Aid agencies criticize Aussie gov't for "slow" resettlement of Syrian refugees

Aid agencies Friday slammed the "slow" pace in which Australia is settling Syrian refugees, after the government announced that just 3,532 of the promised 12,000 refugees have successfully been relocated to Australia.

A full year after then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott promised to resettle 12,000 Syrians fleeing the conflict in the Middle East, less than a third have so far been processed, and CEO of World Vision Australia, Tim Costello, said it was "puzzling" how "slow" the process was.

"We expected they should all be here (by now)," Costello told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.

Costello pointed out that Canada, a nation which employs similar background checks, had settled almost 30,000 Syrian refugees over just four months

"You can't tell me that the Canadians can take 30,000 welcomed by their Prime Minister because somehow they don't have security issues and we do in doing the proper security checks."

But Immigration Minister Peter Dutton defended the government's resettlement process, and said Australia employs a "different approach" to refugee resettlement.

"My priority is to make sure I never compromise the security of our country," Dutton told the ABC.

"I don't have any comment to make about the Canada program because I just don't have any details about the Canada program.

"Canada has a very different approach to the security checks they are conducting and the scrutiny we apply is greater than Canada, there's no question about that." Endit