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NZ can and should increase quota: academic

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Fri, 4 Sep 2015, 5:37AM
Migrants walk along the 4 meter tall border fence in Serbia (Getty Images)
Migrants walk along the 4 meter tall border fence in Serbia (Getty Images)

NZ can and should increase quota: academic

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Fri, 4 Sep 2015, 5:37AM

A leading sociologist believes New Zealand can - and should - take more refugees, as European leaders meet to address what is the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.

There's growing pressure on the New Zealand government to open its arms to more than 750 refugees per year - a figure that hasn't changed in almost thirty years. Prime Minister John Key hasn't ruled out a review of the quota being brought forward.

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Thousands of refugees and migrants have been fleeing from poverty and war in the Middle East and Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean and through Turkey. It is a fraught journey that often requires paying people smugglers to transport them.

Massey University demography and migration expert Paul Spoonley said the government could immediately increase the number to a thousand without it being a stretch on resources, though Spoonley said that would still not be enough.

"Compared to what other countries are doing in terms of receiving refugees at this point, I think we should probably talk about a number that's higher than that," he said.

Spoonley advocates regional towns as great places to settle to new entrants, as they are small and friendly, citing the example of a group of Bhutanese refugees recently settled in Palmerston North.

Another academic, University of Waikato Professor Alexander Gillespie, maintains the refugee crisis is only going to get worse.

He believes over the next month it will become harder for refugees to cross the Mediterranean Sea but they'll shortly resort to other measures in desperation to leave their war-torn countries.

Other factors amplify the problem, including huge youth unemployment and a Middle Eastern population which is set to sky rocket 77 percent before 2050.

"The thing that's really disturbing the balance now is the war in Syria and the war in Iraq and both of those are showing no sign of easing anytime soon..so you can expect a pulse of people from this region alone to keep increasing."

The Turkish coastguard alone had rescued over 42,000 migrants in the Aegean Sea in the first five months of 2015 and more than 2160 in the last week.

The Catholic and Anglican Archbishops yesterday joined the growing number of voices campaigning to make an emergency allowance for refugees, or double the quota. The spokesman for the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, Parliament's Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Select Committee, and two of National's support parties have also backed a change to the quota.

Around 250 refugees have been accepted into the country since the financial year began in July, according to Immigration New Zealand figures.

Those refugees have come from a variety of places including Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Afghanistan - but none are from Syria, where nearly eight million people are internally displaced by the multi-faceted and highly destructive civil war.

Almost four million people have fled the country.

However, the government allowance for 100 refugees from Syria (within the 750 quota) has been filled. Eighty three have arrived since 2012, with 17 still to come.

 

 

 

 

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