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There are more than 50 million forcibly displaced people throughout the world.

Up to 20 million are refugees or people seeking refuge in another country. Another 30 million are internally displaced people (IDP’s), having left their homes but still living somewhere in their country of origin.

These people are fleeing religious or political persecution, civil war or some form of ethnic/tribal conflict. They have left behind homes and property or the bombed out ruins of what was once the place they called home. Their lives and welfare have been threatened or compromised, or both.

They are homeless and in many cases, stateless and nationless. There is little hope of returning home. There may be nothing to return to.

Some of these people will be economic opportunists under the guise of refugees wanting to make a new start in a country where they think may offer greater peace and prosperity. With those who have fled immediate danger, they may have embarked on risky journeys, paying small or large fortunes to shady operators who promise safe passage, but deliver dangerous transport, hidden in the back of a truck or precarious voyages on a dodgy boat.

This figure of 50 million doesn’t include those who have made bold border crossings south to the tip of Africa (some through game reserves) or north to the economic ‘promised land’ of the United States. There is estimated to be five million illegal immigrants in South Africa (one article puts the figure closer to 10), including three million Zimbabweans, and up to 13.5 million in the United States from Mexico and other more southerly starting points.

All in all, the total figure of people on the move throughout the world, running from pain and fear or running to what they think is promise and fortune could be closer to 100 million. It could even be more because nobody seems to know how many ‘tens of millions’ of illegal immigrants there are in India.

In Australia we have an estimated 60,000 ‘illegals’ who have come here by air, overstayed their visa expiry and vanished into the varnish. This is four times the number of asylum seekers and their children in detention.

What should a nation like Australia do about this global issue of displaced people?

What should the Christian people of Australia, standing shoulder to shoulder with others in Australia, who claim concern for the vulnerable as one of their core values in life?

How do we share the burden of responsibility with other nations who are committed to the welfare of the most unprotected peoples of the earth?

There are regular calls by many Australians for a more humane policy on people who have reached our shores, or reached our ‘waters’ by boat along with calls for the Australian Government to increase our immigration quotas especially among refugees. Above all, the national conscience is being increasingly vexed by the grim reality of children in detention and the permanent psychological damage being inflicted upon them.

These calls usually come from independents or minority party senators, church and community leaders, from Diocesan Synods (including my own), sociologists, lawyers and human rights advocates.

The weight of this collective moral outrage appears to be having some impact as kids (and their parents) were cleared from Christmas Island before Christmas. Deals are being done and cross-bench compromises are being brokered to ease the national conscience. Compromises and ‘lesser-evil’ solutions are not only necessary tools of trade in any political landscape, but in conflict resolution, workplace settlements and even relationship reconciliations.

But questions remain for this island nation, built on boat people, that wants to take its place at the table of international opinion, as a defender of human dignity and as an advocate of social responsibility and accountability.

Have we done enough? Are we doing enough? Will we shoulder a greater share of global responsibility?

Men, women and children in refugee camps across the world may live behind razor wire or simply look out on a vast expanse of windswept desert, as terrifying and demoralising as any detention centre. As we have been a voice for those on Christmas Island, we must lift our voices for those stranded on islands of suffering everywhere contained as they are by the vastness, wild animals or a soldier’s rifle.

The Australian Government claims to take more refugees per head of population than any other nation in the world. This is an ambiguous claim at best and misleading at worst. It relates to the number of resettled refugees in a third country of those who have sought asylum in a second country after fleeing their country of origin.

Being water-locked and remote we are rarely the country that an asylum seeker first puts their feet in after fleeing their country of origin. People do get here, usually via another country or after a very long sea voyage or by overstaying their visa conditions. There are 48 other nations who host more people seeking asylum in real terms. There are 61 nations who host more per 1,000 population and 84 nations who host more in relation to their GDP. Why aren’t we in the top twenty on the last two of these three markers?

And now our Federal Government has made some of the most cowardly cuts to our Foreign Aid commitments as any time in our nation’s history.

This massive global issue won’t go away. It is growing and will grow to more and more grotesque levels of human suffering. We aren’t ignorant to this suffering. And we must not be silent in the face of it. Nor stingy in our response to it.

I heard a saying some years ago that snipes away at my selfish heart to this day: