Too much money spent on refugees?

We've all heard it before:

"IM SO SICK OF OUR GOVERNMENT SPENDING MONEY ON HOUSING REFUGEES WHEN WEVE GOT PROBLEMS OF OUR OWN. HOWABOUT WE LOOK AFTER OUR OWN FIRST? I DON’T WANT MY HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS GOING TO THEM WHEN THERE ARE HOMELESS AND ELDERLY IN AUSTRALIA TO TAKE CARE OF!"

The above is a classic cry of someone who’s not once looked into how the Australian government spends their “hard earned” dollars, and instead has formed an impulsive opinion based entirely on anecdotal evidence comprised of a few 15 second video clips from the news and what they read in newspapers that are owned by the same company that produce the news on TV.

 

Didn’t our schools used to teach us how to think critically and analyse all available information before drawing conclusions?

It’s a shame that most people who are guilty of saying, or thinking something along the lines of the  above, won’t have the patience to read past the next sentence and absorb some legitimate information with which to base their opinions on. 

All one must do to overcome the myth that we are spending too much money on refugees and not enough in our own backyard, is to actually look at the budget itself. Most people will be quite surprised.

Let’s take a look at the Australian Budget for 2010/2011. And FYI, the Aussie budget is readily available to the public online and all you need to do is Google “Australian Budget for 2010/2011” to find it. Relevant links used to source this data are referenced at the bottom.

Now, below is how the government is spending your money in 2010/2011…

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TOTAL AGGREGATE EXPENDITURE on everything and anything:  $354.6 BILLION

This is the total amount of out going cash. The “final” figure on how much money is spent in one year.

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AUSTRALIAN SOCIAL SECURITY AND WELFARE expenditure: $114.9 BILLION

This is the “looking after our own” expenditure. This accounts for 32.5% of the entire spending.

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HOMELESSNESS expenditure: $4.9 BILLION

The current investment in the "White Paper" scheme. This accounts for 1.5% of the entire spending.

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AGED CARE approxmate expenditure: $883.7 million

The above figure is the sum of various (though not all) “Aged Care” initiatives throughout the budget. $36.8m of this is a capital measure, not an expenditure, though in this context they are much the same. This accounts for 0.25% of the total aggregate expenditure.

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AUSTRALIAN SPORTS expenditure: $324.8 million

This money is granted to the Australian Sports Commission. This accounts for 0.092% of the entire spending. 

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TOTAL EXPENDITURE ON DETENTION CENTRES FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS $ 202.2 million

143 million of that goes towards expanding the detention centres to stop the over crowding. $22 million of that goes towards improving basic amenities (toilets, showers, etc). This isn’t covering the cost of a white picket fence, it’s a cost to provide them with basic human rights while they are being detained and processed.

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After having had a look at these figures taken directly from the 2010/2011 Australia budget, it does make you wonder what the hell these people are talking about when they whinge about how much we spend on refugees vs ourselves.

 Graphical representation of expenditure levels for different areas of the Australian 2010/2011 Budget

As you can see from the above graph, what we spend on detention centres is just over half of what we spend on sports!!

Detention Centre spending accounts for 0.057% of the total aggregate expenditure. Keep in mind that this is not 5.70% (~6 out of every hundred), it is 0.057% (~6 out of every TEN THOUSAND)... a tiny fraction compared to the 32.5% (~32 out of every HUNDRED) spent on our own backyards welfare. 

A little exercise and something to think about:

The government currently commits 1.5% of its expenditure towards homelessness.

The average Australian worker earns $68,900 per annum. 1.5% of this income is $1033. And yet the same people who complain that the government doesn't spend enough on the homeless, are the same people who wont even put a $2 coin into the cup of the homeless guy sleeping on a park bench in plain view of the city. $2 is a mere 0.003% of their annual income, btw).

As mentioned above, the amount spent on Refugees is a tiny fraction of what we spend in our own back yard. In fact, it is almost 600 times smaller amount than what we spend in our own back yard.

Comparatively, the average human (standing at 1.6m tall) is about 500 times smaller than the world’s tallest building, The Burj Khalifa in Dubai which stands at 828m. Let’s take a look at the Burj Khalifa…

 Now imagine a human standing next to it. For those of you that live in Perth, Western Australia - its the same ratio as if you vertically stacked FOUR Bankwest towers on top of each other then stood next to it. This is the same ratio of our budget that we spend on Refugees and Detention Centres vs The Welfare and Social Security of the Australian people.

 

 “What else is spent on the asylum seekers? I heard we spend around 2 billion on them!”

Not quite. 

Australia has allocated $1.2 billion towards border control & security – 63% of which is spent on airport security, not “boat people”. The rest goes towards helping Indonesia combat people-smuggling activities, a new and improved passport system for Australia, 8 patrol vessels, among other things.

It is also true that Australia has allocated $2.2 billion towards Australia’s Immigrant and Citizenship operations. This is for people with working holiday visas, etc who migrate from the UK, Europe, USA etc. Only a small percentage ($87 million – 0.024% of total budget expenditure) goes towards housing & integrating the legitimate refugees who have been screened, processed and granted asylum in Australia (and this is for the most part, refugees who have gone through the correct channels and not arrived by boat).

Keep in mind that this money is also spent on processing and screening these people to make sure they are legitimate refugees, and that they don’t bring with them any diseases like AIDS or TB. If we cut spending on these processes, it only increases the flow of illegal asylum seekers and increases the chance of people who pose a risk to Australian society getting in.

Either we maintain spending and continue to screen the people who come into Australia, or we cut spending and we let people that could cause us harm into our country. You can't have your cake and eat it too!

 Now it's unfortunate that a large proportion of those people who throw up uninformed facebook statuses (like the one at the beginning of this article) will not have read this far. It's also unfortunate out of those that DID read this far, are still trying to find a way in the back of their minds to dislike the idea of refugees / asylum seekers coming to Australia. But they'll still tell you they're not racist. 

A lot of people think racism has to be overt and 'in your face' white hoods etc etc - but its an underlying problem prevalent in Australian society today, and when people dont know where or how to find the correct raw information, or simply cant be bothered looking any further than the mainstream news that bundles it into a 30 minute soap highlight - then its no wonder people bare a grudge against refugees. Might be a time for them to take a look at themselves. If they're not racist like they like to say they arent, lets hope next time they are presented with a 5 second film clip of some angry minority protesting inside a detention centre, they ask themselves things like "What would cause them to revolt in such a way?" as opposed to "Why should we be helping these people??"

SO SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:

I don't ever hear people complaining about the Australian Sports industry getting priority over the eldery or the homeless, because it certainly gets priority over the refugees.

The well-cultivated critical thinker:
Richard Linden and Linda Elder, 2008

• raises vital questions and problems,formulating them clearly and precisely;
• gathers and assesses relevant information;
• carefully interprets information to form well-reasoned conclusions;
• tests conclusions,evaluating against relevant criteria;
• thinks open-mindedly,avoiding the influence of untested or irrational concepts and beliefs;and
• communicates effectively with others,particularly in the development and testing of conclusions or solutions.

REFERENCES:

Australian 2010/2011 Budget Aggregates:

http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/overview/html/overview_31.htm

Australian 2010/2011 Taxation & Spending pie charts:

http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/overview/html/overview_37.htm

Australian 2010/2011 Spending on Sports & Aged Care:

http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/bp2/html/bp2_expense-13.htm

http://www.budget.gov.au/2010-11/content/bp2/html/bp2_capital-08.htm

http://www.ausport.gov.au/about/feature_stories/breaking_down_the_sport_budget

Information on Australia's investment in improving homelessness:

http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/housing/pubs/homelessness/AGIPH_white_paper/Documents/0_foreward.htm

Richard Linden and Linda Elder, 2008
http://www.criticalthinking.org/store-page.cfm?P=products&ItemID=156&catalogID=224&cateID=132