Page 940 - Week 03 - Thursday, 22 March 2018
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welcome zone and that we have a well-established commitment to supporting and encouraging refugees to settle here. In fact, over the past 10 years in Canberra, we have welcomed over 2,000 refugees to the territory. We are a proud multicultural city. I note the large proportion of the Canberra community that came together last month to celebrate the annual and very popular Multicultural Festival in the city.
I also acknowledge yesterday as the UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, ahead of the nationwide Palm Sunday rallies for refugees this weekend, organised in Canberra by the Refugee Action Committee.
The Greens remain committed to supporting refugees who have lost their own homes, loved ones and livelihoods and yet remain hopeful and show great courage in seeking new opportunities, new communities and new foundations on which to rebuild their lives and those of their families.
I want to start with a recap of the current circumstances for asylum seekers in Australia. Based on data from the Department of Home Affairs, the Refugee Council of Australia has calculated that on 31 January this year there were 1,287 people in detention facilities. I have previously spoken in this place about the need to bring refugees to the ACT and the other 148 welcome zones across Australia. I think it is important to acknowledge that the ACT Assembly last year supported my motion calling for the federal government to close the offshore detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru and instead support refugees and asylum seekers being processed in the community where we know that there are communities across this country willing to accept them.
I think the ACT community would be pleased to know that these are the kinds of issues on which this Assembly can work together to truly represent our local community on. In fact, some of these advocates are here in the chamber today, and I welcome them to the Assembly and thank them for their ongoing support in this matter. Over many years now I have advocated on behalf of refugees seeking asylum in Australia.
I am heartened that the community support program may offer additional means to bring refugees to Australia, including to Canberra. As I have clearly stated in my motion today, the community support program needs to be additional to the 16,500 places already allocated to Australia’s broader humanitarian intake program. The Greens want to join Amnesty International in calling out this clear flaw in the program which essentially sees it as an opportunity to shift costs, rather than the far more positive potential to encourage and facilitate individuals and community groups to support refugees to join their communities.
A four-year pilot of the community support program has demonstrated unwavering demand, in spite of costs and strict criteria, successfully reaching its yearly intake capacity of 500 people. A backlog of applications from the pilot alone are expected to fill 40 per cent of the quota for this year’s maximum intake of 1,000 refugees. In practice what is happening is that families, often newly arrived in Australia themselves, are willing to go into debt to afford the exorbitant fees in their desperation to be reunited with family members. Although this program is considerably more
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