Helping a few more refugees the least we can do

The UN estimates some 13.6 million people have been displaced - either internally or externally - by the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Photo / AFP / Karam Al-Masri

At the Istanbul Peace Summit last month, Prime Minister John Key rejected Turkish pleas for others to share the burden of the flood of refugees from the Iraqi-Syria bloodbath next door. Mr Key said it wasn't a numbers game. New Zealand's annual limit of 750 refugees a year, which hadn't changed for 30 years, would not change. New Zealand was a small country that focused on "the quality of service we provide to people when they come".

But with desperate Syrians dying in the Mediterranean Sea at the hands of unscrupulous people smugglers, it's surely time to consider quantity as well as quality.

Despite what Mr Key says, it is a numbers game. As our troops arrive in the Middle East to join the killing war, some 4 million Syrians - around the total population of New Zealand - have fled their land.

The UN estimates some 13.6 million people have been displaced - either internally or externally - by the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Those who have fled their countries are camped in dreadful conditions in neighbouring states, putting a dreadful strain on the infrastructure and political stability of countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Amin Awad, the UN's refugee agency's director for the Middle East and North Africa, says these neighbours "are putting us all to shame". He called on Europe and beyond to "open their borders and share the burden".

Despite this, Mr Key says rain or shine, we've always taken 750 a year and that's that. The reality is that often in recent years, New Zealand hasn't even filled that miserable quota.

In March, Race Relations Commissioner Susan Devoy called for an increase, saying that with 51 million refugees around the globe, the world faced the biggest ever displaced persons crisis.

New Zealand has made two exceptions to the 750 quota in the recent past. In 1999, following the Balkan Wars, 400 extra refugees were brought in from Kosovo. Then in 2001, 130 Afghani refugees - including 40 unaccompanied boys - rescued by the Norwegian freighter Tampa were welcomed into New Zealand after Australia had turned them away.

Over the years, the Tampa Boys pop up in the media, their success in becoming typical Kiwis reminding us we did the right thing by taking them in when they most needed help.

Amnesty International is also calling for wealthy nations like New Zealand to increase the number they take in. It says New Zealand should double its intake. "Never before has there been a more vital time for New Zealand to step up and show human rights leadership," said Grant Bayldon, NZAI executive.

Given that last year, New Zealand issued resident visas to 44,008 migrants, doubling the annual refugee quota to 1500 hardly seems a threat to the New Zealand way of life.

As a country totally peopled by migrants all seeking a better life, our present policy does seem very selfish.

In 2013 the Government even rushed through laws allowing the detention of refugees for six months or more, who turned up in groups of 10 or more. This followed the "boat people" panic sweeping Australia at the time. This despite no sign of a boat person anywhere near our shores.

It wasn't always so. Writing about the Russian phobia that panicked New Zealanders in the late 19th century recently, I discovered that at that time we were very relaxed about boat people slipping ashore. In 1870, when a six-frigate British navy "Flying Squadron" reached our shores on a worldwide PR tour, 80 crewmen jumped ship in New Zealand and another 200 in Australia. This despite anyone caught being flogged.

The NZ Herald at the time treated it all rather light-heartedly, slipping it in after reports of a grand ball on board for local worthies and news of a shooting expedition to "Graham's Island Motuhihi," which scored a "fine buck", the venison being shared around the fleet and "the Northern Club".

As for the 80 refugee sailors, they were presumably quickly absorbed into the colony's economy. New Zealand's population was then less than 300,000. Today it's nearly 4.6 million. Giving a helping hand to a few more refugees will do us no harm.