Valla Beach
NSW
2448
15th
April 2014
Dear Scott
Morrison,
I am writing
to you to express my deep concern about the ongoing detention of children on mainland Australia, on Christmas Island
and on Nauru. As an Australian citizen, I feel deeply ashamed that my
government continues to flout international law for narrow political and
ideological purposes. You know as well as I do that, under international law,
children should not be held in detention for any longer than is absolutely
necessary for health and security checks to be carried out.
As an
ex-high school principal, I have a good understanding of the need for young
people to live in a safe and secure environment, to feel that they are being
well cared for and to have access to full-time, good quality education. You are
providing none of these, and it is clear from your regular statements to the
media that it is your government's clear intention to continue the current
inhumane, immoral and unlawful policy.
How can you,
in all conscience, despatch 177 children, many of them unaccompanied, to Nauru,
where there is scant provision for their education and welfare? How do you
reconcile this with the comments that you made in your maiden speech to
Parliament? What has happened to the "values of loving kindness, justice
and righteousness" and your commitment "to act with compassion and
kindness, acknowledging our common humanity and to consider the welfare of
others"? If your words to Parliament were sincere, then where is the
urgent action to release all these children from detention and to provide them
with a caring, supportive environment in which they can grow and learn? Without
serious and urgent action, your eloquent words in Parliament in 2008 can only
be regarded as self-serving and deeply hypocritical.
I look
forward to learning about serious action on your part to release the 1,100
children currently held in detention without further delay.
Yours
sincerely,
Mike G
