::Politics & Humanity - Australia's Refugee/Asylum Seeker Debate Got this email from the inimitable Ross Farley (who I work with at Tear Australia). He does what I do in that he takes two bits of information that you may not normally put together, and then he puts them together with dramatic/sarcastic/deadpan yet so painfully obvious kind of way that it makes us squirm at our own stupidity and inhumanity. Thanks Ross!

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Hi,
There is lots of public discussion about asylum seekers so I thought I would get up to date on the current statistics. Then I thought I may as well pass on this information. So here is what I discovered.

_1. Refugees_

* There are currently about 10.5 million refugees in the world.

* The UNHCR has a resettlement program that finds new countries for
refugees. Various countries allocate the number of refugees they
are willing to take every year. (Australia has recently increased
its allocation to 13,500 places.) Unfortunately the total number
of places made available to the UNHCR for refugee resettlement is
only 76,740 per year.

* Many argue that all refugees should apply to the UNHCR and wait
for processing. It is a matter of simple arithmatic that they
would have to wait an average of 136 years to be resettled. (10.5
million refugees divided by 76,740 places) That is a very long
queue. (That figure of 136 years also assumes that there are no
more wars or natural disasters in the next 136 years to add to the
refugee numbers.)

* If the 100 wealthiest countries took an extra, one-off intake of
about 105,000 refugees each, then the argument that refugees
should wait their turn could begin to have some validity. After
that every wealthy country would also need to dramatically
increase the number of refugees they were willing to accept.

_Visa overstayers_

* Visa overstayers are illegal immigrants who came to Australia on
tourist visas and do not leave.
* The countries of origon with largest numbers of these illegal
immigrants are UK and USA.
* In 2007-2008, the number of visa overstayers was 48,500 compared
to 25 boat people arrivals. They outnumbered boat people by 1,904
to 1.
* Of the last 12 years, 2000-2001 had the most boat people arrivals.
That same year Australia had 60,000 visa overstayers. They
outnumbered boat people 14 to 1.
* Consider the differences. Asylum seekers usually enter Australia
openly and hand themselves over to the authorities and ask for
asylum. Visa overstayers pretend to come for a holiday when the
intend to stay. Refugees are also fleeing danger. What is so
dangerous in the UK and USA?
* Why is there such a public outcry about refugees but not about
visa overstayers?

I hope this is helpful and maybe I have saved you some research time.

Thanks,
Ross

_Sources
_www.immi.gov.au
www.unhcr.org
www.refugeecouncil.org.au

Labels: Asylum Seekers, Culture, Discipleship, Faith, Humour, Refugees, Resources, Tear, Theology

  Posted by Stephen @ 4:53 PM   0 comments

::Rants-A great idea! This is like the best idea in the whole world! Those of you who are familiar with Tear will know about the whole Gift Catalog thingy. You buy, or have people buy for you, items out of the gift catalog that benefit communities in the developing world.

Well now, you can set up a virtual gift shop. You can create your own catalog online, invite all your friends and have them shop from your customised premises. And if you are anything like me, you don't have to worry about handling money, receipts, cards etc. It is all done automagically.

Seriously, Christmas shopping without leaving home! Go crazy go nuts!

Labels: Consumerism, Resources, Tear

  Posted by Stephen @ 1:36 PM   1 comments

::Resources-Structural and Institutional Sin Firstly sorry to those who have tried to access this flash presentation. I have had no problems in the past converting Powerpoint files to flash, yet this one seemed to break my converter! Sheesh.

Anyway, I have exported this file as a pdf. Due to my work agreement with Tear, I have had to make the file available as a locked presentation. So you can't edit or reproduce it, but hopefully you will understand and be sympathetic.

This presentation is from a class at Tabor College Melbourne on Saturday the 10th of May this year. It is on the subject of Structural and Institutional Sin. Get it by clicking here...

Labels: Missiology, Mission, Notes, Resources, Tabor Melbourne, Theology

  Posted by Stephen @ 7:29 PM   0 comments

::Resources-Structural and Institutional Sin These are the notes for the class I taught last Saturday morning at Tabor Melbourne. For those not there, it is an exploration of the notion of institutional and structural sin/evil.

It was a great class. The thing that made it great was the passion and quality of questions and conversations with the participants. Thanks so much for letting me be part of your learning journey guys!

(Note: You have to click on the white box above to advance the presentation one page at a time.)

Labels: Missiology, Mission, Notes, Resources, Tabor Melbourne, Theology

  Posted by Stephen @ 1:04 PM   0 comments