Introduction
Hello everyone. My name is John. I hope you will enjoy this presentation. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about how Australia assist refugees by comparing and contrasting how Australia and Canada assist refugees. This is important because it will help to create an understanding of the level of assistance that Australia provide to refugees as compared to Canada. It will also help to understand the importance of helping refugees. The rising numbers of refugees who require humanitarian assistance have significantly increased causing big challenges to the host countries such as Australia and Canada. This has put a lot of pressure to the host countries pushing them to provide assistance most precisely humanitarian assistance to them. Responses have been made to the challenges caused by the arrival of a big number of refugees by adopting various approaches to providing humanitarian assistance to the refugees. Australia also has put some efforts to assist the refugees arriving at the country. (Fozdar & Banki, 2017). In this speech, I am going to compare and contrast the manner in which Australia and Canada assist the refugees. I will discuss about the policies and programs, economic, social and humanitarian services provided to assist refugees.
Similarities
Firstly, Australia shows some similarity with Canada in their efforts to assist refugees by acting as a generous refugee resettlement country for a long time. Both Australia and Canada use offshore refugees’ resettlement method. Australia has a high per capita settlement for refugees like Canada. The immigration section, as well as the control system implemented in Australia, shows a number of similarities with other those adopted by Canada. Moreover, just like Canada, the Australian government has put in place an immigration program into its policies aimed at assisting refugees (Karlsen, 2016). They both employ a hybrid system encompassing a particular numerical overall target for resettlement and offering other humanitarian assistance to the refugees. The Canadian humanitarian and refugee program and Australian humanitarian and refugee program provides frameworks and procedures for assisting refugees. This has helped in protecting refugees and ensuring their wellbeing.
Secondly, the Australian government’ assistance to the refugees portrays some similarities with that of Canada by undertaking community orientation for the refugees resettled within the country. This include services such as providing refugees with access and right to obtain health, safety and emergency services, introducing the refugees to the community they have been settled in order to adapt and fit in with the Australia society (Roberts, 2017). The programs in both countries also assists the refugees by explaining to them more details about the public transportation available in the country that they can use, it also explains to them about the education and healthcare system available in the country. Most importantly, it is essential for refugees to know the laws and customs in the host county, therefore, the programs in both Australia and Canada help to explain the laws and customs in the country that helps them to fit into the society without getting in trouble with the laws in the country.
Thirdly, Canada assists refugees to start up their lives after settling. The Canadian government offers refugees some monthly funds to support them. They are also provided with basic needs such as food and clothing. Australia too provides this type of assistance to its refugees who are unable to pay for their basic needs. Therefore, under the Australian humanitarian and refugee program, the refugees are offered assistance in the form of one-time household start-up allowance to reinforce their lives and also offer them monthly payment for support and upkeep (Fozdar & Banki, 2017). Both Canada and Australia consider refugee as needy and need support to start up their lives therefore, they provide them with both financial support and basic needs. Generally, in both countries the amount of financial support provided on a monthly basis varies with the location in which the refugees have been settled. To add on it, in some instances, the financial support can even last up to a year after the arrival of the refugees to the country or till the refugees are capable of supporting themselves.
Differences
Finally, there are some differences in the humanitarian program in Australia and those implemented in Canada. Canada has adopted a bureaucratic dominance in policymaking thus providing permanent settlement to refugees. Australia, on the other hand, adopts a pluralistic process making it open to external influences from public pressures, therefore, leading to the provision of temporary settlement to the refugees (Roberts, 2017). The Australian government have a tendency of assisting refugees more often by resettling most refugees offshore and a few refugees onshore.
Another difference is notable in the approach used in the resettlement of refugees. The approach used by Australia in resettling and protecting refugees is humanitarian. This program protects refugees by granting them a permanent Visa if only they meet the health and character requirements. Australia also assists refugees by offering them offshore resettlements under two forms of offshore resettlement proving permanent visa which are the refugee category subjected to persecution within their home country and also the special humanitarian program which assists people outside their home country. While on the other hand, Canada uses the bureaucracy approach (Karlsen, 2016). Although it offers offshore resettlement to refugees it only provides temporary visas and only assist refugees for a limited time.
Conclusion
To sum it all, this topic is very important in creating an understanding on how Australia assist refugees as well as the significance of assisting refugees. In essence, it is certain that both Canada and Australia is a generous countries in assisting refugees. Australia has more similarities with Canada. Just like Canada, Australia has implemented the Australian humanitarian and refugee program to resettle, protect and provide fundamental basic services to refugees. Both having being classified as generous countries, they have been able to accept a lot of refugees and support them by providing them with basic needs. Australia also has different approaches of assisting refugees such as using the pluralistic process geared towards providing temporary settlement for the refugees while Canada uses the bureaucratic process which provides permanent settlement for refugees. I would recommend that Australia can adopted better approaches such as the bureaucratic approach which Canada uses so as to be able to support refugees adequately.