Students from Nelson College for Girls have been among those supporting a campaign to double New Zealand's refugee quota.

OPINION: Support for growing New Zealand's refugee quota has been swelling over the last six months. Every week a new commentator sees the global refugee crisis and our tiny intake and agrees that New Zealanders must do our bit.

One of the very few people to publicly oppose an increase in New Zealand's refugee quota is broadcaster Mike Hosking. In one episode of Mike's Minute Hosking has admitted our quota is small, but says we cannot increase it because there is no firm figure that can be justified. Instead of asking where we could start, he asked "where would you stop?"

For more than two years I've been making the case for New Zealand doubling our refugee resettlement quota. I'd like to walk Hosking through the numbers, in the hope that his inability to justify a figure was more a result of his prodigious workload rather than antipathy towards those in desperate need.

The numbers are quite simple: our population has grown 40 per cent since 1987, yet our quota has actually dropped 50 places since then. Even ACT agrees that the quota should keep pace with our population. This would increase our quota to 1120 places.

But on top of the quota we also take 300 people through family reunification and about 120 people as asylum seekers (once appeals have been counted). Fifteen years ago we averaged 500 accepted asylum seekers per year. The significant decrease since then was due to aggressive pre-screening of people before they could get to New Zealand to claim asylum.

Since we've closed that window, we should open a door: 380 more places in the quota to make up for the number we used to take. Add this to the population increase and the quota should be 1500 places.

We would be doubling the quota in nominal terms, but in real terms we'd be doing only what we've done in the past. The average Kiwi will not notice, but the 750 extra people – roughly 200 families – certainly will.

When I started this campaign in early 2013, many people thought doubling the quota was radical. But since then we've had our numbers endorsed by a wide range of mainstream institutions from the New Zealand Herald and Dominion Post to Amnesty International and the Green Party.

All of these figures are only what we might call the demand supply of refugee resettlement. We need to also look at the world situation at the moment. Anyone paying any attention to current events will have seen the Mediterranean turning into a graveyard and Europe arguing over how to deal with this influx of asylum seekers.

Having lived in Syria for four months in 2009, I feel their plight acutely. Friends and their families have all fled, and are now cast across the Middle East and Europe. This is history happening before our eyes and what is the New Zealand government's response? Just 100 places within the quota since the war began four long years ago. For the coming year, the government has a chance to use a portion of the quota for Syria. But if we judge by their refusals to fulfil a simple Official Information Act request, Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse feels the situation is no emergency, that there is no urgency.

Other people opposing doing our fair share for refugees offer the "put New Zealanders first" line. It goes like this: we have poverty here, once that is totally fixed we can accept a couple more poor people from abroad.

This argument mistakes refugees as an absolute burden. Similar reasoning, along with similarly ill-founded xenophobic fears, was used to deny protection to Jewish refugees in World War Two. New Zealand did better for Indochinese refugees in the Vietnam war era, but the same arguments came from the same quarters.

How much of a burden have the few Jewish people accepted by New Zealand in World War Two proven to be? And the Indochinese from a few decades ago? The truth is that these groups have been a boon to the nation. As Hosking likes to say "the proof is in the pudding".

Ultimately, the government does not have the ambition or vision to accept people based on their medium-term benefits to the country. Our economic measurements on refugees are shameful, focusing solely on costs. In assessing what our quota should increase by, government statistics exclude taxes paid even in the short term and refuse to model mid to long-term benefits. Compare this to the effort the Government puts into showing the flow-on effect of hosting sports events and the underlying prejudice is unmistakable.

Doubling our tiny quota will not see New Zealand become a world leader in hosting refugees, but at least we'd be closer to doing our bit.

Murdoch Stephens is the spokesperson and lead researcher for Doing Our Bit - Double New Zealand's Refugee Quota.