Australian cities express confidence in screening of Syrian and Iraqi refugees

Mayors of some of the Australian cities earmarked to accept Syrian and Iraqi refugees say they welcome the intake and trust the federal government’s screening process.New South Wales cities including Wagga Wagga, Albury, Newcastle and Wollongong are among the regional centres that will resettle some of the 12,000 extra refugees Australia has pledged to accept from Syria and Iraq.

That commitment has come under scrutiny after the discovery of a fake Syrian passport near one of the suicide bombers involved in the attack at the Stade de France in Paris on 13 November, stoking fears extremists could be among the group that resettles in Australia.

Rod Kendall, the mayor of Wagga Wagga, which could accept up to 300 refugees, said he had confidence in the government’s security measures. “We’ve been asked questions about the issue but I think the general community response is that all refugees coming to Australia have been screened over a long period of time,” he said.

Wagga Wagga has a history of resettling humanitarian migrants, including from Vietnam in the 1970s and from Afghanistan and Sudan more recently.