Labor's refugee plan is not funded in the budget: millions missing

Labor's refugee plan is not funded in the budget: millions missing

Australia

• Advocates claim that since the budget did not include funds, refugees are now in a precarious situation.
• Labor has pledged to increase Australia's humanitarian admissions.
• The administration asserts that it will soon have "more to say."

A promised boost to Australia's humanitarian program was not funded in Tuesday night's budget, according to advocates, leaving refugees in a precarious situation.

Labor has been accused of breaking its promise to accept more refugees, but the government maintains that "we'll have more to say" after determining who would fill open positions.

A pre-existing global refugee crisis has worsened as a result of the violence engulfing Sudan and Ukraine. The international system is already having difficulty responding to humanitarian catastrophes in the Middle East and Africa.

Although Labor promised to eventually increase Australia's yearly humanitarian intake from about 18,000 to 32,000, its second federal budget did not contain any increased funds for the refugee program.

Paul Power, CEO of the Refugee Council of Australia, said it was the first budget "in living memory" that did not mention refugee target figures and that it was currently "hard to tell" how the government meant to accomplish its goal.

According to the government's mid-year economic outlook, Mr. Power stated more funding to complement the budget was "quite possible" but expressed optimism nonetheless.

"The need is absolutely overwhelming for resettlement states to step up... we're looking for the Australian government to step up in the way Labor outlined prior to the election," he said on SBS News on Wednesday.

"We undoubtedly hoped and anticipated that yesterday night's budget papers would genuinely inform us of where the government will begin. However, it has been suspended for at least a few weeks.

According to a government spokeswoman, consultations on the structure of the humanitarian program for 2023–24 are currently taking place, and submissions must be sent by the end of this month.

"We will have more to say on this topic in the future," they said.

Crisis nations are now responsible for "the heavy lifting."

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, the former Coalition government reduced Australia's annual humanitarian aid to 13,750 before offering an additional 16,000 over four years.

According to the UNHCR, more than 2 million refugees will need to be resettled this year, and 117.2 million people will either be forcefully displaced or become stateless.applications for the humanitarian program for 2023–24 will close at the end of this month.

Even Labor's increased pledge falls far short of Canada's goal of resettling 50,000 refugees in 2023.

However, Mr. Power emphasized that less than 1% of the world's refugees are resettled annually and cautioned that countries dealing with their own humanitarian problems had been left "to do almost all of the heavy lifting".

At least 3.6 million refugees are currently staying in Turkey, which is still recovering from its own horrific earthquake in February, compared to a million in Sudan just three months prior to the start of its own civil war.

Mr. Power called Labor's vow a "significant step forward" but claimed the global circumstances revealed Australia's historically "arrogant" treatment of refugees.

That, he claimed, "casts a completely different light on Australia's hardline approach to asylum seekers, as well as the billions of dollars we spend on detention compliance."

"While [Labor's] commitment is significant from Australia's perspective, it is only a drop in the ocean when it comes to helping nations that are hosting large refugee populations."

Zaki Haidari, a refugee rights activist with Amnesty International Australia, pushed Labor to increase Australia's overall intake by using the community consultation process.

According to Mr. Haidari, Australians want their government to "show more humanity" and they supported several independents and small parties who supported refugees.

"Labor made a commitment to do more to address the deteriorating conflicts and ongoing crises of persecution and displaced people in our region... It is heartbreaking for many towns to watch this budget remain unchanged as more millions are set aside for offshore refugee detention, he said.