Letter to the Editor re local RAR activities

 Dear Editor,

The recent Bellingen market was a lively and busy morning with so many stallholders enjoying the crowds of shoppers. As usual our RAR stall in support of refugees had great support from locals and tourists. Most people who visited the stall were happy to sign the latest letter we propose to send to the Prime Minister to urge him and his government to show greater compassion to refugees and to desist from using them as a political football in the run up to the election. Many visitors expressed the view that they would like to see government policies change in relation to offshore detention and the inhumane treatment of refugees.

We would like to thank market organisers for the work that they do to manage the market and coordinate the events of the morning. They do a great job and the challenge of it has been considerable so far this year due to Covid and the weather . Their hard work is much 

appreciated. 

With thanks,

Marlene G.

Letter: the Australian detention centre with four asylum seekers and a $26m price tag

The Guardian's Article

Dear Editor,

Christmas Island Detention Centre has been used to house refugees in prison like conditions for many years. At the moment it is empty except for one family of four. They are Sri Lankan refugees , a mother, father and two small children .

The family was happily settled in a Queensland town of Biloela but were transported in a dawn raid in 2018 to a Melbourne Detention Centre and following this in August of 2019 they were sent to Christmas Island.

The detention centre on Christmas island had been closed but was re-opened recently at a cost of $26 million to the Australian tax payer. At the moment there are 109 staff members at the centre including 9 medical workers and two officers of the Australian Border Force. All these salaried staff members are funded by our Government and so indirectly by ourselves to oversee the detention of this one family of four .

It is not safe for this family to return to Sri Lanka . As Tamils they would be likely to face torture, abductions or worse. It is clearly in the best interests of the family to return to their home in Queensland. The family were self supporting in their community with the father in work in a job that was necessary to their struggling rural town. They are the kind of people our country needs. They present no threat to our security.

The cruel and callous  treatment of this family once again demonstrates the lack of humanity and empathy at the heart of our governments asylum policy.

It is time for some compassion in our treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.

We need to see a change in this shameful Government policy .

Bring this family home and save millions of dollars now being spent on their detention.

Marlene Griffin

Valla Beach 

See also The Guardian's

Inside Christmas Island: the Australian detention centre with four asylum seekers and a $26m price tag

"The sole occupants of a million-dollar facility off the country’s coast are two adults and two small children, who are paying the price for its war on refugees"

Letter to the Editor: The shame of continued mental torture

It saddens me greatly to read that 50 male asylum seekers have self-harmed or attempted suicide since the federal election on Manus Island and in Port Moresby. The question I ask repeatedly is “Why have we and our politicians lost so much empathy towards others in need of help and compassion?” Come on my fellow Australians, let’s embrace and support others in need and not be afraid of them. I urge everyone to petition their federal representatives to exercise their natural humanity and change this cruel practice.

Robin Hesketh, Bellingen

letter to editors - vote or compassion - refugees

letter sent to Bellingen Courier Sun, Nambucca Guardian and Coffs Advocate

_{I am part of a group who advocates for refugees in the Bellingen, Coffs and Nambucca area. You may have seen us standing by the side of the road with our signs supporting refugees.}

 _{Occasionally passers by call out “Send them Home.”  So I have decided to tell you about a certain family of four who are my friends in Sydney who can’t go home to their Middle Eastern country which they left in a hurry in fear of their lives.}

 _{They were in the last boatload of asylum seekers to land on Christmas Island before the government decided to send all boat people to offshore detention.  After six turbulent years of learning a new language, dealing with the trauma of their lives, missing their extended family members left behind and looking for jobs, they are living in Sydney.}

 _{They receive no money from the Government. The sons are settled at school, the father, a former school principal, is working and studying as a tradesman and the mother, a B.Sc graduate,is working in Aged care and continuing her studies.}

 _{They love Australia, They love their work and each month they donate money from their minimal wages to St Vinnies because, as the mother explained to me:}

 _{“ When we were dependent on money from the Government we made a pact with each other that when we had jobs we would give back to Australia.”}

 _{It is people like these, who are still waiting for a permanent visa, that some politicians and passers-by want to: “….send home.” I want people like these to be my neighbours.}

_{Vote for compassion}

_{Margaret Henley}

letter to the editor - let's stop the Hate Speech

Published in Bellingen Courier Sun on 20 March 2019

Let’s Stop the Hate Speech

I was born in Australia over 70 years ago. All of my life I have had to listen to so-called White Australians publicly denigrating people of all minority groups such as Muslims, Asians, Aboriginal people and gay people.

When the use of this hate speech is so prevalent is it any wonder that this culminates in the appalling tragedy in Christchurch.

Especially when this racist, bigoted and xenophobic language is fully embraced for purely political purposes by some of our leading politicians. When, for example, the Minister for Immigration hysterically and erroneously states that a small number of refugees from Manus Island and Nauru coming to our shores for urgent medical treatment will take our jobs, kick patients off hospital waiting lists and evict people out of their social housing. This is base politics at its lowest and most dangerous level.

In the absence of any leadership from our politicians, we all, as citizens of this great country, need to take personal responsibility to avoid using racist and bigoted language and to condemn and call out all who resort to this hate speech.

Paul Bartholomew

Boambee East

letter to editor medevac legislation - some facts

The Medevac Legislation-Some Facts

This new legislation, enabling the medical evacuation of sick people, applies only to people currently on Manus Island and Nauru. It does not apply to any future asylum seekers.

The Minister retains the right to reject medical transfers on a number of grounds including security risk or if the person has a substantial criminal record.

Prior to this legislation, 879 sick people and their families have been transferred to Australia for treatment, often as a result of intervention by the courts. This has not resulted in any new boat arrivals. Not one!

In recent years an armada of Australian navy vessels has prevented asylum-seeker boats from entering Australian waters. Some 34 boats carrying more than 1,000 people have been turned back into Indonesian waters. This turn-back policy has the explicit support of the Coalition and the Labor party.

The Government claims that some men on Manus have committed serious offences. If so, why haven’t they been deported already back to their home countries?

The hysteria created by the Morrison Government over this Medevac legislation is deliberately deceitful and inflammatory in pursuit of a base political agenda based on fear and bigotry.

The reality is that the great majority of the 970 people remaining on Manus Island and Nauru have been assessed by UNHCR and Border Force officials as legitimate refugees. They have committed no crime. All they have done is to exercise their legal right under the Refugee Convention to seek asylum in this country. Australia and nearly every country in the world is a signatory to this Refugee Convention.

Surely it is time to end the persecution and cruelty that these people have endured for six long years. They should be immediately resettled in Australia, the USA, New Zealand or another safe country.

Paul Bartholomew

Boambee East