The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre has marked World Refugee Day by hosting a telethon in Melbourne.
Famous figures worked on the phones to try to raise $300,000 for support services for refugees.
And singer Missy Higgins gave a lively performance for the volunteers themselves.
The Federal Government says it will increase its refugee intake to nearly 19,000 places by the end of 2019.
But the chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Kon Karapanagiotidis, (kair-uh-pah-nuh-jee-uh-TEE-dis) says much more needs to be done.
"We could easily triple our refugee and humanitarian intake and save many more lives, especially when you think about groups like Syrian refugees, the Rohingas that are just (off) our shores. And we are doing way too little. We could easily be taking many more people."
Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser is regarded as having introduced a generous refugee policy during his tenure in the 1970s and '80s.
His widow, Tamie Fraser, says his response to the needs then should not be forgotten.
"I'm more concerned about what the present Government is doing about refugees, frankly. I would like them to set up places where refugees could learn English, have a six-week course in English, so it could help them assimilate into the country."
An exhibition has opened in Sydney to highlight the world's so-called Bottom 100.
It features images of those facing extreme hardship due to poverty, war and displacement.
J.J. Messner is executive director of The Fund for Peace, the not-for-profit organisation behind the project.
He says the exhibition is about giving the people an identity.
"It's all too easy, whether it be for refugees or the world's poor, to think of them as an amorphous group. But really understanding the humanity and really understanding their struggles, if we're able to put a human face on their suffering, it's going to drive us, I think, to have much more of a stake and to care more about solving their situations."
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