Opposition plan to increase refugee intake a "betrayal of priorities": Aussie PM
CANBERRA, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed that the Opposition's plan to increase the nation's refugee intake will cost the country billions of dollars.
Morrison on Friday told News Corp Australia that the Australian Labor Party (ALP)'s proposal to lift the annual humanitarian refugee intake from 18,750 to 32,000 by 2025 as a "betrayal of priorities", saying taxpayers would be paying for it for decades.
According to an analysis by the Department of Finance, under the ALP plan, the cost of managing new entrants to the country would rise from 624 million Australian dollars (437.5 million U.S. dollars) currently to 4.3 billion Australian dollars (3.02 billion U.S. dollars) annually by 2028-29.
Bill Shorten, leader of the ALP, has described the policy as "compassionate and sustainable" but Morrison on Friday attacked it as an example of Labor's inability to manage the economy.
"There is no policy argument to increase the intake when we are already facing strong population pressures and, secondly, when our existing program, while the best in the world, still has challenges in getting people settled and into work," he said.
However, the Department of Finance costings are not in line with those produced by the ALP in the lead-up to the 2016 general election, which found that increasing the refugee intake to 27,000 every year would cost 2.8 billion Australian dollars (1.96 billion U.S. dollars) per year by 2026.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann argued that the money would be better spent on domestic issues such as supporting farmers hit by drought.
"Australia is already one of the most generous countries on earth when it comes to welcoming genuine refugees and indeed migrants from all corners of the world," he told News Corp.
"At the same time, they are blocking our 3.9 billion Australian dollars (2.73 billion U.S. dollars) Drought Future Fund to support drought-affected communities across Australia," Cormann said.
