$180 million cost for extra 500 refugees in five years

WELLINGTON: The Government will spend more than $180 million on supporting and housing an additional 500 refugees over the next five years.

This is on top of the roughly $100 million a year it costs to service the current annual quota of 1000 refugees.

In September, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the Government would lift the annual refugee quota by 500 people to 1500, starting July 2020.

She called the ‘‘significant and historic increase’’ the ‘‘right thing to do’’.

‘‘It fulfils New Zealand’s obligation to do our bit and provide a small number of people, displaced by war and disaster each year, a place to call home.’’

A Cabinet paper written by Immigration Minister IainLees Galloway on the proposed increase, released under the Official Information Act, echoed much of the Prime Minister’s sentiment on the issue.

Although it is not clear which part of world the additional 500 refugees would come from, the Cabinet paper showed half of the 201617 refugee quota came from the AsiaPacific region.

About 22% came from the Americas, and 14% came from the MiddleEast and Africa respectively.

This was despite 44% of all global refugees (630,000) being from Africa. Seven percent (102,000) came from the AsiaPacific region and just 0.3% (4074) came from the Americas.

The paper said the global population of people forcibly displaced had increased by more than 5% over the past 10 years, climbing to a record high of a total of 68.5 million people in 2017.

Mr LeesGalloway said in the paper that increasing New Zealand’s refugee quota would have other benefits for New Zealand as a whole.

These include providing the Government with an opportunity to work with local communities towards a ‘‘common goal, building social cohesion and contributing to economic growth’’.

The paper reveals the full cost of the increase of the annual quota as $182.5 million over five years.

This number included the capital costs of building work required at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, as well as the operating costs for further initiatives to meet housing requirements for the additional refugees. — NZME