Letter to Senator Keneally re Afghan Refugee Crisis

Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021
To: 'Keneally, Kristina (Senator)' <Senator.Keneally@aph.gov.au>
Subject: RE: Afghan refugees

 

For the attention of Nav, Office of Senator Keneally.

 

Thank you for your response to my recent email. I am encouraged by the first paragraph in your response. Family reunion is an important priority in UNHCR’s work, and it is a matter of record that the Coalition government has deliberately given a low priority to this group of refugees. I hope that the Labor opposition will exert maximum pressure on the government to prioritise  family reunion for Afghan refugees living in Australia.

Your assertion that the  Afghan refugee crisis can be resolved through the existing humanitarian programme is  deeply dispiriting. The Coalition government has already reduced the number of places by 5,000 in recent times. The fact that there are currently some 5,000 unused places in the programme is entirely a result of the COVID pandemic, which has prevented refugees who had already been approved by UNHCR for resettlement in Australia, and who had been accepted by our government, from travelling here. You must be well aware of this.  What the government has proposed, and what the Labor opposition is clearly supporting, is that these people, who were expecting to be resettled in Australia, will now be knocked back in order to accommodate refugees from Afghanistan.

I asked the question, in an earlier email: “Does the Labor party support a one-off allocation of 20,000 humanitarian visas for Afghan refugees?”

The answer, quite clearly, is a resounding: “ No!”

That’s very depressing.

M.G.

Reply to letter re Afghan refugees by Pat Conaghan M.P.

 

From: Conaghan, Pat (MP) <Pat.Conaghan.MP@aph.gov.au>

Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2021 2:01 PM
To: M. G.
Subject: RE: Afghanistan

 

Dear Mr G,

 

Thanks for your email.

 

The situation in Afghanistan continues to be volatile and dangerous.

 

Our top priority is the safe departure of Australian citizens and visa holders, including Afghan former locally engaged employees. We continue to work with our friends and partners to support one another’s evacuation operations.

 

Since 18 August, we have supported the evacuation of about 2,450 people from Kabul, including Australian and New Zealand nationals, visa holders and foreign nationals including British, US and a Fijian. Four more flights airlifted evacuees on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning (AEST) with more than 750 people. We have had three charter planes from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) into Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide that have returned 419 people to Australia.

 

Our consular officials are using every means possible to assist Australian citizens and visa holders – phoning and emailing directly as well as providing regular updates on the Government’s Smartraveller website.

 

Access to Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) continues to be very challenging, but we do have a significant presence on the ground at the airport. We are encouraging Australian citizens, Permanent Residents and Australian visa-holders to go to HKIA, if it’s safe to do so. We will do everything we can in the time we have to get as many people out as safely as possible.

 

There is a discussion going on about the prospect of US extending its withdrawal deadline and we are part of those discussions and we are absolutely ready to support a continuing operation at HKIA.

 

Every visa applicant who does not meet the criteria of the category of at-risk employees now has their application forwarded automatically to the Department of Home Affairs to be automatically considered under another humanitarian stream. This process has already resulted in hundreds of other visas being granted to those who are ineligible for the special category.

 

The Australian Government has announced that an initial 3,000 humanitarian places will be allocated to Afghan nationals within Australia’s overall annual humanitarian program. The Government anticipates this initial allocation will increase over the course of this year, giving first priority to Afghan nationals within the offshore humanitarian program and affording them visa processing priority in the year ahead.

 

While I fully support this, I believe we can and should resettle more Afghan nationals as part of our humanitarian program. I will be urging my Parliamentary colleagues to join me in advocating for a minimum of 10,000 additional places in response to this crisis. Australia is consistently one of the world’s most generous humanitarian resettlement countries and I believe this is an opportunity to provide greater levels of support for Afghani people at risk from the Taliban.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

PAT CONAGHAN MP

Federal Member for Cowper

Letter to Minister Andrews re: Afghanistan

Subject: Afghanistan

Dear Minister Andrews,

Like everyone else, I have watched the TV footage of the chaos in Kabul with deep dismay. The spectacle of seeing thousands of people fleeing for their lives is truly shocking.

As one of the countries which has had a military presence in the country for the past twenty years, we  surely have a moral responsibility to help those who now are begging for our assistance. In previous crises, the Australian government has shown compassion and generosity in making additional humanitarian places available to refugees from Vietnam and Syria. It was, therefore, deeply disappointing to hear the Prime Minister tell the nation that we would accept just 3,000 refugees from Afghanistan, and, disgracefully, that these places would come out of our already much-reduced humanitarian intake. This is an utterly inadequate response.

Afghanistan is now in turmoil, and Kabul is not a safe place, particularly for girls and women nor for the thousands of Afghans who, for the past two decades, have assisted the coalition forces in a range of activities. There should be no question of ever sending any of the several thousand Afghans currently living in Australia on TPVs back to Afghanistan against their will.

I therefore urge you and your government to urgently:

• ensure the safety of refugees from Afghanistan in Australia by providing them with permanent protection visas so that they can remain here safely.
• increase the humanitarian visa quota with a generous one-off intake for the people in Afghanistan in the most danger.
• provide a pathway for refugees from Afghanistan to apply to reunite with their families in Australia.

This is NOT the time to be warning darkly about people smugglers or people drowning at sea. The government solved that problem seven years ago, and it’s time to move on.

I look forward to your early response to this most urgent crisis.

Yours sincerely,

M... G.

Valla Beach

NSW