ALBURY Council remains willing to help resettle Syrian refugees on the Border, although no numbers or timelines have been discussed yet.
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Mayor Henk van de Ven said on Sunday the council had not received any formal notification of the role it would play in the Australian government’s plan to resettle 12,000 additional refugees.
"There's been no official communication, it's all been unofficial about our capacity and our desire to take our fair share of refugees,” he said.
“So we await further advice from those government agencies about what their expectations of us are concerned."
Albury had been listed in a weekend report as a regional town selected for resettlements, along with Wagga, Coffs Harbour, Wollongong and Newcastle.
The first family of Syrian refugees granted visas as part of Australia’s additional intake arrived in Perth last week.
Cr van de Ven said Albury Council made a recent submission to a Local Government NSW seminar indicating its readiness to receive Syrian refugees.
"We made some submissions around the fact that our community has got a pretty good record by way of settling our fair share of refugees," he said.
He referred to the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre after World War II, assisting Kosovo refugees about 15 years ago and helping people from Bhutan about 2009.
The council’s role in a resettlement program would include ensuring there were sufficient services, such as interpreters, health and education, in place for those supporting the incoming refugees.
"We'll try and co-ordinate the resources that we need," Cr van de Ven said.
"There's been no timelines and there's been no numbers either as far as what's expected of us as a community.”
He expressed confidence safeguards would prevent the arrival of any refugees who posed a security risk.
“If there are any issues around the security side of it, there are a lot of government alerts in place that should be able to take care of those sort of things,” he said.
