After being in Australia for a few days for public talks in Sydney and Melbourne as part of the Women World Changers series, Ms Yousafzai said she loved Australia, cricket and the Australian cricket team. On Thursday, she was planning to meet young refugee students in Sydney. In Melbourne, she sought out Indigenous archaeologist, Maddison Miller, to better understand Australia's history and culture. Malala Yousafzai in Sydney. Credit:Louise Kennerley "Australia is a welcoming and warm country. And when you look at the immigration policies, they do not actually represent the people of Australia," she said. "[Refugees] want safety, they want homes, they want somebody to give them protection, and then suddenly you welcome them with hatred," she said. "You do not even allow them to land or step their feet on Australia," she said referring to the offshore processing of asylum seekers. "So I think it is disappointing and I hope that the people of Australia do stand up for refugees and show their true human-side."

Her comments come as the government continues to grapple with the fate of the last of the asylum seekers who were sent to detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island by the then Labor government more than five years ago. Many are ill, others are in dire mental health, say doctors. Loading Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a week ago that he had moved more than 100 children from Nauru to Australia in the past three months. Only 10 minors remain on the island, and four were expected to be re-settled soon in the United States. Ms Yousafzai recalled her own experience when her family fled Taliban rule and left the Swat Valley in Pakistan, going from one home to another, from family to friends to strangers who opened their homes to the family. She recalled packing in a hurry, grabbing shoes, dresses, trousers. Things that didn't match, she recalled. "I did want to take my school bag because I said, you know, I want to at least do my revision," said Ms Yousafzai. She is in Sydney to promote her fund to educate 130 million girls not in school.

Ms Yousafzai said it was disappointing to see how affluent countries like Australia, the United States and those in Europe could be less welcoming than many poorer nations, including Lebanon, Jordan, Kenya, Rwanda and including in Pakistan. [Refugees] want safety, they want homes, they want somebody to give them protection, and then suddenly you welcome them with hatred. You do not even allow them to land or step their feet on Australia Malala Yousafzai Pakistan had hosted refugees from Afghanistan for four decades now, she said, and had taken in millions of people. Malala speaking in Sydney on Monday night Credit:Wolter Peeters "We have always had this idea that hospitality is part of our culture, and if somebody has lost their homes no matter where they're coming from and what was the reason ... your job as a human is to welcome them, and to support them, and to open your homes and open your hearts as well.

"So that is missing, because you feel like developed countries, like the United States, like Australia, like the European countries, they have bigger economies. They have infrastructure. They have so many facilities and they are quite rich countries. You would hope that they would be showing a bit more of a positive response towards refugees." Loading Ms Yousafzai's book includes her own experience. After she was shot in the head by the Taliban, in retaliation for talking out about the Taliban's edict banning girls from going to school, she was moved to a hospital in Birmingham. Her family relocated to the United Kingdom. And for six years, she was unable to return home. We Are Displaced features the stories of young female refugees from Colombia, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and around the world — many of whom Ms Yousafzai has met through her campaign for girls’ education. Now at Oxford University in England, she said her cricket loyalties were now being challenged. While Pakistan was always first for her when it came to cricket, her school friends were urging her to next barrack for England instead of Australia in the Ashes, she said.