NZ’s refugee quota should be raised
As a member of the United Nations, New Zealand has certain obligations and responsibilities to other countries in the world.
One responsibility is to give refugees a home.
A refugee is a person who is no longer able to live in their country of citizenship due to well-founded grounds. For example, a fear of persecution in their homeland for a number of reasons; their religion, gender, ethnicity or political views.
These people are unable to live in their home country and New Zealand should be an option.
New Zealand accepts 750 refugees a year compared to our 4.4 million population.
New Zealand should be ashamed of the low numbers of accepted refugees entering the country. The annual allowable refugee intake figure has not changed in nearly 30 years.
War and unrest continues to occur often in various parts of the world and millions of people find themselves in need of a home other than their country of citizenship every year.
Prime Minister John Key has taken more notice of the global refugee situation in that last year and he has committed to taking in 600 extra Syrian refugees over the next two-and-a-half years.
Recently, Key has said that ‘‘the three yearly review of the quota was currently underway’’ while still refraining from stating the actual numbers of people we would be bringing in.
My policy is to raise this quota – not just to 1000, but 2000 people per year.
We are still the ‘‘87th country in the world when it comes to accepting refugees per head of population’’.
This aim is important during the quota review stage as we have the platform to voice our concerns on the low numbers of refugee intake.
Admittedly, there will need to be more money spent in order to make sure these people have available homes but the Government is constantly upsizing, making more land available for settlement purposes by expanding cities and building more houses.
The refugees are the people who would benefit heavily from New Zealand privileges and would appreciate their new circumstance more than a typical migrant might, because these people are being saved from unsafe situations.
New Zealand would gain in reputation and workforce, seeing as we are setting the refugees up with the chance to succeed.
Their situations are purely coincidental and they deserve the chance to live like the rest of us do.
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