As the global community prepares to celebrate World Refugee Day on June 20, new research commissioned by Amnesty International Australia has shown Australians strongly support refugees as welcome in our communities.
The research, commissioned as part of Amnesty’s annual Human Rights Barometer, shows that 72% of Australians support either maintaining or increasing Australia’s humanitarian intake, and that the majority of Australians support refugees being settled here.
“As we saw from the election result, Australians have embraced a kinder and fairer approach to refugee policy – now it’s time for the Albanese government to make good on its promise to abolish Temporary Protection visas as well as increasing the humanitarian intake to 30,000,” Amnesty International Australia Refugee Rights Campaigner, Zaki Haidari, said.
The research also showed support for community sponsorship of refugees, and while a new and fairer program was announced at the end of 2021, Amnesty continues to call for community sponsorship to be additional to the humanitarian intake.
“The outpouring of love and support from the Australian and Biloela community for the Nadesalingham family and the joy at seeing them going home to the community who loves them shows how passionate communities are to support people in need of safety, and how integral they become to those communities,” Haidari said.
“Australia has rejected the scare campaigns and have seen how devastating detention is on people whose only crime is to seek safety that we as a country are obliged to give them.”
The latest wave of the Amnesty International Human Rights Barometer also found that most Australians think the Federal Government spends too much taxpayers money on keeping people seeking asylum in detention, and similarly, 57% feel that if Australian communities have the money and resources to sponsor refugees so they can live in those communities, then they should be allowed to.
The full 2022 Human Rights Barometer report will be available in the coming months.
