Syrian refugee crisis: Government assures community and religious leaders intake won’t be limited to Christians

TONY Abbott today met church and community leaders as the Government reassured Muslims that Australia won’t select their refugee intake based on religious beliefs.

PM Tony Abbott meeting with Community and Church Leaders about the resettlement of refugees from the Middle East at Parliament House in Canberra.

The federal government has reassured Australia’s Muslim community there will be no discrimination in the ethnic and religious make-up of the one-off intake of 12,000 refugees fleeing Middle East conflicts.

“It’s not about someone’s faith or belief,” Social Services Minister Scott Morrison said after the prime minister hosted a meeting of migrant resettlement groups, and church and ethnic community leaders in Canberra on today.

“Our door, when it comes to working with people on this, is open to everyone and we will work with everyone.” Mr Morrison, a former immigration minister, said about a quarter of the 8000 refugees Australia had accepted from Syria and Iraq over the past two years had been Islamic.

The vast majority of those were Sunni Muslims.

The balance of the total number came from other persecuted minorities, predominantly Christian.

The government will be assessing refugees in exactly the same way for the special humanitarian intake this time around.

The PM talks to the church and community leaders at Parliament House today. Picture: Kym Smith

On Thursday, Mr Morrison suggested the intake would predominantly be made up of Christians.

“In Australia we will be taking people who will never be able to go back. That is why we are focusing our intake of that 12,000 on persecuted minorities which are predominantly Middle Eastern Christians,” he said.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said the government would work with the United Nations’ refugee agency and partners to identify those most in need.

The focus will be on women, children and families from persecuted minorities, the definition for which has not changed under the assessment guidelines.

Mr Dutton hopes the first arrivals will be in Australia well in advance of Christmas.

“We are breaking every record to try and get the services and support teams in place so that we can bring people out of a terrible situation as quickly as possible,” he said.

PM Tony Abbott meeting with Community and Church Leaders about the resettlement of refugees from the Middle East at Parliament House in Canberra.

Mr Morrison said the government had been encouraged by the outpouring of support from people right across the community and from all different backgrounds and faiths.

The purpose of the meeting on Friday was to identify ways the government could harness this “incredibly large level” of community support.

Earlier Mr Dutton flagged the government may take more refugees fleeing the conflicts in Syria and Iraq in the next few years, although it was very hard to predict what was going to happen in the volatile region in that period.

Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott and Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton were at the meeting. Picture: Kym Smith

The 12,000 places are on top of Australia’s annual humanitarian intake of 13,750.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott paid tribute to the community groups who had offered to help with resettlement, saying it had been easier for the government to make its one-off intake decision knowing there were people rallying to help.

Refugee resettlement advisory council chairman Paris Aristotle said the government’s decision was “an incredibly powerful humanitarian gesture”.

“It’s an extraordinary thing to think that there will be 12,000 people whose lives will be literally saved from a miserable set of circumstances not of their making,” he said.

Mr Aristotle said Australia’s resettlement services were second to none in the world, a fact recognised by the UNHCR.

Originally published as Syrian refugee crisis: Government assures community and religious leaders intake won’t be limited to Christians