Australia to rule on Syria refugee intake within 24hrs

Text by Jill Fraser, photo by GetUp!

MELBOURNE, Australia

The day after thousands joined candlelit vigils around Australia urging the government to increase its refugee intake, the prime minister has said he will decide in the next 24 hours how the country will respond to Syria’s refugee crisis.  

"We shouldn't delay, but nevertheless we do need to be careful," Tony Abbott told Question Time on Tuesday. "I expect that within 24 hours the government will have much more to say on this matter."

Last night and again tonight participants at "Light in the Dark" rallies carried placards stating "Australia Welcomes Refugees" as speakers standing on makeshift platforms angrily argued that the Abbott government "is not doing enough".

On Tuesday, in a full-page advertisement in The Australian newspaper, three key aid agencies -- Oxfam, World Vision and Save the Children -- joined the growing calls for Australia -- which has a population of around 23 million people -- to increase its refugee intake to 30,000 per year. 

Meanwhile, more than 1.8 million Syrian refugees have gone to Turkey, more than 600,000 fled to Jordan and 1 million arrived in Lebanon -- which has a population of just 4 million.

Australia's current yearly refugee quota is just below 14,000.

The government is waiting on advice from Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who has been in Paris and Geneva discussing the refugee crisis with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other international agencies.

But back in Australia, pressure is mounting for the country to offer to take in more refugees as people rail against Abbott’s initial response; that he would accept those from Syria but not increase Australia’s overall refugee total.

Since the body of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed up the shores of Turkey’s tourist destination Bodrum, a shift appears to have occurred in Australia's collective psyche regarding refugees.

Aylan was among 12 people, including eight children, who drowned after their boat sank en route to the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. 

Prior to this incident the majority of Australians supported the government’s hardline refugee policy, which saw illegal migrants shipped to holding centres off Australia’s shores, and then those determined as refugees given the chance to relocate to troubled economies such as Cambodia.

Complicating the issue is that Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher and a number of government backbenchers -- plus Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Senate Leader Eric Abetz -- have expressed a desire to see Christian refugees given precedence.

Christians in the Middle East "are among the most persecuted" groups in the world, Abetz has contended, while Bishop has said she thinks that if the Syrian conflict were over they would still be persecuted.

"And so I believe there will be a focus on ensuring we can get access to those persecuted ethnic and religious minorities who will have no home to return to even when the conflict is over," she told ABC radio Tuesday, mentioning "Maronites... Yazidis... [and] Druze".

"There are a whole range of ethnic and religious minorities that make up the populations in both Syria and Iraq and we'll be focussing our attention particularly on the families who are in refugee camps along the borders of Lebanon, Jordan, [and] Turkey."

The CEO of one of the biggest aid organizations in Australia -- Tim Costello -- told Anadolu Agency that while he agrees that Christian minorities in the Middle East have for a long time been subjected to virtual genocide World Vision "supports a non-discriminatory policy".

"The UNHCR has a range of considerations when determining vulnerability," Costello -- the brother of former Australian treasurer Peter Costello -- said. 

"The government should always take advice from the UNHCR on resettlement. Nothing as simple and discriminatory as 'religion'."

In a statement Anadolu Agency received Tuesday, Labor Shadow Minister for Immigration Richard Marles said the comments about the possible prioritization of Christian refugees were "really dangerous".

He expressed concern that the views "would take our [Australia's] immigration program in a very different direction."

"Of course there are persecuted Christian minorities, but there are persecuted minorities of a range of faiths and there are also people who are fleeing war from a range of different religions. At the end of the day it is really important that we maintain a principle of having a non-discriminatory immigration policy," he said.

In an opinion piece published late Tuesday, Fairfax Media's foreign editor Maher Mughrabi wrote: "If you turn your back on Syria's Muslims, forget about 'Team Australia' [a rallying call for those who support Australia and its traditional values]."

"I am not the only Arab of Muslim parentage who regards what has happened to the Christian populations of the Arab world in recent decades as a shame and a disgrace and a crime, one that shows little sign of ending," Mughrabi wrote.

"It is true that Arab Christians are confronted with an existential threat. But it is also true that the bulk of those being butchered by the [Bashar] Assad regime and by the so-called Islamic State [Daesh] are Muslim Arabs and Muslim Kurds."

Costello, meanwhile, told Anadolu Agency that Abbott is skewing the refugee debate, highlighting what he calls "the real issue" -- Australia's cut in foreign aid.

"The UNHCR only got $A16 million for its Syria appeal from the Australian government, when our share is $A144 million to feed Syrians in the camps," he said. 

"Australian aid is to be cut by $A11.5 billion over next three years. We are now at the lowest levels of aid in Australian history."