difficult to look at the crowds of desperate faces on the beaches in Turkey or at the train stations in Hungary and not want to do something. Labor believes there is a place for action not only by countries that Syrian refugees can reach but by countries who can reach Syrian refugees. We as Australians can do more. That is why we want to give places to 10,000 Syrian refugees above and beyond our ordinary humanitarian allocation. Today, we called on the Prime Minister to convene a bipartisan emergency meeting between state premiers, community leaders, the government and the opposition to work out how we can accommodate these people who need our help.

The families who have reached Europe are the most visible faces of Syria's humanitarian crisis, but there are more than four million refugees hosted by five countries that border Syria. In Lebanon, one in every five people is a Syrian refugee. It is unfair and unrealistic to expect these countries to shoulder this responsibility alone. That is why we call on the government to commit $100 million to humanitarian efforts in the region. This would buy rehabilitated schools for over 950,000 schoolkids, as well as food assistance for over 100,000 affected Syrian people. It would buy essential immunisations for over 1.4 million children under five and housing solutions for over 20,000 families as well as provide safe spaces and quality care to 50,000 women and girls.

Across Europe, people have opened their hearts and their homes, from the Pope calling for every parish to host a family to the Finnish Prime Minister offering to host refugees in his family home. Even as the newsreels show us the worst of human nature in Syria, the stories of German authorities overwhelmed by donations of food and blankets show us at our best.

I have spoken to so many people and organisations here in Australia who are motivated by the same sense of generosity and compassion. I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of them. We are lucky to have a network of people who work hard to make sure that the refugees are not merely admitted into our country but are made to feel a part of our community. That is the Australia I recognise and the Australia we recognise in ourselves.

There have been too many people in this debate who have wanted to talk only to our darker sides and stoke our fears. This week proved them wrong. People across Australia have hugged their children a little tighter and said that we are a country that wants to help. Labor calls on the government to let Australia do just that.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having won life's lottery, most Australians understand we have a responsibility to share some of the spoils. When we share our luck with refugees, we profoundly improve the lives of people and their children for generations. It is an unambiguously great thing to do. I consider helping to negotiate an increase in our refugee intake from 13,750 this year to 18,750 in 2018-19 as one of my proudest achievements.

Now, by some measures, we lead the world in resettlement of refugees. But there are currently millions of refugees seeking asylum around the world, not just in the Middle East. There are plenty from our region—like Burma, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and China—who we could make into great Australians. It is well known as well that the religious minorities in the Middle-East—Yazidis and Christians in particular—face severe persecution. There is a broad consensus in this place that our refugee intake should continue. The only question then is: how many refugees should we take and at what cost? The problem is that taking refugees is expensive.

I am advised by the Immigration Department that the current refugee intake costs us about $1 billion a year, including language and training courses, social services and welfare. The Australian Government does not have surplus money for charity. Just as a family that is deeply in debt should not be giving their money away, neither should a government. What's more, there are storm clouds on the economic horizon. If the economy heads south, as it just might, an overly generous refugee intake could cause resentment. It can be too easy for middle-class parliamentarians, who can expect never to have a refugee as a neighbour, to be blissfully ignorant of the potential costs to social cohesion. However, Australia has proven itself as a great absorber of people from many backgrounds over many decades. I believe it is possible both to double our refugee intake and to pay for it. We can achieve this by cutting foreign aid.

Foreign aid has been accurately described as money taken from poor people in rich countries and given to rich people in poor countries. The money we spend on resettling refugees does far more good for people who need our help. The American writer Bob Lupton described the problem with foreign aid in this way: 'When you give something the first time, there is gratitude; when you give something a second time, there is anticipation; the third time, there is expectation; the fourth time, there is entitlement; and the fifth time, there is dependency.' That is where we stand with foreign aid—where something designed to do good ultimately causes harm. This might also explain why foreign aid has proven itself to be a poor diplomatic tool. At the height of tensions regarding the executions of Australian drug smugglers in Indonesia, mentions of our generosity to Indonesia were treated with contempt.

Doubling our refugee intake would cost around a billion dollars a year, while abolishing foreign aid would save around $3½ billion a year. We are better able to look after people here than we are at making foreign aid effective overseas. So my proposal would do more good overall, while sparing the taxpayer. Labor, the Greens and parts of the coalition have called for more refugees, without calling for spending cuts to pay for this. This is not a responsible approach by adults.

I challenge all those proposing an increased refugee intake to accept that there is a trade-off between spending money on refugees and spending money on foreign aid. I challenge them to accept that refugee resettlement does more good than foreign aid. And I challenge them to commit to an increased refugee intake, even if it is funded by cutting foreign aid. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good to enter this debate after a very thoughtful contribution by Senator Leyonhjelm which I could not find a lot of argument with until he got onto the bit of abolishing foreign aid. Senator Leyonhjelm, if you had been to Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu as I have recently and seen how Australia's foreign aid is used, you would not be making quite the same comments. Since Ms Julie Bishop has been the foreign minister the whole way of delivering foreign aid has changed. Whilst some of your comments may have been valid in times past, I think nowadays the Australian government is ensuring that the aid that it gives is getting directly to the cause for which it is given.

There are literally millions and millions of genuine refugees around the world. I have always raised in this chamber, particularly in the days of Labor governments when they were opening the borders to people smugglers and people who were quite clearly economic entrants into Australia rather than genuine refugees, that every time you let in one of these people who are coming here for a better life—and I do not blame them for trying—you halt those genuine refugees who have been waiting in squalid refugee camps around the world for years for their turn to come to Australia. That is why I have always thought we should have an ordered system of migration into our country that looks at genuine refugees. I would love it if every person in the world who wants to come to Australia could come to Australia, because we are indeed the lucky country and we are blessed with riches and natural wealth, but we simply cannot take everyone. As other speakers have said, Australia punches well above its weight when it comes to the acceptance of refugees. We have a program that is better per capita than any other place in the world. So Australia has nothing to be ashamed of.

I confess that I do not know enough about the call for Syrian refugees. I just wish that the Syrian people could sort out their own problems. I note that on Facebook—not always a good authority—there are questions about how many other Middle Eastern countries are taking refugees. It is a question that I must ask of the appropriate authorities. There is a push for Australia, Europe, Britain and America to take more Syrians, but are the very, very wealthy countries in the Middle East taking their share? I do not know the answer, but I do intend to find out.

This debate today is a typical Greens motion. It is all care and no responsibility. You get a warm feeling in calling for these things, but somewhere along the line we have to have an ordered system that fairly brings into Australia the quota which the Australian people believe is appropriate for this country—and, as I say, as Australians, we have nothing to be ashamed of. We have the best refugee intake per capita of any country in the world. I often lament that these problems in the Middle East and elsewhere happen, and we who live hundreds or thousands of miles away in Australia can never understand how people in their own countries cannot sort out their own problems and stop these issues. But I guess that is a question that needs to be explored at another time.

I congratulate the government on what it has done so far. It has increased the number of refugees coming in. I am cautious about announcements by our Prime Minister that there will be more Syrians brought in, because if more Syrians are being brought in it means others who have been waiting in squalid refugee camps around the world for years and years have to wait yet another year. That concerned me under Labor 's open door policy, and it concerns me now, if I understand what the Prime Minister has announced. I have not questioned the Prime Minister about that, and we will be looking at that in the future. But I do congratulate the government for what it has done to date, and I congratulate every Australian for being part of the best refugee intake system in the world.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this matter of public importance. It is a matter of grave importance not just here in Australia but across the globe. I am saddened by the Abbott government's failure to take real action to increase Australia's intake of Syrian refugees and I am disappointed by the Abbott government's failure to show any moral leadership on this issue.

This government is quick to offer up military support, but it is slow to do anything to address the growing humanitarian crisis that is the result of the escalating conflict. As Senator Macdonald said in his contribution, he was concerned about the Prime Minister's announcement that those refugee places would displace other refugees that are waiting to come in. All he has to do is go and ask the Prime Minister to make an additional intake, because it is this Abbott government that is making this decision.

The cost of this humanitarian crisis was given a face and a name last week when harrowing photographs of the body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi brought home the tragic reality of the crisis. Images of the lifeless body of little Aylan were splashed across papers and have brought worldwide attention to the plight of displaced Syrians. These are heartbreaking images. Even more heartbreaking is the knowledge that Aylan is just one of the many children who have died trying to escape the escalating conflict in Syria. Just as heartbreaking is the knowledge that children will continue to die unless real action is taken.

The cost of this humanitarian crisis was given a voice last week when asylum seekers forsaken in a Budapest train station chanted in unison. Their voices rose in unity with one message to the world: 'We are human! We are human!' They are mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. They are neighbours. They are human. But our response cannot be measured in our tears for the people. Our response must be measured in the lives we save. Australia must play its part. We must ensure that we are part of the solution.

This is an emotive issue, and rightly so, because we are talking about people's lives. We are talking about children's lives, as we were reminded last week. Those opposite have repeatedly shrugged off calls for Australia to do more when it comes to accepting additional asylum seekers by claiming that we take more refugees than any other nation through the UNHCR on a per capita basis. We have heard that in the contributions here today by some of the government senators. On the face of it this statement may be true, but it is only by virtue of the fact that many nations do not work through the UNHCR resettlement program. According to the Refugee Council of Australia, Australia is not the world's most generous country when it comes to accepting refugees. In fact, according to the Refugee Council of Australia, Australia does not even rank in the top 20 countries.

We are a wealthy nation. We can afford to do more and we must do more. But any further support provided by Australia cannot come at the expense of asylum seekers from other countries. This is exactly what Mr Abbott's proposal would mean. If Australia increases the number of asylum seekers we welcome from Syria without increasing the cap on our humanitarian intake, it will simply mean that we are turning our backs on those seeking asylum from other countries. We cannot in good conscience do this. Simply allocating existing places to the Syrian refugee crisis is not taking real action. This is simply not good enough. This is why, earlier today, Labor called on Mr Abbott to convene an emergency meeting of state, community and religious representatives to work towards Australia making an offer of an additional 10,000 humanitarian places for refugees displaced by the conflict in the Middle East. This increase must be on top of our current intake of 13,750 places. This is a significant but completely reasonable increase. Labor is also calling on the government to immediately contribute an extra $100 million towards humanitarian relief efforts in response to the Syrian crisis. It is time that this government realised that our defence response cannot be our only response to the greatest humanitarian emergency of our era.

Labor is committed to ensuring that Australia plays our part in meeting humanitarian need across the globe. That is why Labor has committed to increasing the humanitarian refugee intake from 13,750 to 27,000 and has committed to providing more than $450 million over the next decade to the UNHCR. It is incumbent upon us to do more to help those seeking safety from war and persecution. We are a nation of great compassion, of great diversity and of great possibilities. It is time that we were also a nation of great leadership on the Syrian refugee crisis.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The images and reports coming from Europe arising from the Syrian conflict are shocking and heartbreaking. Australia has seen its own share of tragedy on our borders, including more than 1,200 deaths at sea in recent years of asylum seekers callously exploited by people smugglers. This is a refugee emergency the like of which Europe has not seen for 70 years. We must not ignore the genesis of this conflict, the evil that is ISIS—Daesh—and the brutality of the Assad regime in Syria. We must also not ignore the fact that the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, welcome as that was, was followed by bungling and reckless mismanagement that many sensible commentators believe contributed to the rise of ISIS and instability in the region.

The exodus of Syrians from the Middle East demands an exceptional effort from good international citizens like Australia. We cannot claim to be surprised. In 2013 World Vision head Reverend Tim Costello visited Syrian refugee camps and called for an increased humanitarian response. Just this morning, Tim Costello spoke about the need for more humanitarian aid in those camps. Now it has come to this. According to World Vision, after five years of conflict in Iraq and Syria more than 220,000 people have lost their lives and 7.6 million people have been displaced from their homes, with half of those being children. The wealthy nations of Europe are rising to the challenge. Australia is a big country with a big heart. Surely we can do more to respond to this humanitarian crisis. Pope Francis has called for members of his church to open their hearts and homes to refugees. It is a sentiment that we must also heed.

Unambiguously, we need a strong border protection policy. That is why I have supported the Abbott government in its approach, with concessions including an increased humanitarian intake. However, the eminent persons group headed by Sir Angus Houston in 2012 spoke of the need to have an increased humanitarian intake in addition to tough policies. That is why I agree that we need to do more, and that is why I believe that we need to significantly increase our humanitarian intake.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for the discussion has expired.