Submission for Australia’s Humanitarian Program 2026-27

CRSA recently made a submission in response to the Discussion Paper published by the Department of Home Affairs in connection with Australia’s Humanitarian Program 2026-27. This submission focuses on
Questions (3), (4) and (5) in the Discussion Paper.

Summary of Recommendations for the 2026–27 Humanitarian Program

The Cost of Settlement Services (in response to Question 3)

Noting the government’s global pledge to increase Australia’s humanitarian program, and the related sensitivities associated with the cost of settlement services resulting from global insecurity and rising cost of living pressures, CRSA recommends the Government:

• Adopt a more tailored approach to settlement services, with support reflecting individual needs, capacities, and strengths of refugee newcomers rather than applying a uniform service model.
• Review the assumptions that inform costing models of current pathways in the humanitarian program, including community sponsorship and education pathways, to better reflect the full range of costs, government and community investment, and the contributions of refugee newcomers.
• Convenes a forum with relevant civil society and non-government actors to identify opportunities to leverage resources and partnerships to support resettlement efforts (including strategic use of community sponsorship and complementary pathways).

A New Approach to ‘Named Sponsorship’ (in response to Question 4)

Reform of the Community Support Program (CSP) should be pursued not only as a response to operational pressures, but as an opportunity to reset and strengthen Australia’s approach to named community sponsorship. While backlog and oversubscription issues within the CSP require urgent resolution, broader design and structural limitations have constrained the program’s impact, effectiveness and long-term sustainability. A well-designed named community sponsorship model would unlock significant benefits including strong settlement outcomes for refugee newcomers, meaningful opportunities for Australians to support people, communities and causes important to them, enhanced national capacity to respond to the global refugee challenge, strengthened social cohesion, and a sustained social license for government investment in humanitarian migration.

CRSA recommends the Government:

• Introduces a model of ‘named’ community sponsorship based upon the Draft Framework for a
• New Approach to ‘Named’ Community Sponsorship’ (attached as an Annexure to this submission), developed by CRSA in partnership with the Refugee Council of Australia and other organisations.
• Convene a cross-sector advisory group to advance and operationalise the framework.

Other Recommendations (in response to question 5)

CRSA reiterates its support for the progressive expansion of community sponsored and other complementary pathways to 10,000 additional places per annum, as per the Government’s 2023 Global Refugee Forum pledge. We also encourage the Department to work with the Complementary Pathways Coordination Group to progress the proposals in the Vision and Roadmap to Achieve 10,000 Complementary Places (the Vision and Roadmap) with the objective of establishing a coherent, whole[1]of-government framework for complementary pathways in Australia.

To lay the foundations for a scalable and sustainable complementary pathways system, CRSA recommends the Government:

• Structurally separate community-led and government-led resettlement streams, preserving and ring-fencing community-led programs.
• Leverage the community sponsorship model underpinning the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot (CRISP) across labour mobility, education, and other complementary pathways, with government investment in shared training and support structures for community supporter groups.
• Make the Skilled Labour Refugee Agreement Pilot (SRLAP) and Refugee Student Settlement Pathway (RSSP) permanent, with the RSSP operating in addition to the humanitarian intake quota (noting that the SRLAP already sits outside of that quota).
• Strengthen Australia’s responsiveness to humanitarian crises through the development of an emergency response framework to enable rapid policy and operational deployment. Developing ‘Emergency Response’ settings for the CRISP and the piloting of a small number of cases within the program would also enable the testing of a rapid mobilisation initiative.

Read CRSA’s full submission via the link below.

Download: Submission for Australias Humanitarian Program 202627.pdf (1.39MB)