Australia takes the most refugees since start of humanitarian program

Source: The Guardian, 10/02/2018

Demonstrators call for refugees to be welcomed to Australia. The
country accepted more than 24,000 refugees on the humanitarian
program in 2016-17.
More than 24,000 humanitarian arrivals settled in past financial
year, including special intake of Syrian and Iraqi refugees
Australia accepted more refugees to its shores last year than any
year since it began a dedicated humanitarian migration program.
New statistics from the Department of Immigration and Border
Protection ��` now part of the home affairs portfolio ��` revealed
24,162
humanitarian arrivals settled in Australia last financial year. That
figure includes Australia’s annual humanitarian program, and refugees
arriving as part of the special intake of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
The previous highest intake, according to figures from the
parliamentary library, was under the government of Malcolm Fraser,
when 22,545 refugees arrived in 1980-81.
The method by which humanitarian entrants to Australia are counted by
government has changed over decades.
But figures show that, outside of a significant spike in the early
1980s, a steady trend upwards from the low tens of thousands each
year. There were also spikes in the mid-1990s, and under the Gillard
government in 2012.
But 2016-17 was the highest year on record. The intake of 24,162 was
part of a far-larger and broader migration program. Last financial
year, there were 225,941 permanent additions to the Australian
population.
About 92,000 of those people were already in the country, and were
moving from temporary visas, like student visas, to permanent
visas;and 133,000 were new people arriving in to live.
Measuring historical migration flows is an imperfect science, as
methods of arrivals and categorisations have changed over the years.
In the wake of the massive displacement caused by the second world
war, there were sustained movements of millions of people across the
globe.
Between 1947 and 1975, an estimated 297,000 refugees came to
Australia, the majority of whom were assisted by the government.
The Refugees Convention which legally defines a refugee, was written
1951. Australia became a party to the treaty in 1954. In 1977 the
Fraser government established a formal humanitarian stream to
Australia’s migration program.
But the mass movement of people across the globe is now at record
numbers. The UN refugee agency says there are 65.6 million people
displaced around the world, internally in their own country and
externally. Of those 22.5 million are refugees, outside their country
of origin.
Some 84% of the world’s refugees are hosted by developing countries,
the majority in nations adjacent to the places refugees have fled
from. Turkey is hosting more than 2.7 million refugees, while Lebanon
and Pakistan have more than one million living inside their borders.
Third-country resettlement, the type of which brings refugees to
Australia, accounts for only a tiny fraction of the world’s refugee
population. Fewer than 1% of the world’s refugees are resettled in
any year.