South Australia's new Premier says Australia should increase its refugee intake, and has committed his own state to take more people under the federal government's humanitarian program.
Speaking to the National Press Club today, Peter Malinauskas said Australia's planned intake of 13,750 next financial year was paltry compared with the hundreds of thousands of refugees who arrived in Australia after World War II and the Vietnam War.
"We can do a lot better that," he said.
Two of Mr Malinauskas's own grandparents came to Australia from Hungary and Lithuania after World War II.
About 200,000 other refugees arrived in Australia from Europe after the war.
"That period is a golden one in the life of my family and it's a golden one in the life of our nation — a period of recovery and reconstruction," Mr Malinauskas told journalists.
Referring to a Syrian refugee family who spoke to him at the site where he voted in in Adelaide's north-west on the day of the state election last month, he said their contribution would be as "immense" as that of his grandparents and their children.
"We are mad not to bring many, many more people like the Alkhalils here to Australia — good people who love democracy, people who embrace work, people who want to build a nation, people who want to give something back," he said.
"We should follow the nation-building examples set by leaders like Chifley, Fraser and Hawke and show the world our compassion, our commitment to the democratic project by welcoming Afghans and Ukrainians, just as we did those from central Europe post-World War II, the Vietnamese post the fall of Saigon and the Chinese after Tiananmen Square.
"We welcomed these new Australians not because we needed fruit picked or cheap labour but because it is something a confident, proud democracy does.
"We can and must do more."
About 100,000 Vietnamese refugees arrived in Australia from 1973 to 1983.
In the first fortnight of Russia's invasion, about 2.5 million people fled Ukraine.
The UN recently estimated up to 5 million people could be forced to flee.
No number, but current intake 'unambitious'
Mr Malinauskas would not commit to a number that the intake should increase to, but said he had spoken to the South Australian Department of Human Services about the state's capacity to increase its share of refugees "very, very quickly".
"I don't want to put a specific number on it, but I'm very comfortable in asserting that 13,000 in a nation like ours, in a time like these, strikes me as being very unambitious," he said.
"And we're talking about the need for skilled migration to start up again, so we're talking about migration starting up again to achieve an economic objective.
"That's a legitimate debate to be had, but let's not miss out on the opportunity to do something just as powerful and just as great in the humanitarian program."
A South Australian opposition spokesperson said Mr Malinauskas was focused on self-promotion in Canberra on a day the state recorded its highest number of new daily COVID-19 cases.
"Peter Malinauskas says he is doing everything within his power to increase health-system capacity, but one of the first things he does as Premier is jumps on a plane to Canberra to chase the spotlight," the spokesperson said.
"With cases rising, more and more hospitalisations and schools closing, the Premier should be in South Australia addressing these issues as a priority.
"This is a classic case of 'do as I say, not as I do' when it comes to right and wrong priorities."
