Next Roadside Demo -
Big Banana Coffs Thursday December 7th 2:30pm
Next Market Stall -
Valla Beach 2nd December
RAR annual get
together Sunday 3rd December
Congratulations to
Violet Roumeliotis
Nauru
Bennelong - Trumble
plays the race card
Manus Island tragedy
continues
Roadside
demonstration report
Another really
successful demonstration in Toormina last week, with eleven supporters turning
up to remind the public about the plight of our asylum seekers in offshore
detention centres. A big thank you to all involved. The response from motorists
was overwhelmingly positive, as always.
Our final roadside
demonstration for 2017 will be on Thursday 7th December
next to the
Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, from 2.30 until 4.00 pm. Let’s make the last one a big one, so please put
the date in your diary!
Our next
market: Saturday 2nd December at Valla Beach
A reminder that our
final market stall for the year is this Saturday at Valla Beach market
from 9.00 am until 1.30 pm. A great opportunity for people to buy our
asylum seeker T shirts, bags and tea towels for Christmas! We’ll be handing out
leaflets, engaging with market-goers and collecting signatures on our petition,
as usual. If you can help out for an hour or two (no previous experience
required), then please email Mike at:mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com to
let him know.
Meeting and
lunch: Sunday 3rd December, starting at 10.30 am
A final reminder
that our end of year meeting and lunch will be held at 39,
Rogers Drive, Valla Beach next Sunday. We can still squeeze a few more
people in, so if you would like to attend, then please let Mike know
bySaturday at the latest by emailing him at: mandm.griffin2@bigpond.com.
There are two options for parking, either in Rogers Drive or the Robert Louden
car park, which is just 80 metres from the house. In Rogers Drive, you can park
in the driveway at number 39, on the nature strip at the end of the
drive, or the hard standing parking area opposite the house. Please don’t
drive onto Mike’s newly-laid lawn!
Directions to Rogers
Drive: Turn off the recently-named Giinagay Way into Valla Beach road. Proceed
for 500 metres and, just before the water tower, take a left turn into Kuta
Avenue. Proceed along Kuta Avenue for 450 metres, and Rogers Drive is the
third turning on the left. Proceed down Rogers Drive and you will find number
39 almost at the bottom of the hill on the left.
Directions to the
Robert Louden car park. Proceed along Valla Beach Road as above, but
continue past Kuta Avenue and take the next left into Henderson Street.
Proceed down Henderson Street into Cockburn Street and at the bottom of the
hill you will arrive in the car park. Take the path by the side of the house
next to the car park, cross over a small footbridge and you will emerge into
Rogers Drive. Number 39 is just a few metres up on the right.
We look forward to
seeing you there.
Congratulations to
Violet Roumeliotis
Last week, Violet
Roumeliotis, the child of immigrant parents who came to Australia with nothing,
was awarded the Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year for 2017.
She is the CEO of the not-for-profit organisation Settlement Services International,
and under her leadership, the organisation aims to give voice to vulnerable
Australians and raise awareness of the economic value of migration.Through its
employment and enterprise efforts, 1185 people have gained work in the past 18
months.
Warehousing people
on Nauru to cost a million dollars a day
The latest government
estimates show that Canstruct, the building company and Liberal party donor now
engaged to run services for refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru, will be paid
$385 million over the next twelve months to continue the indefinite detention
of the people who fled violence and persecution in their home countries
to seek a place of safety in Australia. It is clear that our government has
every intention of continuing its policy of punishing innocent people, at great
expense, for political ends. We must keep up our fight to bring this cruel and
inhumane policy to an end.
Turnbull plays the
race card in Bennelong
Unsurprisingly, but
disgracefully, our Prime minister, just like John Howard before him, sought to
gain some electoral advantage at the weekend in the Bennelong byelection by
playing the race card in an attempt to scare the voters. In Sydney he
stated: “ Kristina Keneally wants us to bring all of those asylum seekers from
Manus to Australia........When the boats start again, if Labor were ever to get
back into government, how many of those asylum seekers is she going to bring to
Bennelong?” It’s surely a sad indictment of the state of our nation when our
political leaders think it appropriate to encourage voters to fear that the
arrival of small number of people from Nauru and Manus will change the
world as we know it.
The Manus tragedy
continues
The tragedy of lies,
propaganda, and punishment continues on Manus, as the detainees are forcibly
moved into new detention centres in the township of Lorengau. The evidence from
phone footage and from witnesses makes it clear the the detainees offered no
violence, and that they were mistreated by the police who removed them from the
now-closed centre. We have been repeatedly told by Minister Dutton that all
three relocation centres were ready for occupation, whilst conceding that
perhaps the BBQ areas were not yet complete in one centre. It took the stark
reality of Tim Costello standing in front of the building site which is the
third centre to force a partial back down. By now we are all used to the
blatant untruths from the minister, and to his regular vilification of all
those who seek to get to the truth and to hold the government to account
for its brutal offshore detention regime. Following hard on the heels of the
appeal from Doctors for Refugees, from former Australians of the Year, from the
Australian Medical Association, we now have this week a group of some of
Australia’s most senior clinicians offering to conduct free health assessments
of the men held on Manus to ensure that they are not being deprived of their
human rights. In their open letter, the eighteen clinicians say: “ We believe
that the humanitarian issues take precedence over politics. This is a matter
beyond immigration and border control but one that affects the health of people
and others’ perceptions of our great nation.” The letter goes on to say: “All
politicians regardless of their political party should respect the human right
to health and themselves be advocate of “health for all” without
discrimination.”
We congratulate these
clinicians for standing up for the detainees on Manus.
Check out the
index of subjects on our blog http://bellorar.blogspot.com.au
It includes
articles from many sources and letters to politicians and newspapers.
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