Balclutha-born Murdoch Stephens made that point in a wide-ranging talk at the University of Otago yesterday, which focused on ''doing our bit for refugees in a time of politicised migration''.
An Otago BCom graduate, Mr Stephens started the Doing Our Bit campaign to double New Zealand's refugee quota, in June 2013.
''Most people have the sense that we're not doing our fair share and there needs to be quite a big increase in the quota.''
The talk was hosted by the university's National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Dunedin and its Mayor, Dave Cull, and other city councillors had shown ''amazing'' support for refugees, Mr Stephens said after his talk.
Refugee family groups with young children would benefit from life in the South, and Dunedin would also strongly benefit in several ways, including in helping to maintain school rolls with a boost from refugee children.
The city also stood to benefit further in future from a likely increase in overall refugee numbers being accepted by New Zealand.
New Zealand has for many years had an annual refugee resettlement quota of 750 a year, but the Government announced last year this figure would be increased to 1000 in the 2018-19 financial year.
A further 500 Syrian refugees would also be settled in this country over two years, starting this year, the Government said.
Mr Stephens was encouraged that almost all other New Zealand political parties favoured some increase in the refugee quota, including the Greens and the Labour Party, who favoured annual refugee intake quota increases to 5000 and 1500, respectively.
Mr Stephens said that in every generation some New Zealanders voiced exaggerated fears about the claimed dangers we faced from taking in refugees.
Nobody had ever apologised for getting their predictions of damagingly negative outcomes so badly wrong, he said.
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Dunedin will gain nothing from so-called 'refugees' from the middle east and Africa.
But I have no doubt you'll bring them in--you'll find out, as Europe is doing!
as a dunedin resident i dont have a problem with this unless they cause trouble