Advocating for refugees and people seeking asylum

What we do 

The St Vincent de Paul Society has a long history of providing help to people seeking asylum and refugees in Australia and of advocating to Government on their behalf.  

Help is available through the Vinnies centres and the home visitation program. We help by providing emergency relief to cover food, accommodation, transport, medical and utility costs. Information and referral to other services is also provided.  

In some locations, the Society provides direct, specialist help to people seeking asylum who have been refused access to any form of income support and have little or no work and are unable to make ends meet.   

Advocacy – Vincentian Refugee Network 

Our advocacy is informed by the Society’s Vincentian Refugee Network (VRN), which comprises members who have advocated on behalf of refugees and people seeking asylum for many years. 

The role of the VRN is to: 

• Provide advice to the Society’s National Council Social Justice Advisory Committee 
• Share information and knowledge of refugee and asylum seeker issues in Australia 
• Provide a forum for Vincentians to organise and inform coordinated advocacy and services for refugees and people seeking asylum. 

The VRN consists of 16 members from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT and is guided by its Terms of Reference (pdf file).  

The VRN also works closely with other organisations to further its advocacy efforts.

A more humane approach is needed 

In the last decade, Australia has failed in its legal and moral duty to welcome or protect people who have sought asylum in our country, arriving here by boat, despite their being entitled to seek protection under international law.  

About 30,000 people who arrived in Australia by boat in 2012-13 have been subject to special, unfair treatment in their refugee (fast-track) assessment process. Even if found to be refugees, they were initially only granted temporary visas until the current Australian Government in 2023-24 finally granted 18,000 of these refugees permanent protection. Thousands are still suffering under this process; many are living in destitution as they are unable to work and have no access to a social safety net.

Several thousand others were sent to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru for processing.  Forty-four of these people are still held in PNG and about 1,000, medically evacuated from PNG and Nauru, remain in Australian on temporary visas, many with no pathway to safe and permanent protection. Many are held in indefinite detention in breach of our obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Detention is only legal when it is deemed that a person poses an unacceptable risk to the community and that risk cannot be addressed in a less restrictive way, and even then, detention must be time-limited and proportionate.