Australia and New Zealand have obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees to assist in the relocation of individuals who cannot live in their country of origin. Since 1955, more than half a million refugees and displaced individuals have been resettled in Australia, and at present approximately 13 000 individuals (of whom ~40% are children) are granted permanent residency status each year, mainly under the Offshore Resettlement (Refugee and Special Humanitarian) program.1 New Zealand accepts 750 refugees identifi ed by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (“quota refugees”) for resettlement each year, in addition to a similar number of asylum seekers who arrive through independent channels.2 Recently, the focus of the refugee intake in both Australia and New Zealand has shifted from those displaced by Cambodian and Vietnamese confl icts in the 1970s and the Kosovan crisis in the 1990s, to more recent confl ict regions in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South/South-East Asia.