Kind New Zealand celebrity



Humanitarian: New Zealand Race Relations Commissioner and squash great Dame Susan Devoy believes we should accept more refugees into the country. Photo nzherald.co.nz

I've often wondered what would happen if we found ourselves in a situation where we no longer had anywhere we could call home.

Hopefully, we would never have to find out. But I like the view of New Zealand Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy here in this nzherald.co.nz article:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11420787

http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1213/13rp01

 An Australian Parliamentary research paper on refugees says:

• At the end of 2011 there were over 16 million refugees and asylum seekers worldwide. By far the majority of these are hosted in the developing world, close to the refugee-producing hotspots. However significant numbers do make their way to developed countries to apply for asylum.
• In the context of increasing numbers of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat in recent years, there has been much debate about the impact of certain policy measures on numbers of arrivals, and the relative significance of ‘pull’ versus ‘push’ factors in influencing the rate of arrivals.
• There is a growing body of research (albeit largely from outside Australia) into the issue of asylum destination choice–that is, the extent to which asylum seekers are able to exercise choice when it comes to their destination country, and their reasons for choosing certain countries over others.
• This research reveals a number of common themes, chief among them being that asylum seekers generally have limited options available to them, and choices are made within a very narrow field of possibilities. Their choices and their journeys are often strongly influenced by the people smugglers, or agents, they engage to assist them.
• Where asylum seekers are able to exercise choice in determining their destination country, factors such as the presence of social networks, historical ties between the countries of origin and destination, and the knowledge or belief that a certain country is democratic, where human rights and the rule of law are likely to be respected, are highly influential.
• Policies and processes relating to the asylum procedure in destination countries are generally not well known and therefore not highly significant in influencing choice of destination. This represents a major challenge for governments which are attempting to curb flows of asylum seekers through changes to asylum policy.