Federal Budget 2025: Last chance for government to make good on election promises for people seeking asylum
This Federal Budget is a final opportunity for the Albanese government to make good on its election promise to ensure… Read More
The 2025-26 Federal Budget has been handed down and the disparity between $20 million in financial support for people seeking asylum and $581 million for offshore detention in the federal budget shows Labor continues to invest in upholding a cruel system.
Here’s what the government’s pre-election budget means for people seeking asylum and refugees.
No safety net
In its 2021 pre-election platform, Labor committed to ensuring people seeking asylum have access to appropriate social services, including income, crisis housing, and healthcare.
People seeking asylum are living in our community with no safety net – no Centrelink, no housing support, limited work rights, and fluctuating Medicare access. Instead, very few are eligible for the flawed and dwindling Status Resolution Support Services (SRSS) program while they are awaiting their refugee status decision.
Despite its promise to reinstate a safety net, in the final budget of its term, the Albanese government has committed just $20 million for ‘asylum seeker support’ – a 95 per cent decrease from $369.7m in 2016-17.
This comes as the Asylum Seekers Centre has seen a 34 per cent increase in referrals for support compared to the same period last year as the cost of living crisis and structural dismantling of a safety net collide to create a rapidly escalating poverty crisis for people seeking asylum.
Hundreds of millions for cruelty
The government has allocated $1.37 billion on immigration detention and compliance, up from the $1.27 billion spent this year. Meanwhile, the cruel offshore detention regime will continue to be funded to the tune of $581 million. This takes the total funding for offshore processing since the policy was reintroduced in 2012 to $13.35 billion.
The Budget also included an undisclosed amount of funding to deport and resettle members of the NZYQ cohort in Nauru, an agreement that sets dangerous new precedents and is out of step with human rights standards and Australia’s obligations under international law.
Earlier this year, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that Australia has a responsibility for the arbitrary detention of people seeking asylum transferred to Nauru. It is time for this dark chapter in Australian immigration policy to come to an end.
No increase to humanitarian intake
In its 2021 pre-election platform, Labor pledged to increase the humanitarian intake to 27,000 people per year, with 10,000 additional places for community sponsorship and other complementary pathways.
This promise has been discarded in the budget, with the Refugee and Humanitarian Program set to remain at 20,000 places in 2025-26, the level set in 2023-24.
A previous announcement that the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot (CRISP) will now be made a permanent part of Australia’s humanitarian migration program with 200 places has seen funding of $3.5 million over three years from 2026-27. However, these places will come from the overall Refugee and Humanitarian Program, where they should be additional.
Overall, we’ve seen election promises discarded and a government tinkering at the edges as yet another federal budget neglects people already falling between the cracks.
