MEDIA RELEASE: Asylum Seekers Centre condemns reported cut to Australia’s humanitarian intake

The Asylum Seekers Centre has condemned reported plans to cut Australia’s annual humanitarian intake by a third, calling it a broken promise and a betrayal of the compassionate and humane system the Albanese Government promised to deliver for refugees and people seeking asylum when they first entered office.

Media reports suggest that the Government will reduce the humanitarian program from 20,000 places to 13,750 in the next financial year – a cut of 6,250 places, returning the program to the figure both major parties have long treated as the baseline, and to where it sat before this Government took office. The decision has not been announced publicly. 

The reduction reverses the increases the Government made after taking office in 2022, which were announced at the time as Australia stepped up to play its part in the global resettlement effort. It also abandons a commitment, made repeatedly in Labor’s national platform, to work towards 27,000 places.

The Asylum Seekers Centre warned against this outcome in its submission to the Government’s Humanitarian Program 2026-27 consultation, which rejected any future cuts to a program it described as already limited.

Asylum Seekers Centre CEO and former refugee Elijah Buol OAM said:

“These plans would be a betrayal of Australia’s humanitarian promise. Our country has always been at its best when it offers safety to people who have lost everything. Cutting the humanitarian program by a third sends a message that Australia is no longer the kind of nation that offers a hand of support to those in need. 

“Once again the Albanese Government has promised compassion on the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum and delivered cruelty. Only last month, the Labor Party reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining 20,000 humanitarian places at its conference in Adelaide.

“Over the last decade, the entire refugee and humanitarian program has accounted for just a small percentage of Australia’s net overseas migration. 

“Reducing the refugee intake will make almost no difference to a net migration figure in the hundreds of thousands, but it will make every difference to the people cut out. Every humanitarian place Australia removes is a real human life. It is a family who stays in a camp, a woman who remains in danger, a child who does not get to grow up in safety. That is what those 6,250 fewer places mean.

“Australia can have a serious conversation about migration without putting refugee protection on the table. Humanitarian needs continue to hover at historically unprecedented levels, and yet this is the moment the Government has reportedly chosen to do less.

“Fairness is not something Australia should only live by when it is convenient. Offering protection to people fleeing war and persecution is something this country has done every year for decades – it is part of who we are, and we are a stronger country for it. This decision takes us away from that.

“We call on the Government to rethink this decision, maintain the humanitarian program at 20,000 places, and continue to build a more compassionate and humane system for refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia, as they originally promised to do.”

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