Advocacy

The first big advocacy win that CRSA contributed to was, of course, the announcement of the CRISP program. The success of this program is CRSA’s current focus, but that doesn’t mean that our advocacy work has ended!

We continue to advocate for policies, programs and resources to ensure that community-led efforts to welcome and support refugees can grow and improve Australia’s humanitarian migration program in line with our organisational mission.

Our current policy priorities include:

• advocacy work to ensure that the CRISP program becomes permanent and additional to the humanitarian intake quota;
• advocacy, research and design work to create an affordable ‘named’ sponsorship program allowing Australians to sponsor refugees they know; and
• establishing educational sponsorship pathways for refugees wishing to settle in Australia.

April 2023: Complementary Pathways

Australia has or is piloting a range of initiatives that could provide safe pathways for the world’s 32,5m refugees. In partnership with the Refugee Council of Australia, Talent Beyond Boundaries, the Refugee Education Special Interest group, the Settlement Council of Australia, CRSA has developed policy principles for unlocking these pathways. More

March 2023: Advocacy for a further ‘linked’ program and ‘additionality’: write to your MP

The CRISP program will only achieve its true potential when every family supported is one more family able to find safety in Australia – rather than people who are already part of Australia’s humanitarian intake quota. Plus CRSA is advocating for a new affordable and accessible program to enable Australians to nominate the person/family that they wish to sponsor (a ‘linked’ program), to complement the CRISP (which benefits refugees selected by the UNHCR for resettlement in Australia).

In the run up to May’s federal budget, help us demonstrate that there is strong support for the Albanese government’s plan to make community sponsored places additional to the current intake quota, and add your voice to the call for a new ‘linked’ sponsorship pathway to complement the CRISP. More