NSW Premier Mike Baird Makes Impassioned Call For Action On Refugee Crisis

New South Wales Premier Mike Baird has made an impassioned call for the federal Government to respond to the swelling refugee crisis in Syria overnight, in a Facebook post commenting on the harrowing image and story of Aylan Kurdi, a toddler who drowned at sea – washing ashore a beach in Turkey.

Mike Baird wrote on his response, like millions of others’, to the photograph that shook the globe.

“I don’t know how you felt when you saw the image of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi lying lifeless, face down in the sands of a Turkish beach. I felt sick with overwhelming sorrow. And despair.

And anger. I turned away, but that image will never leave me. That photo isn’t just a story of one tragedy. It is the story of thousands of real people in a fight for life itself.”

Baird says NSW cannot go back to “business as usual” while the refugee crisis escalates abroad, and announced plans to enter in discussions with the Federal Government to map NSW’s contribution and response to the humanitarian crisis culminating in Europe.

Mike Baird joins Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman in publicly addressing the refugee crisis, as Hodgman overnight announced “our door’s open” to refugees, as the State is set to offer 500 more places to asylum seekers under Safe Haven Enterprise visas.

Read Mike Baird’s post in full below.

Sometimes you can know all the facts and statistics surrounding an unfolding tragedy, but it somehow remains an…

Posted by Mike Baird on Saturday, 5 September 2015

via Facebook.
Lead image by Mark Kolbe via Getty.

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