The first group of refugees under the federal government's special program for Syrians is due to arrive in Australia in the next 24 hours. 
Social Services Minister Christian Porter announced on Monday that a family of five would soon arrive in Perth.  
He said they were originally from the city of Homs, which has been ravaged by the Syrian civil war, but could not say where the family was flying from. 
Mr Porter said the mum, dad and three children had been through a "great deal" and had spent "very long periods of time in refugee camps". 
He would provide no further detail about their personal circumstances, other than to say they were arriving earlier than expected due to a medical issue. 
One of Tony Abbott's final acts as prime minister was to announce Australia would permanently resettle 12,000 refugees from Syria. 
Mr Porter said many of the refugees would begin to arrive in   December, and that the program would "pick up speed" in   January and   February. 
The Social Services Minister said the family would be met by government officials who would help them settle into a new life in Perth. 
He added that the screening process to award the family refugee status had been slow but "very, very thorough". 
The group had been through "all the levels of stringency that occurs for all humanitarian and refugee arrivals," Mr Porter said. 
He said the process and circumstances around this family and others in the 12,000 group were very different from "largely unregistered refugees moving across porous borders in Europe". 
Earlier on Monday, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton warned of possible delays to the program, noting the government would not "rush". 
"If the program time is blown out, it's blown out because we want to make sure we can be assured as to who is coming to our country and the government is not going to step back from that position," he told Fairfax Radio.
This comes after a Syrian passport, found near the body of one of the suicide bombers in Paris, suggests the attacker had arrived in France through Greece as a refugee.  
It also comes after NSW Nationals MP Andrew Fraser called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to close Australia's borders refugees from the Middle East. 
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