Maha Abdo is a key figure in Australia’s Islamic community.
An Order of Australia recipient in 2008, Mrs Abdo believes working with people regardless of their racial or religious background is crucial.
“That’s the Australian way – the fair go,” she said.
Mrs Abdo said she was outraged by calls for the Abbott Government to prioritise the intake of Syrian refugees based on their religious background.
She said the calls, which the government says it is considering, don’t highlight the Australian values she knows and loves.
“It is disheartening to see that we need to prioritise on the basis of faith or no faith,” she said.
Welfare groups such as Save the Children agree, with CEO Paul Ronalds saying that there are persecuted minorities of “all faiths and all cultures.”
“To distinguish between them doesn't seem like an appropriate response,” he said.
However, Joseph Haweil from Australia's Assyrian Church of the East believed Syrian Christians need preferential treatment.
Mr Haweil said Syrian Christians face an existential threat to their survival, “in countries in which they have resided for millenia upon millennia”.
He said his church supported the comments by Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Reverend Anthony Fisher, who saud that “particular preference [should] be given to persecuted Christians from Syria and Iraq and other religious minorities”.
Archbishop Fisher said he would meet with Syrian Christian leaders to hear their views on the issue.
