Kirby said that in addition to its commitment to resettling refugees, the United States had spent $4bn on security and fresh water and food for Syrian refugees living in camps.
Paul Power from the Refugee Council of Australia said Australia's private sponsorship scheme was "the most expensive in the world" and that the government was "using desperate refugee families to fund its commitment that it made to resettle refugees".
Separately, Vincent Cochetel, regional director for Europe at the office of the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), said an EU commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees over two years, on a voluntary basis, remained "very low".
In exchange for a commitment to resettle Kurdish refugees in the disputed city of Kirkuk and to accept, at least temporarily, a limited role for Islamic sharia in legislation, the Kurds agreed to accept the moderately Islamist Dr Jaafari as prime minister.
Australia has paid Cambodia $42 million to resettle refugees — only two have been successfully resettled.
Efforts to resettle refugees in PNG have foundered.
So how much does it actually cost to resettle refugees?
Nauru has consistently refused to resettle refugees permanently and Australian government efforts to resettle refugees in third countries have foundered.
"We want nothing more than to resettle refugees," Mr. Wangerin said.
While PNG has agreed to resettle refugees, their future there is gloomy.
