Meeting with Premier Baird and Refugee Family as part of 12,000 special intake
E&OE
PREMIER BAIRD:
I firstly want to congratulate the Minister for the work he’s doing in this area, and also to Peter Shergold, who is helping to coordinate it. In particular we have some new friends here and I want to welcome them to this great state. I had a bit to say (inaudible). A beautiful family with a story that not many of us could really in any way relate to. But through incredible circumstances they find themselves here with an opportunity to create a new life with their beautiful family. We’re certainly proud to do that and we look forward to their life evolving here in NSW in the coming weeks, months and years. Certainly I add, as an art teacher, from his home is certainly welcomed as he looks to create a career here in NSW. So I want to welcome them and obviously we have already to this date, I think about 80 refugees of the intake have come here into NSW and this is obviously a family that represents the human face, the human story of what this refugee intake is all about. I’ll ask the Minister to say a few words, then Peter, then Ayad might make a statement on behalf of his family.
MINISTER PORTER:
Premier, thank you very much, and thank you for the invitation to be here today. Welcoming a family is a very pleasant task. The last family that I welcomed was in Perth on Australia Day and perhaps this is just an opportunity to give you, and I won’t speak for long, a very brief update as to where we’re at with the numbers in this pipeline of arrivals for the special 12,000 Syrian cohort.
The last family that I welcomed was in Perth on Australia Day. I think we were at about 26 arrivals at that point in time, and we didn’t know that the pipeline of arrivals was slower than we had estimated. That was in large, if not exclusive part due to the on the ground conditions that we were experiencing and the rigour with which we undertake health and security and other relevant checks was simply taking longer than we expected. As of today, and welcoming yet another family here in NSW, as of today, that number had progressed to 124 who have arrived or imminent arrivals in the next day or two. Ninety in NSW – and as the Premier has noted, NSW is an enormous contributor to the way in which we resettle this Syrian 12,000 cohort and we are very grateful, the Commonwealth, for New South Wales enormous participation in that respect.
I can also note for you that outside of Australia, 9,000 of a potential 12,000 are under active assessment as we speak. That’s not to say that they’re imminent arrivals, this will take a year and indeed a number of years to see through to that 12,000 point. But 9,000 are under active consideration at the moment. So while it has been a slow start, it is starting to accelerate and the processes are stringent, cautious and necessarily by virtue of that, somewhat slower than expected. But again, I’d like to welcome the family. We of course have an art teacher here today who saw his first Sidney Nolan today, so that’s not too bad. So there you go.
PETER SHERGOLD:
I’m Peter Shergold, the Coordinator-General of refugee resettlement in New South Wales. For me Premier, Minister, this is a very exciting day. When you think of Coordinator-General you realise that one of the roles is to make sure that all the State Government agencies and as a bureaucracy work together and work well with the Commonwealth Government. And that is happening. But the exciting part in the role that the Premier has given me, making sure we coordinate the whole, the whole of the New South Wales community. So we’ve got every New South Wales University on the case offering scholarships and opportunity for refugees. We’ve got businesses who are providing mentoring and work experience and job opportunities. We’ve got wonderful community organisations like Settlement Services International who are working with Department of Premier and Cabinet to look for the gaps and how we can improve refugee services. Not just for these additional refugees, but for all refugees. And best of all it is very clear that the community as a whole is responding. So we set up an I Can Help and Hope website. And hundreds, hundreds of people in New South Wales, individuals and families are now offering support. And as they see the stories play out, as we’re seeing today, there will be hundreds more willing to do the same. Thanks Premier for this opportunity, thank you Minister -(inaudible).
Minister Porter:
I think that the family are happy to take a few questions – they will obviously be using an interpreter.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
FATHER THROUGH INTERPRETER:
Thank you very much for this Minister Porter and Mr Premier Mike Baird for welcoming me and my family to Australia. Thank you very much also for welcoming other families who escape their country. We are very happy to be in Australia and we are looking forward to build a new life in Australia. We are looking forward to leave our past behind, and we are looking forward also to open a new page, a new blank page of our live and build a new life in our country – this new country Australia. At the beginning we need to learn this country’s language, which is English. We want to know this language; we want to know how those people are talking in order to integrate with Australia and the wider community. We are also looking forward to enrol our kids at school, in order for them to continue their education with their friends and brothers of Australian students. I am looking forward to secure a job in this country, because I want to improve my life, I want to improve my family’s life, and also I want to participate and contribute in the building of this country.
Since arrival in Australia we got, we received, good support from Settlement Services International in regards to our settlement issues, especially from our case manager Nadia which we have all respect for. They felt us very welcome, and they respond to our needs and they answer to all our questions. I want to thank Australia, and it’s Government for accepting me and my family to live in this country, Australia. We have very good, very old, civilisation and heritage in Iraq, and we want to transfer, or we want to give this information to the Australian community. Also Australia has a very good culture, and I want to learn about it, and we want to participate in this country. We are, it’s our honour to be Australian citizen, Australian supportive citizen to participate in the building of this country. Thank you very much.
PREMIER BAIRD:
We’ll take questions on this issue.
JOURNALIST:
This might be a question for the Minister, rather than the Premier. So since December Canada has accepted 26,000 refugees. Why is the process so slow here?
MINISTER PORTER:
The process is slow and we don’t make any apologies for that. There are other relevant international comparisons and the process in the United States is also of a similar speed and scale to ours here. But the answer to your question is that the level of rigour that we undertake with respect to security checks, health checks, background checks which in many instances in the Australia system involve things as complicated as biometrics, is a slow process but it is a particularly awkward process given the on the ground conditions, the real world conditions that we are experiencing. So this policy is first and foremost about compassion, but part of the process is about caution and the two are running simultaneously together. So it has been slow we don’t make apologies for that but as I have noted this is the start of the process and there will be an acceleration that you’ll see over the next several months.
JOURNALIST:
So are Canada’s security checks are less rigorous than ours?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well I’m not commenting on Canada’s security checks, but what I would put in to you is that to have the level of rigour that we think is absolutely necessary here, this is as quick as we can possible do.
JOURNALIST:
But also in Canada they a programme, a community based programme where people can go on and sponsor a Syrian family. It’s quite a significant number – 26,000 since December. Is that something the government is thinking about?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well in actual fact here because of the fact that we have looked at particularly with this 12,000 strong cohort, persecuted minorities which often involve persecution (inaudible) religious basis. Many of that 12,000 end up as part of a sponsored process as opposed to the general 13,750 intake which more often than not as a minority are a non-sponsored process. In Australia that sponsored process actually adds time onto the processing. So I can’t speak into the Canadian process of domestic sponsoring of refugees, but here that adds another layer of complication and that’s a layer of complication that adds particularly to this 12,000 strong cohort.
JOURNALIST:
How long has the process to get this family here taken?
MINISTER PORTER:
Look I can’t answer that with respect to individual cases and I doubt that we’d offer that information up. But each case –
JOURNALIST:
Sorry – how long has it taken to organise the resettlement of this family?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well not from effect, start to finish and then part of that is outside my portfolio with immigration and not matters that I receive day to day briefings on. But in each instance the period of time will be different and indeed it will be measured from a different starting point. Because depending on whether or not you were assessed in a refugee camp or whether you are assessed at a home point depends on when you start.
JOURNALIST:
Would it be possible to ask the family –
MINISTER PORTER:
I think that you can certainly ask about –
JOURNALIST:
I was just wondering out of that cohort, the 130 that have come in…
PREMIER BAIRD:
124
JOURNALIST:
What is the religion of those people that have come here?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well it is a mixture, but there are persecuted minorities including Christians inside of that 124. But again, I don’t have that figure in front of me.
JOURNALIST:
And Muslims and Christians in that –
MINISTER PORTER:
There’s a mixture of all religions, but there has been heavy focus on looking at persecuted minorities and as you would imagine more often than not that involves Christian minorities in Syria and of course Iraq. But I think if you’d like to ask a question through the interpreter about the individual experience here –
JOURNALIST:
Is it possible to get the family to just explain how long this process has taken from the time they first decided they wished to leave and how difficult the process has been for them, or easy?
FATHER THROUGH INTERPRETER:
We left Iraq on 15th of July 2014 and we arrived in Sydney, Australia on 15th March 2016. And during this period we passed through very hard situation, we passed through very hard and very difficult situation in the third country. It was very difficult life and we experienced very difficult life in that country.
JOURNALIST:
Could you ask them what they like? They haven’t been here long but what they like about Australia, so far, Sydney?
FATHER THROUGH INTERPRETER:
I have been here since about five days ago and since then I don’t know how to go outside because I may get lost. But I don’t know when we are commencing process for registration, paperwork in this issue. He can not answer
JOURNALIST:
Tell him the weather is normally better.
FATHER THROUGH INTERPRETER:
It will be very good for him.
JOURNALIST:
Can I ask a question. Is there any greater example that I suppose fear mongering that sort of thing that goes along with refugee intake, doesn’t apply in every case?
PREMIER BAIRD:
I think what’s important here is understand the stories. Look at this picture, a beautiful young family, been through circumstances none of us could imagine. I mean we heard that from the middle of 2014 until just a few days ago they were in places and in situations where none of us could really imagine and I think as we understand some of the stories and I heard a little of them earlier on, you really start to appreciate how lucky we are here. We have such an incredible country and we should be doing everything we can to celebrate it. Not everyone is as lucky. Some people in desperate circumstances, we can share part of it. I think it’s an inspiring story and it puts a face to a big part of this debate.