Letter to Wayne Swan Labor Party to change asylum seeker policy with 2067 signatures

31^st August 2018

Dear Wayne Swan,

Please find enclosed  copies of an open letter addressed to the President of the Labor  party, which has been signed by 2,067 everyday Australians, including many members of your party. The signatures have been collected by our local Rural Australians for Refugees group and by RAR groups from around Australia.

The open letter, aimed at delegates to your upcoming conference, states:

“We urge delegates to listen to the voices of the many hundreds of groups across Australia who are pleading for a compassionate and humanitarian approach to our refugees and asylum seekers, whether languishing without hope on Manus or Nauru, or living in precarious uncertainty in our communities.

We urge delegates to heed the reports of the wide range of NGOs, human rights groups and professionals in the field who have been consistently calling for an end to the crushing and punitive treatment of people detained indefinitely offshore.

Finally, we urge delegates to commit to ending offshore detention if the Party wins the next Federal election. It is time to put this shameful chapter in our history behind us.”

We acknowledge that there is much that is positive about the Labor party’s current asylum policy. The party’s policy on offshore detention, however, cannot possibly be described as “humanitarian”. Offshore detention, which your party acknowledges is not time-limited, is morally indefensible, unlawful, utterly cruel, and immensely damaging to the detainees’ physical and mental health. It has to end, and it is surely time for the Labor party to take a principled and humanitarian stand on this issue. The refugees and asylum seekers currently languishing in offshore detention must be brought to Australia for processing and for resettlement either here or in other safe countries willing to accept them.

Please be aware that, as the federal election approaches, RAR groups around Australia will continue to campaign strongly for an end to this cruel and shocking policy.

                                                                                 Yours sincerely,

                                                                                  Mike Griffin

                                                              Bellingen and Nambucca District                                                                  RAR

Newsletter for 28 August 2018 Rural Australians for Refugees Bellingen and Nambucca Districtsa

Roadside demonstration report

Fusion Festival: TODAY from 11.00 am to 2.00 pm

Nauru horror gets worse

Did you watch last night’s 7.30 Report?

Roadside demonstration report

A hugely successful roadside demonstration in Coffs Harbour last Thursday, with a great turnout of enthusiastic supporters. The response from motorists was overwhelmingly positive, underlining once again that there is solid community support for ending the brutal policy of indefinite offshore detention. If only politicians on both sides of parliament would develop some spine and stand up to the right-wing media, this cruelty could be brought to an end in a matter of weeks.

Our next demonstration will be on Waterfall Way in Bellingen, adjacent to the Yellow Shed, on Thursday 6^th September from 2.30 to 4.00 pm. Please come and join us if you can.

Fusion Festival: TODAY from 11.00 am to 2.00 pm

A final reminder that the Fusion Festival takes place today, 28^th August from 11.00 am until 2.00 pm at the Coffs Harbour education campus on Hogbin Drive. Enjoy dancing, music and food from around the world!

Nauru horror gets worse

Since last week’s newsletter, the situation for sick children on Nauru has deteriorated further. At least three children have been evacuated from the island since last Thursday, and reports from the island say that at least three more children, including a twelve-year-old, are very seriously ill. Our government continues to resist the urgent advice of medical staff until the last moment, putting lives at serious risk. As solicitor George Newhouse stated in recent days: “ What kind of world do we live in where life-or-death situations need to be decided by a judge?”

Given that our new Prime Minister was the previous hardline minister for immigration, the short-term prospects for asylum seekers and refugees would appear to be grim. Mr. Morrison was one of the principal architects of the current asylum policy - a policy which he pursued enthusiastically . He was, and remains committed to the cruel and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, both in offshore detention and in Australia. Whether or not the appointment of David Coleman as the new minister for immigration makes any difference remains to be seen. 

A coalition of more than 30 organisations, including RAR, is lobbying politicians to bring all the children and their families currently on Nauru to Australia by the deadline of Universal Children’s Day on 20^th November. It is vitally important that we keep up the pressure on both the government and the opposition, and to get them to understand that, as an election approaches, we will continue to campaign strongly for a change of policy. The CEO of World Vision, Claire Rogers, at the launch of the petition, stated: “ These children have been forced to see and endure things that no child should ever see. The clock is ticking. This harmful, secretive and dysfunctional system of indefinite detention must end.”

Please sign the petition by clicking here: https://www.kidsoffnauru.com./

Did you watch last night’s 7.30 Report?

If you watched last night’s 7.30 Report on ABC, you would have been shocked and dismayed by the accounts of the three professionals – a healthcare worker, a child psychiatrist and a social worker – who related their experiences of working with children in Nauru. They revealed a shocking spate of recent self-harm events, brought on by a deep sense of despair and hopelessness as a result of their ongoing indefinite detention.

Dr Vernon Reynolds stated : “ Am I concerned that children could die in Nauru, that some of these refugee children should die? I’m absolutely concerned about that. I’m reasonably surprised that no-one has.” Dr Reynolds worked in Nauru for two years until April 2018 and was about to return, only to discover, a day before his scheduled departure, that his services were no longer required. And the reason? He had been speaking out about the dreadful situations that he encountered on a daily basis in the course of his work, which was bad for the reputation of his employer and the Australian government.

Please keep this in mind if, in a few weeks’ time, at the Pacific Islands Forum to be held in Nauru, you see images of Prime Minister Morrison surrounded by happy, smiling children.

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.

This newsletter is sent to >620 recipients

Our Face book is at https://www.facebook.com/Rural-Australians-for-Refugees-Bellingen-and-Nambucca-Districts-269696303205083/timeline/

(579 likes)

Twitter Account @RARBellingenNam

Email address bellingen.rar@gmail.com

The National RAR web site is at  www.ruralaustraliansforrefugees.org.au 

The National

Newsletter for 21 August 2018 Rural Australians for Refugees Bellingen and Nambucca Districts

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 23^rd August

The Fusion Festival is coming soon!

Sale of paintings to support the ASC

Nauru: the children continue to suffer

Migration (Validation of Port Appointment) Bill 2018

Roadside demonstration: Thursday 23^rd August

A reminder that our next roadside demonstration is this Thursday, 23^rd August from 2.30 to 4.00 pm by the Pacific Highway in Coffs Harbour, opposite the Base hospital. Do come and join us if you can and help us to maintain the pressure on our politicians to end the brutal and destructive offshore detention regime.

The Fusion Festival is coming soon!

The Fusion Festival will take place at the Southern Cross University campus in Coffs Harbour on Tuesday 28^th August from 11.00 am until 2.00 pm. A great opportunity to enjoy music, dancing, food and culture from around the world and to celebrate the vibrant diversity of our community. We have been allocated a space for our RAR stall, where, as usual, we’ll be talking to people, selling our merchandise and collecting final signatures on our open letter. Please come along and join in the festivities.

Sale of paintings to support the ASC

There is still time for you to drop into the Stringer Gallery on Ridge Street in Nambucca Heads. The Arts Council’s Artist of the Month, Marlene Griffin, has lots of work on sale from $20 to $250, with all the proceeds to be donated to the Asylum Seekers Centre in Sydney. The gallery is open from 10.00 am until 3.00 pm from Wednesday to Friday, and from 9.30 am until midday on Saturdays. Let’s hope that we will be able to make another generous donation to the ASC at the end of the month. They need every dollar that we can raise to support their vital work with asylum seekers.

Nauru: the children continue to suffer

The appalling suffering of children on Nauru gets worse by the day. Medical staff on the island report that a twelve-year-old Iranian boy who is on hunger strike is at imminent risk of dying. He is but one of a growing number of children on the island who are in urgent need of high level medical care, which cannot be provided on Nauru. They include a 14-year-old boy with muscle wastage so severe that he may never walk normally again, and a two-year-old child whose parents are too unwell to care for him. An official on the island tells us: “Everyone on the island knows how serious this is. A child is going to die. Every day it gets closer. It’s never been so critical.”

Since December 2017, at least 14 challenges have been brought before the federal court seeking immediate orders that seriously unwell children be moved from Nauru to receive the urgent medical care that they needed. All have been successful. Our government is playing a deeply cynical and cruel high-stakes game with children’s lives. It has to stop!

Please consider contacting minister Dutton to protest about this cruelty and to demand that ALL children and their families be brought to Australia without delay. (There are still approximately 130 children detained indefinitely on Nauru).

Telephone: 02 7277 7860. Email: minister@border.gov.au.

Migration (Validation of Port Appointment) Bill 2018

A recent court judgement ruled that the government’s attempt to excise Ashmore Reef from Australia’s migration zone 16 years ago was invalid. The government’s action at the time was an attempt to prevent any asylum seekers who entered Australia through Ashmore Reef from making claims for permanent protection. Rather than accept its mistake and allow the 1600 asylum seekers affected to apply for protection – as is their right – the government introduced legislation to parliament which would allow it to retrospectively legitimize the error in law of 16 years ago. Sadly, the government succeeded in passing the legislation last week, with the support of the Labor opposition. Only 3 MPs – the independents Cathy McGowan and Andrew Wilkie, and the Greens MP Adam Bandt – opposed the legislation.

We clearly still have a long way to go before our parliamentarians begin to act with humanity and principle in relation to our responsibilities for asylum seekers and refugees. All the more reason to keep up the fight as the federal election approaches.

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.

This newsletter is sent to >620 recipients

Our Face book is at https://www.facebook.com/Rural-Australians-for-Refugees-Bellingen-and-Nambucca-Districts-269696303205083/timeline/

(579 likes)

Twitter Account @RARBellingenNam

Email address bellingen.rar@gmail.com

The National RAR web site is at  www.ruralaustraliansforrefugees.org.au 

The National RAR facebook site is at  RAR Facebook