Sarah Witty (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) World Refugee Day is observed on 20 June to honour the strength and courage of people forced to flee their homes because of conflict or persecution;

(b) Refugee Week is being held from 14 to 20 June 2026, marking 40 years of Refugee Week in Australia;

(c) 2026 marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, a vital international agreement protecting the rights and dignity of refugees;

(d) Australia has now welcomed one million permanent refugee and humanitarian entrants since World War II; and

(e) refugees have made an extraordinary contribution to modern Australia across community life, culture, business, sport and public service; and

(2) acknowledges the Government's commitment to Australia's humanitarian program, including the 20,000-place annual Humanitarian Program, and its ongoing support for refugee protection, international cooperation and the rights and dignity of people forced to flee.

I rise today to move this motion as the proud representative of Melbourne, a community filled with compassion and support for people fleeing their homes. This motion carries a simple message: when people are forced to flee war, violence or persecution, Australia should meet them with decency.

Earlier this month, we marked World Refugee Day and we celebrated Refugee Week in Australia. We have been celebrating it for 40 years. It is a time to honour the courage of people forced to leave their homes, their communities and the people they love. No-one chooses to become a refugee. No-one chooses to pack a whole life into one bag. No-one chooses to start again because home is no longer safe. That is why I have moved this motion. It asks this House to recognise the dignity of refugees, their contribution and the responsibility we share.

In 2026, we marked 75 years since the introduction of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. That convention was born from the horror of war and made a clear promise: people fleeing persecution have rights, and the nation has a responsibility to those people. Our country has a proud place in the history of this promise. In 1954, Australia helped bring the Refugee Convention into force. But history is not something we simply look back on. It lives on through the choices we make today, what we honour and what we refuse to forget. That is the choice the Albanese government is making. We protect and resettle 20,000 people a year under our humanitarian program. We have provided a permanent pathway for people left for years on temporary protection visas and safe haven enterprise visas, ending years of uncertainty for people who had already rebuilt their lives here. We are supporting settlement services that help people learn English, find work, enrol their children in school, and we are making the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement program a permanent part of the humanitarian program, because communities across Australia want to do more than say welcome, they want to show welcome. Australia has also continued to support refugee communities around the world through our work with the UNHCR and international cooperation. That is the kind of country I believe in, and it is the kind of community I am proud to represent.

Recently I sat with the Grandmothers for Refugees, a national collective of volunteer grandmothers. I sat with Clare, Jean, Susan and Virginia, who had just come from a public vigil, standing in their signature purple attire and holding signs with their motto 'kindness equals unity equals strength'. These are the people of Melbourne, the ones who continue to shine a light on the lived reality of refugees as people who have fled their homes seeking safety and kindness. It says a lot about the people I have the honour of representing. When we sat together, the first thing the group of dedicated women asked was how can they help me represent refugees? That generosity of spirit reflects something much deeper about our community. It's saying, 'You are safe here. You belong here.' Melbourne understands that welcoming refugees does not weaken our community; it strengthens it.

Since the end of World War II, Australia has welcomed one million permanent refugee and humanitarian entrants—one million people, and one million stories of loss, courage, work, family, service and hope, and one million reminders that, when Australia opens its doors, people not only rebuild their lives here; they build ours too. They have made Australia stronger.

Today this motion is about more than a date on the calendar; it's about who we are. Australia is stronger when we are welcoming. Australia is fairer when we protect people who need safety. Australia's most true to itself when we choose compassion over cruelty. That is the promise of Refugee Week, that is the promise of the Refugee Convention and that is the promise we must keep.

Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters) | Link to this | Hansard source

On World Refugee Day we recognise Australia as a place of hope; a country defined by stability, the rule of law, equality and justice, where those fleeing conflict and persecution around the world can rebuild their lives in safety. As the member just outlined, these are people who have endured loss, uncertainty and hardship unimaginable to most Australians, yet they still hold on to hope—for safety, for opportunity and for a better life. Australia has long been a country that answers that with the outreach of friendship. Since the end of the World War II, our nation has welcomed more than one million refugees and humanitarian entrants to our shores, over one million people given a second chance to build a new life and a new home. Right now, that confidence is under pressure, because Australians can see that migration levels have surged at the same time that housing supply has fallen behind. They see that in our communities, with strain on rents, the difficulties for first home buyers and the strain on infrastructure in growing communities. Those who are waiting in the back of an ambulance trying to get into hospitals or on waiting lists for schools understand that our ability to welcome people to Australia depends on the availability of that social infrastructure to ensure that when they come here they will have a life ready for them.

Australians today are asking a fair question: how can we continue to welcome people to Australia if we can't guarantee a home for them or indeed for the Australians who are already here? That's where leadership matters. A strong humanitarian program is inherent in the DNA of Australians. We believe in offering refuge to those who are most in need. But, as I said, we believe that migration must be tied to reality, and that means tying the overall migration program to housing supply, because you can't separate the two. If we bring people to Australia through all migration streams without building the homes to support them, we're not setting those individuals or indeed our communities up for success. We risk overcrowding. We risk pushing housing further out of reach for Australians. And we risk eroding the very public support that makes our generous humanitarian program possible in the first place.

That's not compassionate policy; it is careless policy. Compassion is not just about how many people we bring in. It is about ensuring that those we do welcome to Australia are supported to become proud and contributing Australians themselves. A truly compassionate system ensures that when someone comes to Australia they're not competing for scarce housing, they're not pushed to the margins of our society and they're not doomed to struggle. Rather, they are welcomed into a community that has the capacity to support them—a community with homes, infrastructure and opportunity that abounds.

That's why our Liberal plan has always focused on restoring the balance in our migration system, reducing the pressure on social infrastructure by aligning migration arrivals of all types, including that very important humanitarian program, with housing construction completions in Australia. There are so many proud stories of Australian refugees who have come to our shores from unimaginable horror. They found in this place a welcoming new home that allowed them to build families of their own, to contribute by building businesses, investing and ultimately achieving success that would never have been possible but for the generosity of spirit that Australia has long demonstrated to people from all over the world.

The continuation of that success story depends on rational, sensible policy that upholds the confidence of the Australian people in that their government will welcome to our shores only those whom it can accommodate sensibly. When people trust that migration is being managed properly they are willing to keep opening their hearts and their country to those in need, and that is what we should continue to want for our country.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm really pleased to second this motion moved by the member for Melbourne. I was very proud in the last parliament to be one of the founding co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Refugees Group, and I'm really pleased to have passed that role on to the member for Melbourne now, and I know it's one that she is doing a fantastic job with.

It is important that in this place we are marking 40 years of the important national celebration of Refugee Week. On Saturday 20 June we observed World Refugee Day, which is a global occasion to recognise the strength, resilience and contributions of people who've been forced to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution or violence. It's an opportunity for Australians to honour and acknowledge the strength, resilience and courage of people who've been forced to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution or violence and to recognise the contribution they make to our communities. And this year marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, one of the most important international agreements protecting the rights, dignity and safety of refugees around the world. The convention was born from the lessons of history. It reflects a simple but powerful principle that people fleeing persecution deserve protection and the opportunity to rebuild their lives in safety. Australia has a proud history in this regard.

Our refugees have helped to shape modern Australia. They've made extraordinary contributions to our nation right across the board. In my electorate, I think particularly of our Somali community. Many Somali Australians arrived in Victoria as refugees following the outbreak of civil war in Somalia in 1991. Between 1991 and 2000, nearly 2000 Somali-born people settled in Victoria, many of them making their home in West Heidelberg in Jagajaga. Often into their third generation, this is a community where people have built lives, raised families, established businesses and continue to contribute enormously to our community. Through wonderful organisations such as Himilo, many other local groups are dedicated to enriching the lives of Somali Australians. They strengthen our community. They create opportunity. They remind us all that Australia is richer for having refugees as part of our community.

While Refugee Week is a time for celebration, it's also a reminder that we cannot take this for granted. We cannot take the social cohesion that many refugees have contributed to for granted. We know that there are some, including in this place, who seek to divide our communities, who seek to use people who've come to Australia from other countries as scapegoats for their own political purposes. This is not a new phenomenon. It's happened in this country and others throughout history. Unfortunately, we are seeing it at the moment in our country. We see it from Senator Hanson and her party, which has a long record of seeking to sow division and fear about migrants and refugees. We see it from the opposition—the official opposition—who fail to call this out. In fact, we've had the Leader of the Opposition unable to talk about what it looks like to live in a diverse modern Australia. Now we have those opposite looking to play on the fear that sometimes comes, or is being driven, in this space for their own political purposes.

Most Australians understand that diversity is one of our strengths. Australians want an Australia that is inclusive, that welcomes people who are seeking safety and that rejects discrimination, bigotry, xenophobia and social isolation based on who you are, where you come from or what faith you practice. Our government is committed to supporting Australia's humanitarian program. This includes our 20,000-place annual humanitarian program and continuing Australia's role in refugee protection, international cooperation and support for people who've been forced to flee their homes. It's also important to recognise that this is work Australia does not do alone. We are part of a global community.

We have now welcomed more than one million permanent refugee and humanitarian entrants since the end of the Second World War. This reflects the best of our national character—compassion, fairness and a willingness to give people a chance to build a better future. So it is important that we mark this motion in this parliament, that we mark Refugee Week in this parliament, that we are all reminded that it's incumbent upon all of us in this place to stand up for those Australian values: respect, dignity, inclusion and equal opportunity. I commend this motion to the chamber.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

I was hoping the spirit of the debate would be in favour of world refugee status and World Refugee Day and would elevate the conversation, but unfortunately the previous member chose to turn into a partisan political point. But here we are. We're standing here today because we're supporting World Refugee Day, which is marked on 20 June each year.

This year is particularly important. It's the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Having served as Australia's Human Rights Commissioner and having worked with refugees in Australia and in other parts of the world, including with the commission to get children out of detention who were locked up during the previous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, it's incredibly important that we have a sustainable and generous program to support people who come through legal means to seek asylum and be granted refugee status. It's incredibly important because what we do as a nation must be consistent with the spirit of the refugee convention, which is to ensure that those who come here go through proper identity security and health assessments so that we maintain social licence and support in the pathway of giving them resettlement for a new home.

That's what's been so disappointing. When we see a flouting of those basic tests of identity security and health assessment, it doesn't just impact the current debate about support for refugees; it actually undermines public confidence in support for refugees overall. It's important because we never know what crisis is around the corner. Only today, I've had constituents from the Goldstein electorate contact me about the risks emerging from the humanitarian crisis that's evolving in Sudan and the need for Australia, through appropriate means, to work with other international agencies to make sure that we're in a position to support those who are victims of that.

Almost every member's electorate will have refugees or the children of refugees who've come to our country. In the Goldstein electorate, we had the postwar generation of Holocaust survivors, those who were victims of one of the most terrible incidents in human history. They're not alone. We've had people fleeing from other places, like from the Soviet Union and the madness of communism. We've had different migrations, from people from Vietnam, the Balkans, the Middle East and, more recently, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Each of them has added a stitch to the social fabric of our nation. They can't do so just by arriving. They do so by bringing their whole selves to this country and by committing and contributing to this country. Integration is not just something we have to say; it is something we have to live. It happens through being engaged in the economic, social and cultural integration of our nation. I'd like to acknowledge the fact that the myriad of refugees who come to our country absolutely seek to, and are determined to, build out a better life for themselves and their families and commit, contribute and become full participants in the Australian way of life.

They also do so with the support and assistance of others. I want to thank those organisations, particularly in our community, that assist in that journey, such as the Bayside Refugee Advocacy and Support Association, otherwise known as BRASA. They do a lot of advocacy work, but they also raise funds and collect non-perishable foods, toiletries and household cleaning products for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and the organisations that support them. I'd like to thank Judy Carroll, Judith Rafferty, Libby Strain and Geraldine Moore for their incredible work in being supportive of people who are refugees in our community or surrounding communities. They also work with local cultural institutions. I'm thinking particularly about Hampton Uniting Church. They do incredible work connecting directly to community.

We also have Compass Community Care. They work to support displaced Ukrainians living in Melbourne. They help approximately 550 to 600 individuals each week who are suffering from food insecurity and need access to basic staples to live with basic dignity. They do deals with groups like Foodbank, Coles and Aldi to make sure that that assistance is provided. I want to thank the team, particularly Jim McMillan, who's the head of charity, and Andrew Ambroisine, who's the head of operations.

There's also Bayside Community Emergency Relief, which is 100 per cent volunteer run and does incredible work across the community. English language lessons are also provided for people through groups like GEALC, the Glen Eira Adult Learning Centre in McKinnon, Caulfield South Community House, Godfrey Street Community House in Bentleigh and Moongala Women's Community House in Bentleigh. Thank you for all your work.

Gabriel Ng (Menzies, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to speak in support of this motion and acknowledge my friend the member for Melbourne, who is also the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Refugees. The work she continues to do in this space is a credit to her and to this parliament.

A few weeks ago we celebrated Refugee Week. It was a chance to acknowledge that, since the end of World War II, Australia has welcomed and settled over one million refugees. This is a remarkable legacy of generosity and compassion, of which we should all be very proud. In our last term of government, the Albanese Labor government increased refugee intake to 20,000 people per year. This means that there are over 6,000 more people each and every year who will have the opportunity to come from dire circumstances to join our great nation—the greatest country in the world—and enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that that provides.

The 1951 Refugee Convention arose from the horrors of the two world wars when people were displaced in record numbers. The world came together to determine a just and compassionate way of giving people the right to claim asylum, as well as who nations owed protection to.

In the Public Service, I was proud to work in migrant and refugee settlement and protection visa assessment for over a decade. As a result, I've had the great privilege of meeting many people who had to flee persecution because of fundamental parts of who they are.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18:10 to 18:21

In the Public Service, I worked in migrant and refugee settlement and protection visa assessment for over a decade. As a result, I've had the great privilege of meeting many people who have had to flee persecution because of the most fundamental parts of who they are, and, to a person, they have all been incredibly grateful for having been granted asylum in Australia—to find somewhere where they can be safe and be free to practise their religion and express their political views, where women have equal rights and where people can love who they want to love and be free from persecution that arises because of their culture or where they were born.

We're also one of the best countries in the world at resettling refugees. When people arrive, we give them real support: linkages to essential services like banks and schools; English classes; help finding work; programs for young people; and community hubs. I would particularly like to acknowledge the Migrant Information Centre in Box Hill in my community of Menzies, who help resettle migrants and refugees in Melbourne's east.

In my time in the settlement program, we had people come from Canada, Japan and many other countries to learn from us about how we settle people successfully in this country. Hearing the stories of refugees and understanding just how lucky we are to live in Australia in this time and in this place in history has helped me to appreciate even more what a miracle we have in our democracy and in our mutual respect, pluralism and rule of law and in our commitment to a fair go. It is something which we should cherish and something which we should always protect.

A few things happened during Refugee Week. Locally in my community in Menzies, we had two citizenship ceremonies. Citizenship ceremonies are one of the most affirming parts of the job that we're privileged to do. Seeing the happiness on people's faces when they take the citizenship pledge, that final step to fully joining our country, is one of the most joyous events that we get to take part in, and I've heard some new citizens describe it as the happiest day in their lives. Many of the people in our citizenship ceremonies, of course, are from skilled or family visa backgrounds, but some would also be of refugee backgrounds.

The theme of this year's Refugee Week is 'A Million Stories', and my community of Menzies is one of the places where that story lives. Our community is shaped by people who have arrived with very little and built something extraordinary—people from Vietnamese, Myanmarese or Iranian backgrounds, people who've learned languages, started businesses, raised their families, put their kids through our fantastic local schools and given back to the country that has given them safe haven. Of course, many of us are enjoying the World Cup at the moment, and you only need to look at the Socceroos, who count amongst their number four players of refugee background, to see but one example of how much refugees have contributed to Australia. So we as Australians should be incredibly proud of our generous humanitarian and refugee program and the opportunity that we have to share the great country that we have with those who need it most.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is now adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made in order of the day for the next sitting.