Valla Beach market report
Roadside demonstration - Coffs Harbour Thursday 8th Dec
Petition to Luke Hartsuyker
Christmas break
Valla Beach market report
We had another great market on Saturday at Valla Beach under warm sunny skies. There were nine of us at various times during the morning, and we were busy the whole time, getting people to sign the petition and engaging in discussion about asylum seeker issues. As always, the support from market-goers was overwhelmingly positive, though inevitably from time to time we encounter people with very entrenched, sometimes extreme views. It was pretty shocking to listen to one passer by who argued that it is a good thing to bomb hospitals in Aleppo and other parts of Syria, as the Taliban and members of ISIS use these places to hide. The good people of Eltham, on the outskirts of Melbourne, have the perfect antidote to this kind of bigotry. In the face of attacks from far-right groups as they seek to refurbish accommodation for refugees, their response was: “We have to make our voices louder, and that’s what our group is trying to do. The voices of compassion and love have to be louder than the voices of hate.”
Next roadside demonstration: Thursday 8th December in Coffs Harbour
A reminder that our final roadside demonstration for 2016 is this Thursday, 8th December from 3.00 pm until 4.30 pm opposite the Base Hospital in Coffs Harbour. It would be great to have a strong turnout for our final demo of the year. Please consider joining us, even for part of the time, to remind the public that we still have many hundreds of families languishing in intolerable conditions on Nauru, and many hundreds of single men living in similar conditions on Manus. As yet, they have no idea what the future holds for them, and many of them have now spent more than three years in these hell-holes. Please come and join us to show your support. We have lots of banners and placards to share.
Petition to Luke Hartsuyker MP.
At Saturday’s market, we reached our target of 300 signatures on the petition to our local MP. Last week, we sent a letter by priority post, to arrive at Luke Hartsuyker’s office on Thursday 1st December. The letter states:
Dear Mr Hartsuyker,
Our local Rural Australians for Refugees group has, in recent weeks, collected signatures on a petition, which is addressed to you. The petition reads:
Dear Mr Hartsuyker,
Evidence from professionals working in the detention centres on Manus and Nauru, together with reports from international organisations, make shocking reading and viewing. These centres are clearly designed to inflict suffering and to break the spirits of innocent people. Evidence of physical and sexual abuse are well documented, and go unpunished. It is time to put an end to this shameful policy. We urge you, as our representative in Parliament, to make a firm commitment to the urgent closure of these centres and to the resettlement in Australia of asylum seekers currently on Manus and Nauru.
We would like the opportunity to present the petition to you as soon as possible, and to discuss its contents with you. To that end, I propose to contact your office in the next few days to arrange a mutually convenient time for a small group of no more than four of your constituents to meet with you. I trust that you will be able to make the time to see us.
Mike has been in contact with Luke Hartsuyker’s office, but at the time of writing he has not been able to get a positive response. More details in next week’s newsletter.
Christmas Break
Our final newsletter for 2016 will be sent to our 450 supporters on Tuesday 20th December. We will take a two-week break, with our first newsletter of 2017 arriving in your inboxes on Tuesday 10th January.
It includes articles from many sources and letters to politicians and newspapers.
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