Market report for
2018
Next Roadside Demo -
Bellingen Thursday January 11th 2:30pm
Update on offshore
detention
Wrap for 2017
Market calendar
for 2018
We have now finalised
our markets for 2018, and we thought that you would like to make a note of them
so that you can join us from time to time. We would welcome supporters
from 9.00 am until 1.30 pm for an hour or two. As we’ve said so often
before, the markets are a great opportunity to interact with the public, to get
our message across about the current cruel, bipartisan asylum policy , and to
enjoy one another’s company for while.
The dates and venues
are as follows:
Saturday 20th
January: Bellingen
Saturday 3rd
February: Valla Beach
Sunday 18th February:
Coffs Harbour
Saturday 17th March:
Bellingen
Saturday 7th April:
Valla Beach
Sunday 22nd April:
Coffs Harbour
Saturday 19th May:
Bellingen
Saturday 2nd June:
Valla Beach
Sunday 17th June:
Coffs Harbour
Saturday 21st July:
Bellingen
Saturday 4th August:
Valla Beach
Saturday 15th
September: Bellingen
Saturday 6th
October: Valla Beach
Sunday 21st October:
Coffs Harbour
Saturday 17th
November: Bellingen
Saturday 1st December:
Valla Beach
Next roadside
demonstration: Bellingen, Thursday 11th January
Our first roadside
demonstration in 2018 will be on Waterfall Way in Bellingen
on Thursday 11th January from 2.30 until 4.00 pm . You will
find us by the roadside opposite the entrance to the golf club, adjacent to the
Yellow Shed. Please make a note in your diary and join us if you can.
Subsequent roadside demos will be held as follows:
Thursday 25th
January: Coffs Harbour, opposite the Base hospital
Thursday 8th
February: Toormina, opposite the former Sawtell nursery.
Thursday 22nd
February: Coffs Harbour, at The Big Banana.
Update on offshore
detention
In recent days it has
been announced that a second group of refugees from Nauru and Manus has been
approved for relocation the the US. There may be up to 150 of them, which is
great news for each and every one of them. The indications are that the
refugees will fly to the US in the coming weeks. For the remaining 1800 or so
refugees and asylum seekers, the indefinite suffering continues and the veiled
threats directed at the New Zealand government for its repeated offer to
accommodate 150 refugees per annum from our offshore hell-holes have been
reinforced in recent days by Barnaby Joyce. Only we, the voters, can change the
bipartisan stance adopted by the Coalition and Labor which has resulted in so
much suffering in our name. In an article in The Saturday Paper
at the weekend, Richard Cooke spells it out: “ The situation cannot
continue. The humanitarian disaster on Manus is now unignorable and
unsupportable. No person of conscience can vote for it, and those who call
themselves humanitarians have to vote on the basis of policies, not
platitudes”. You can read the full article on our Facebook page.
All the more reason
for us to continue to apply pressure on the Labor Party to finally assert that
this has gone on for far too long, to declare that it will end mandatory
detention if elected, that it will close the camps and that under no
circumstances will it reopen them. That was the thrust of our recent open
letter, signed by 535 people, to Shayne Neumann, the Labor Shadow minister for
immigration. At the time of writing, we are awaiting his response.
That’s it for
2017!
This is our final
newsletter of 2017. Our next newsletter will appear in your inbox
on Tuesday 9th January. A big thank you to all of you who have
supported our work in 2017 by helping at the markets, attending our roadside
demos, coming to our meetings and fundraisers, writing letters and emails,
making phone calls, writing to the press, and much more. We are a strong and
active organisation and we are undoubtedly helping, by our collective efforts,
to shift the national thinking about the cruel treatment of asylum seekers and
refugees. Let’s keep it up next year, for as long as it takes to bring this
shameful chapter in our nation’s history to an end.
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