This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Is it legal for Australia to bomb Syria? Five facts you need to know Read more

Australia will accept an extra 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees and will join US-led airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria within a week.

Tony Abbott – who had come under pressure to boost Australia’s generosity and initially resisted an increase in the overall humanitarian intake – convened a meeting of Liberal and National MPs and senators to inform them of the developments on Wednesday, and confirmed them in a press conference in Canberra shortly afterwards.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, welcomed the refugee announcement and pledged to support the airstrikes, but said he was still seeking assurances from the government and wanted a parliamentary debate on the long-term strategy.

The 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees will be in addition to Australia’s existing humanitarian intake of 13,750.

It will be one-off increase rather than a permanent increase and the refugees are to be granted permanent residency. The focus will be on women, children and families from persecuted minorities.

Abbott confirmed the intake would include Christians, but not exclusively. Some of the prime minister’s colleagues had called for the priority to be Christians, prompting Labor and others to declare that the places should be allocated “on a needs basis, without qualification or discrimination”.

The prime minister said: “There are persecuted minorities that are Muslim, there are persecuted minorities that are non-Muslim, and our focus is on the persecuted minorities who have been displaced and are very unlikely ever to be able to go back to their original homes.”



Poll shows Australians back rise in refugee intake, but criticise Abbott's handling of crisis Read more

The government is also set to provide $44m extra for the UN refugee agency and other agencies, with a focus on assisting the situation in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said the UNHCR had estimated the funding would support about 240,000 people with their urgent needs including shelter kits, clean drinking water, food, support for women and girls. Bishop said the extra assistance was “very timely” ahead of the northern hemisphere winter.

The government has also decided that Australian combat aircraft would join bombing raids in Syria, extending the existing mission beyond the borders of Iraq where the operations are at the invitation of the Iraqi government.



Up to eight strike fighters were authorised to participate in the Iraq airstrikes but only six are being used at present, the Coalition meeting was told. After the extension the chief of the defence force, Mark Binskin, could utilise all eight but did not envisage doing that, the meeting was told.

Binskin said operations could commence “within the week”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Abbott announces the extension of the airstrikes. Link to video

The government has signalled that Australia will seek to justify the legality of the extension by invoking the “collective self-defence of Iraq” against attacks from Isis fighters, who do not respect the border. Abbott emphasised later to reporters the airstrikes would target Isis and not the Assad regime in Syria.



Abbott said the military action was “very much in Australia’s national interest” because Daesh – another term for Isis – posed a threat to the wider world.

“We cannot defeat Daesh in Iraq without defeating Daesh in Syria, too. I emphasise that our aircraft will be targeting Daesh, not the Assad regime, evil though it is.”

The defence minister, Kevin Andrews, said the extension of RAAF flights over eastern Syria was “very much a practical and logical extension of the current operations”.

Asked who he ultimately wanted in power in Syria, Abbott said: “What we want throughout the Middle East is governments that do not commit genocide against their own people, nor permit terrorism against ours.”

He said the Assad regime was “not the kind of government that we could ever support” but Australia’s military operations would not contribute to removing Assad at this time.

Abbott refused to rule out the option of boots on the ground in the future, saying it was “not appropriate to speculate” about “what might happen in the long-term future”.

Coalition party room 'agrees to accept 12,000 refugees' – politics live Read more

Abbott told parliament of the decisions at the beginning of question time. The prime minister said the government was targeting Isis targets in Syria “under section 51 of the UN charter which gives countries the right of collective self-defence”.

In response, Shorten said he wished to advise “that Labor will support this proportional action within international law on the basis of assisting with Iraq’s self-defence”.

The Labor leader said the decision was “not taken lightly” but he added that the methods “must be strategically, legally and morally sound”.

He said Labor was seeking assurances that the operations would be constrained to the collective self-defence of Iraq and limited to halting cross-border attacks and defending Australian personnel. Labor had also sought and received assurances about effective search and rescue plans for Australian personnel.

“Further, the government should formally notify the UN security council of our decision and the government I believe should agree to a parliamentary debate to explain the long-term strategy for Australia’s role in Iraq,” Shorten said.

“We say these things because the swamp of terrorism can never be drained by military means alone.”

Abbott’s pledge to increase assistance in the humanitarian space following calls from state premiers, federal ministers, government backbenchers and other political parties amid community rallies for Australia to do more to help the plight of refugees fleeing the war-torn region. It represents a backflip for Abbott, who as recently as Sunday said the government would stick to its original figure of 13,750.

“We are proposing to take more people from this region as part of our very substantial contribution to the UNHCR,” Abbott during a press conference on Sunday.

Last year, the government announced that refugees from Syria and Iraq would make up a larger chunk of the overall humanitarian intake, rising to 4,500 refugees, or one-third of the overall figure.

The indication from Abbott that the overall refugee intake would not rise caused unrest within the party, with several MPs publicly calling for the prime minister to do more.

One early suggestion was to allow a greater number of Syrian and Iraqi refugees to enter Australia temporarily, under a safe haven system similar to what the former Howard government implemented for Kosovars in 1999.

The 12,000 figure put forward by the government eclipses Labor’s earlier figure of 10,000 permanent resettlement places.

Labor also wanted a funding boost of $100m to international agencies like the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).

At the Coalition party room meeting on Wednesday, several MPs, including Sarah Henderson and Brett Whiteley, thanked the prime minister for listening to the calls for extra assistance.

Another Liberal MP, Craig Laundy, said: “On Friday I asked the prime minister, the foreign minister and the immigration minister simply: could we please do more. Today I simply say, from the bottom of my heart: thank you.”

The government stripped $1m out of the UNHCR at the May federal budget, amounting to 5% of the money Australia gives to the agency. Since then, it has pledged extra funding to the agency to cope with emerging natural and humanitarian disasters.

Abbott, who flies out to Papua New Guinea on Wednesday afternoon to attend the Pacific Islands Forum, will meet with community and religious leaders, including orthodox Christian leaders, on Friday, to discuss Australia’s humanitarian response to the Syrian conflict.

Australia currently has 330 troops in Iraq on a two-year training mission, to help local forces deal with Isis.

Awacs aircraft are being used to assist coalition forces for airdrops and refuelling missions in Iraq, without straying into Syrian airspace.

Abbott indicated in April he would consider extending airstrikes into Syria, saying “no decision” had been made on that.



Australia received a formal request from the US to join the air operation against Isis in Syria late last month.