The budget included no extra funding for Australia’s refugee program, despite Labor’s plan to expand it.
Advocates say refugees have been left in limbo by Tuesday night’s budget, which did not fund a promised boost to Australia’s humanitarian program.
Some have accused Labor of walking away from
, but the government insists “we’ll have more to say” after it works through who will fill available places.
and Ukraine has deepened a pre-existing global refugee crisis. The international system is already struggling to cope with humanitarian crises across Africa and the Middle East.
Labor has committed to expanding
annually at some stage — up from around 18,000 — but
included no additional funding for the refugee program.
But Mr Power was hopeful of additional money to supplement the budget, which he said was “quite possible” in the government’s mid-year economic outlook.
“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 told SBS News on Wednesday.
“We were certainly hoping and expecting that last night’s budget papers would have actually told us where the government is going to start. But that’s been put on hold for some weeks at least.”
A government spokesperson told SBS News consultations over the makeup of the 2023-24 humanitarian program is underway, with submissions to close by the end of this month.
Crisis countries left to ‘do the heavy lifiting’
The former Coalition government slashed Australia’s humanitarian
, before promising an extra 16,000 over four years after the Taliban seized Afghanistan in 2021.
But Mr Power stressed less than 1 per cent of the world’s refugees are resettled each year, and warned countries struggling with their own humanitarian crises had been left “to do almost all of the heavy lifting”.
While describing Labor’s commitment as a “significant step forward”, Mr Power said the international situation exposed Australia’s historically “arrogant” approach to refugees.
“I think that throws a completely different light on Australia’s hardline approach to people seeking asylum, and also the billions and billions of dollars we spend on detention compliance,” he said.
Amnesty International Australia refugee rights campaigner Zaki Haidari urged Labor to use the community consultation process to raise Australia’s overall intake.
Mr Haidari said Australians, who also elected a number of pro-refugee independents and minor parties, want their government to “show more humanity”.
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