AYLAN Kurdi’s body on a Turkish beach may well prove to be a similar catalyst to the iconic 1972 photo of the naked, nine-year-old girl, Kim Phúc, fleeing napalm bombing of her village in Vietnam.

It was followed seven months later by the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. The image of Aylan Kurdi and its aftermath has motivated many into action, including the Australian government.

It seems really commendable to take an additional 12,000 refugees from Syria. There are around 60 million displaced people in the world. Australia’s efforts to assist with this humanitarian crisis, though laudable, are like a drop in the ocean.

However, the announcement nearly doubles the intake of refugees in the humanitarian program from almost 14,000 to more than 25,000.

Or is there a game of smoke and mirrors as the government covers the start of bombing raids and hides an appalling humanitarian record in sending other refugees to detention camps (or prisons) in Nauru, New Guinea and Cambodia?

Are these places really additional migrants or will the numbers also be smoke and mirrors?

A Productivity Commission Report issued in May this year identified planning for more than 200,000 migrants across a number of programs. It is not clear that the number will be increased by the 12,000 or whether Peter will be robbed to pay Paul?

Then the government tripped up, yet again. The idea of prioritising refugees on the grounds that they are Christians should be an anathema to the vast majority of Australians whether they themselves are Christian or not.

In a secular country the first and foremost issue should be that people have fled war and violence. They are in need of a helping hand. Surely this was the message in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Anna Henderson and Chris Uhlmann reported on the ABC that the Government’s approach was to “restrict any intake of Syrian refugees to minorities”.

In a secular, multi-cultural society the UN Commissioner for Refugees should prioritise refugees. It should not matter their creed, their colour, their coinage. These are humans in need who should be processed against normal administrative and security criteria.

According to the Australia Institute, claims about our country being one of the top countries per capita for taking refugees are nonsense. In 2014 the country with the most refugees per head of population was Jordan with Australia ranking as 69th.

The country with the largest absolute number of refugees was Pakistan with Iran in second place. On this scale, Australia is 49th. ABC Fact Check ranks Australia as 28th in terms of its total refugee intake. Whichever figure is correct at any given time – we are certainly not a generous country.

Australia does rank highly in the resettlement of refugees. Resettlement is a scheme whereby a third country takes refugees who cannot be safely settled in the country they originally sought asylum.

In 2012, less than one per cent of refugees were resettled. Most countries do not have official resettlement programs and in 2012 only 27 countries resettled refugees.

According to the Refugee Council of Australia, we ranked second in 2012 for the resettlement of refugees per capita with just 267 refugees per million of our population, beaten only by Canada with 283 per million.

Australia is a multi-cultural country with a huge capacity to assist in this crisis. Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett was right when he tweeted “Yes to 50,000 more refugees from Syria properly processed from camps in agreed places overseas. NO, NO to Aus bombing strikes in Syria”.

June 8, 1972: Kim Phúc, centre, runs down a road naked near Trang Bang after a South Vietnamese Air Force napalm attack.

A cropped version of the photo was featured on the front page of “The New York Times” the next day. It later earned a Pulitzer Prize and was chosen as the World Press Photo of the Year for 1972.

After snapping the photograph, Nick Ut took Kim Phúc and the other injured children to Barsky Hospital in Saigon, where it was determined that her burns were so severe that she probably would not survive. However, after a 14-month hospital stay and 17 surgical procedures including skin transplants, she was able to return home. She now lives in Ontario, Canada.