Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer incorrect on Australia's refugee intake

Updated

In the ongoing debate over Australia's asylum policies, the question of how many refugees Australia accepts and how that number compares to other countries is often not addressed.

On ABC triple j's current affairs program Hack on February 18, Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer was asked by a caller about Australia's international obligations. "The level of refugees that we get here in Australia is really minimal, compared to countries like in the EU, for example," the caller said.

Ms O'Dwyer replied: "I would actually point out the fact that we have one of the highest per capita intakes in the world. If we’re not currently the highest we’re probably the second highest. We and Canada generally are either the top one or two per capita who actually take in the most number of refugees so I would have to respectfully say that that’s not correct."

The claim: Kelly O'Dwyer says Australia has one of the highest per capita refugee intakes in the world.

Kelly O'Dwyer says Australia has one of the highest per capita refugee intakes in the world. The verdict: Ms O'Dwyer is incorrect. She has only counted refugees resettled through the UN humanitarian program, not the combined figure that includes refugees recognised in Australia.

ABC Fact Check investigates how Australia ranks in terms of its per capita refugee intake.

The ranking

Fact Check asked Ms O'Dwyer's office what information she was relying on when she made the claim. A spokesman pointed to a July 2013 media release from the Refugee Council of Australia that draws on official data from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to compare Australia with the rest of the world.

The media release says that in 2012 in the category "refugees resettled from other countries" Australia took in 5,937 people and was ranked second per capita in the world.

But that figure does not refer to all the refugees Australia accepts.

See all the data on how Australia's refugee intake compares with other countries. Refugees resettled: Australia ranks 2nd in terms of the number of refugees it takes through the UN humanitarian program.

Refugees recognised: Australia ranks 32nd in terms of the number of people who are found to be refugees after arriving in Australia seeking asylum.

Total intake: Australia ranks 22nd in terms of its total refugee intake.

Categories of refugees

The Federal Government says Australia's overall refugee intake consists of "offshore resettlement" refugees and "onshore protection" refugees.

The offshore category refers to the refugees Australia takes through the UN humanitarian program. These are people not already in Australia, who have been identified as refugees by the UN and who typically come from refugee camps around the globe.

The onshore category refers to people who are found to be refugees after arriving in Australia seeking asylum.

The refugee council's media release that Ms O'Dwyer's office cites as the source of her information highlights the point that the overall refugee intake consists of both categories. The release says it was issued in response to "political claims and media reports... that Australia takes more refugees per capita than any other nation in the world".

It said this only referred to offshore resettlement.

"While Australia has one of the most generous [offshore] refugee resettlement programs, it is false to then claim that it is more generous in receiving refugees [in total] than any other nation."

The council pointed out that very few refugees are processed via resettlement from other countries.

"Less than one per cent of the world's refugees get access to resettlement in any year, with the bulk of the global protection of refugees being carried out through asylum processes."

Australia's total refugee intake

Australia's total annual intake of refugees in 2012 also included 8,367 people who had come to Australia by boat or plane seeking asylum and were recognised as refugees.

The very next line of the table in the media release that Ms O'Dwyer's office refers to adds the resettled refugees and the recognition refugee numbers together.

It shows that in 2012, Australia took in 14,304 refugees in total and was ranked 22nd in the world on a per capita basis.

The UN data used by the refugee council also shows that in raw numbers, as against per capita rankings, Australia takes a very small fraction of the world's refugees.

The 5,937 refugees resettled in Australia from other countries in 2012 were 6.7 per cent of the global total of 88,578.

The 8,367 asylum seekers recognised onshore as refugees were 0.61 per cent of the global total of 1,361,816.

The combined total refugee intake by Australia of 14,304 was just shy of 1 per cent of the global total of 1,450,394.

The verdict

Ms O'Dwyer is incorrect. She has only counted refugees resettled through the UN humanitarian program, not the combined figure that includes refugees recognised in Australia.

Full data

The information in the following three tables was provided to Fact Check by the Refugee Council of Australia. It draws on official data from the UNHCR to compare Australia with the rest of the world.

Refugees resettled in 2012 by receiving country

Country of asylum or resettlement Resettlement arrivals Rank Per 1,000 people Rank Canada 9,624 2 0.283 1 Australia 5,937 3 0.267 2 Netherlands 429 10 0.260 3 Norway 1,228 5 0.251 4 United States 66,289 1 0.214 5 Sweden 1,873 4 0.200 6 New Zealand 781 7 0.179 7 Finland 731 8 0.136 8 Denmark 476 9 0.086 9 Iceland 9 18 0.028 10 Liechtenstein 1 23 0.028 11 United Kingdom 1,039 6 0.017 12 Ireland 39 14 0.009 13 Germany 307 11 0.004 14 Portugal 27 16 0.003 15 Uruguay 9 19 0.003 16 Spain 80 12 0.002 17 France 62 13 0.001 18

Refugees recognised in 2012 by county of asylum

Country of asylum or resettlement Total recognition Rank Per 1,000 people Rank Lebanon 133,293 3 31.53 1 Jordan 134,412 2 21.72 2 Mauritania 54,045 7 15.62 3 South Sudan 101,448 4 9.84 4 Turkey 318,636 1 4.38 5 Djibouti 3,302 38 3.71 6 Malta 1,427 45 3.42 7 Niger 50,204 8 3.24 8 Burkina Faso 38,379 10 2.33 9 Liberia 8,621 26 2.16 10 Iraq 63,327 6 2.00 11 Uganda 48,733 9 1.46 12 Sweden 13,708 18 1.46 13 Rwanda 15,108 16 1.42 14 Israel 9,710 24 1.31 15 Ethiopia 95,447 5 1.15 16 Norway 5,421 36 1.11 17 Togo 5,966 31 0.99 18 Yemen 23,202 12 0.96 19 Burundi 6,422 30 0.77 20 Austria 5,730 33 0.68 21 Switzerland 4,092 37 0.53 22 Belgium 5,603 34 0.52 23 Liechtenstein 18 114 0.50 24 Chad 5,515 35 0.49 25 Malaysia 13,064 20 0.46 26 Kenya 18,080 13 0.45 27 Afghanistan 13,181 19 0.42 28 Sudan 14,096 17 0.41 29 Gambia 709 52 0.41 30 Ghana 9,196 25 0.38 31 Australia 8,367 28 0.38 32

Refugees recognised and resettled in 2012 by receiving country

Country of asylum or resettlement Refugee recognition and resettlement Rank Per 1000 people Rank Lebanon 133,293 3 31.53 1 Jordan 134,412 2 21.72 2 Mauritania 54,045 8 15.62 3 South Sudan 101,448 4 9.84 4 Turkey 318,636 1 4.38 5 Djibouti 3,302 38 3.71 6 Malta 1,427 46 3.42 7 Niger 50,204 9 3.24 8 Burkina Faso 38,379 11 2.33 9 Liberia 8,621 27 2.16 10 Iraq 63,327 7 2.00 11 Sweden 15,581 17 1.66 12 Uganda 48,733 10 1.46 13 Rwanda 15,108 18 1.42 14 Norway 6,649 30 1.36 15 Israel 9,710 25 1.31 16 Ethiopia 95,447 5 1.15 17 Togo 5,966 33 0.99 18 Yemen 23,202 12 0.96 19 Burundi 6,422 31 0.77 20 Austria 5,730 34 0.68 21 Australia 14,304 19 0.64 22

Sources

Editor's note (February 25, 2014): Kelly O'Dwyer asked us to publish her response to this fact check. You can read it here. It does not change our verdict.

Topics: immigration, government-and-politics, federal-government, liberals, australia

First posted