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John Passant wrote: "Germany will on current estimates take 800,000 refugees this year. Germany and Australia are comparable rich countries. Germany has not quite four times Australia's population. So why aren't we talking about Australia taking 200,000 refugees this year? We used to take that if not more migrants. We could do it easily." Australia will on current estimates take 12,000 additional refugees this year. Australia and New Zealand are comparable rich countries. Australia has not quite five times New Zealand's population. So why aren't we talking about New Zealand taking 2,500 refugees this year? We typically take far more migrants. We could do it easily. Many New Zealanders look across 'the ditch' and criticise the Australian government's horrific policy of internment on Nauru, and I understand that. But New Zealand takes only 750 refugees per year (although the full quota is often not even filled) and PM John Key's* great humanitarian response to the current crisis is to take an extra 600 Syrian refugees over the next two years. That's right, we don't even take in 1000 a year. The figure was set at 800 in 1987 and *reduced* to 750 in 1997. It is due to be reviewed next year but I'm not holding my breath for much change. New Zealand loves to appear to have the high moral ground - when the Howard government in Australia refused to take in the Tampa refugees (the Tampa was a ship full of Afghan refugees), New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark 'stepped up' and offered to take them all in. Great humanitarian act eh! Except these became part of our 750 quota, so all they did was queue jump other refugees. It was all about looking good but doing nothing. Cheers, John Edmundson * Ironically, Key himself is the son of a Jewish refugee from Nazi occupation, who grew up in a modest state house close to where I live, went to his local state school (which he, as Prime Minister, closed), got a state funded university education, then went on to become a multi-millionaire currency trader in the City of London, before returning home to grace us with his presence. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
