Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Payne for her question. She has a longstanding interest in Australia’s refugee and humanitarian program. In fact, I have good news for all senators, who undoubtedly will share with senators on this side in being very proud of Australia’s refugee and humanitarian settlement. Even, I think, the Greens could be proud of what the government does in this respect and go out and say to Australians, ‘You should be proud of what the government you have elected is doing.’

This year will be a bumper year for the intake of refugees into Australia. I remind senators that it was this government that increased the refugee intake from offshore by 50 per cent from 4,000 to 6,000, along with 7,000 places for special humanitarian entrants, who are often people from refugee camps coming to join friends and family who are already here.

Resettling this many people—it is about 7,000 a year—is an enormous job, and I want to acknowledge the work my department does, the settlement services providers do and the International Organisation for Migration does in assisting us in locating refugees all around the world, getting them to Australia with their health and medicals done and the resettlement that happens here.

This month we will have almost 700 arrivals into Australia from offshore. Given that we have 6,000 refugees a year, you would expect some months to have about 700. They will come from places like Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Congo, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Kenya, Liberia, Rwanda, Serbia, Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uzbekistan. I mention those places because there are some people on that side of the chamber among the minor parties who would have Australia believe that we do not welcome refugees and that somehow we want only people who look and speak like us to get asylum in Australia, whereas Australia has always opened its heart to people most in need. It is important to note that people coming from these countries are most in need, and the only reason we can afford to bring them and give them the tremendous resettlement services we do is that we do not have an open-door immigration policy. We work with the United States—