Refugees and the Houston Report

Australia, according to the report, 'needs to actively promote a more productive engagement by the wider international community in addressing the global phenomenon of forced displacement and irregular people movement.'

The third is that there are no queues. This refutes comments from Opposition Leader Tony Abbott last month:

'The people we accept should be coming the right way and not the wrong way. If you pay a people-smuggler, if you jump the queue, if you take yourself and your family on a leaky boat, that's doing the wrong thing, not the right thing, and we shouldn't encourage it.'

The Houston report asserts 'there needs to be greater hope and confidence that applying through the regular processes of international protection, including in source and transit countries, can work better and more quickly.'

This endorses barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside who claimed, 'Mr Abbott should know that there is no queue when you run for your life. The recent execution of an Afghan woman by the Taliban (another example of a very well-established pattern) gives some idea of why people seek asylum.

'A significant proportion of boat-people in the past 15 years have been Afghan Hazaras fleeing the Taliban. If an Afghan were to embrace Mr Abbott's scruples and look for a queue, the obvious place would be the Australian Embassy in Kabul.'

Mr Burnside then quoted the Foreign Affairs' website: 'The Australian Embassy in Kabul operates from a number of locations that are not publicly disclosed due to security reasons. The Australian Embassy in Kabul has no visa function.'

The fourth reality is that Australia can and should accept far more refugees than it does at present.

'Given the world's humanitarian crisis, the panel recommends that the Government immediately increase our humanitarian program from 13,750 to 20,000 with 12,000 of those places going to refugees. This would double our annual refugee intake offshore and onshore.'

The panel recommended expanding the intake further to 27,000 within five years.

The latest Global Trends report by the UN High Commission on Refugees depicts Australia unflatteringly.

Australiareceived only 23,434 refugees in all categories under UNHCR mandate in 2011. This is puny compared with other rich countries. And nowhere near as generous as many poor countries. Almost 10 million refugees were relocated worldwide. Australia ranks 47^th in the world.