Matters of Interest

Syrian Humanitarian Crisis

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:27): As a former refugee, I rise to speak about the Syrian civil war. The Syrian uprising began in March 2011 as a broad based non-violent uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's corrupt, sectarian and authoritarian regime. The Assad regime responded to these demonstrations by slaughtering protestors in the street. Eventually, perhaps naturally, they took up arms to defend themselves. By the beginning of 2012, the uprising had become a civil war.

To make matters worse, in the last couple of years DAESH, or ISIS, has taken large swathes of Syria and forced the people who live under their rule to abide by its horrific system of extremist Islamic governance. Since the war broke out, four million Syrians have fled the country (one-fifth of the population), 12.1 million are in need of assistance, 1.93 million Syrian refugees are stranded in Turkey and 1.1 million in Lebanon, and 250,000 people have died in the conflict itself. Until very recently, both Greece and Italy have almost exclusively been forced to deal with the refugee outbreak.

The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said that 366,402 migrants had crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year. With the influx of 10,000 Syrians to European countries each day, it is estimated that Germany expects to receive 800,000 asylum applications this year alone.

In recent years, Australia's total migration intake has been about 200,000. Of those, about 13,750 are humanitarian refugees, which is less than 5 per cent. There are claims by Mr Abbott that we take more refugees per head of the Australian population than any nation in the world. According to the Refugee Council of Australia, Australia is not the world's most generous country when it comes to accepting refugees. It does not even rank in the top 20 countries.

The UNHCR Global Trends Report 2010 shows that Australia took one refugee per 1,000  of the population and ranked 69^th in the world for per capita refugee intake. The 2012 UNHCR figures for absolute refugee intake show that Australia took nearly 30,000 refugees and ranked 49^th in the world.

When we talk about resettlement programs, Australia often ranks in the top three in the world, with about 5,000 per year. The US tops the list, with about 50,000 refugees being resettled. Resettlement refers to the act of transferring refugees from the country in which they sought refuge to a third country that has agreed to accept them. Prime Minister Abbott had initially announced that his government would take more Syrian refugees than previously but that the overall intake would still remain at 13,750. This would have meant no increase at all in our humanitarian intake in response to this crisis.

History has seen numerous examples of civil war outbreaks, resulting in millions of people being displaced from their homes. At the end of World War II more than 40 million refugees were in Europe alone. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet forces moved into Hungary and Prague, resulting in hundreds of thousands of refugees. The Vietnam War resulted in more than two million Vietnamese refugees fleeing, mainly by boat, and I was one of them. The Balkans conflict saw 2.7 million people fleeing. Rwanda and Sudan also saw millions of people living in refugee camps. The Iraq war and the Colombian conflict saw at least four million people flee from each of those countries as well.

Our refugee intake is quite low when compared with per head of population or actual numbers. Millions of people are currently living in refugee camps and many are waiting for years for a home to go to. In his initial response to the Syrian conflict, the PM said:

As a result of the government's success in stopping illegal boat arrivals to Australia, we are now in a position to take more refugees from offshore refugee camps.

Australia has a proud history when it comes to taking in refugees. We are known around the world to be kind and generous. Refugees, in return, have not forgotten this generosity. They remain loyal and repay this country in many ways.

I was going to call on our Prime Minister to use this opportunity to take on Syrian refugees and not disadvantage other refugees living in camps around the world—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Ngo, I have given you a lot of leeway. The Hon. Ms Lee.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: I am happy that the Prime Minister has—

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. T.T. NGO: Just one more. I am happy that the Prime Minister has just announced in the last couple of hours that the commonwealth government will permanently resettle 12,000 refugees from Syria and $40 million in funding. This will be on top of the current—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Ngo, sit down.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: I take this opportunity to thank the Prime Minister—

The PRESIDENT: I think you have to get your speechwriter to make sure that your speech is within five minutes. I gave you a bit of leeway but you took advantage. Five minutes. The Hon. Ms Lee.