THE cost of supporting more
than 40,000 asylum seekers expected to be in Australia next financial year is
set to average more than $70,000 for each arrival, plus support services.
A new break-down of
costs this year show taxpayers have spent $1.5 billion maintaining the
detention network amid record arrivals which are approaching 22,500 this
financial year, reported news limited.
Supporting almost 13,000
asylum seekers in the community whose asylum claims haven't been processed has
cost $265 million for just 10 months.
The cost includes $131
million to support asylum seekers on Bridging Visas who are prevented from
working and who are also paid equivalent welfare payments each fortnight.
“It is not just a simple
issue of immigration, it is about a fair go and equity”
Renting homes and furnishing
them has cost $18 million this financial year. Parliamentary budget Estimates
committee this week also show charities are accepting hundreds of millions of
dollars to care for asylum seekers.
Red Cross has been paid over $603 million for 26 months' work
helping asylum seekers in the Australian community and almost $75 million has
been given to the Salvation Army for welfare and support services in Nauru and
Manus Island and $8 million has gone to Save the Children.
By July there is expected to be almost 27,000 asylum seekers in
the system with 13,200 expected to arrive in the 2013-14 financial year alone,
if measures to address the issue remain on the back burner.
The asylum budget of
almost $2.9 billion next financial year works out an average of just over
$71,000 per person for a year based on just over 40,000 expected to be at
various stages of having their claims processed, the advertiser reported today.
It comes as new figures
show people from 33 countries have come to Australia by boat this year,
including an unprecedented flow from Africa, 270 Sudanese and Somali have
arrived along with people from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Gambia, Congo, Mali and
Algeria.
The issue of illegal immigration in the most has been used as a
political tool, compassion is lacking and the system is obviously broken, says
Mark Aldridge Independent for Wakefield.
“We have a obligation to
help those in need, but that must include struggling Australian’s as a primary
concern.”
Border security should never become that watered down that we
appear to have an open policy and infrastructure and essential services must
take their place in this long overdue debate.
We must all demand answers from our political candidates,
especially with a federal election only months away, “so many are struggling to
make ends meet” as it is, so this problem affects every one of us.
Mark M Aldridge
Independent Federal Candidate for Wakefield