Increase the religious refugee quota

#964 for broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 21 Sep 2014.

With the number of displaced persons around the world topping 51 million, the highest since World War II, there are fresh calls for Australia to increase its refugee intake to accommodate some of the hundreds of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities fleeing religiously-based terror in Syria and Iraq.

The Australian Christian Lobby has supported Liberal Member for Longman Wyatt Roy’s call for a doubling of Australia’s humanitarian intake.

ACL managing director Lyle Shelton said the Abbott government deserved credit for stopping people smuggling, halting the deaths at sea and removing children from detention.

But he said

the problem of 51 million displaced people in the world is massive and has been further exacerbated by the persecution of hundreds of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities in Syria and Iraq …

Extraordinary brutality requires extraordinary generosity and Australia, as a relatively wealthy nation, is well-placed to do more.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.