Flying pickets

Flying Pickets

    

I am trying to get together a group of people willing to participate in flying pickets at local events to protest about how our country is being governed, whether locally or nationally. What we would need are people to participate and people to provide the information as to what is happening, for instance Luke Hartsuyker on a charity bike ride, getting TV and photo coverage.

   

My idea would be a contact list for people and those able and willing to participate just turn up. Our protests should be themed so as to be clear and not everyone would want to put their energy into each event, we all have different priorities. I do not wish us to be couched within a political party or lobby group, as I feel it would be too constraining and might interfere with their messages too.

So if this approach appeals to you please contact me by email; robinhesketh@hotmail.com  or phone 6655 9254 and we can go from there

Refugee arrivals on Lesbos

Refugee Arrivals on Lesbos.

 The photograph taken on October 5th 2015  shows refugees arriving in an
overcrowded dinghy on the Greek Island of Lesbos. The beach is full of
abandoned dinghies and life jackets. The migrants have crossed the Aegean
Sea from Turkey . Many are fleeing the horrors of war in Syria. According to
the UN refugee agency, UNHCR,  refugee and migrant arrivals in Greece this
year will soon reach 400,000.

​

The Australian Government has recently announced that it will resettle an
additional 12,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. By comparison,
Germany expects to take 800,000 refugees this year alone. The increase in
resettlement numbers for Australia  is a welcome initiative on the part of
the government but needs to be seen against comparative numbers being
re-settled in other countries.

Marlene

Nauru - has life suddenly got better?

Nauru: Has life suddenly got better?

Last Monday the Nauruan government unexpectedly declared that the  650 asylum seekers currently held in detention on the island are "free to come and go as they wish". This was, of course, just a happy coincidence for the Australian government, which two days later was facing a hearing in the High Court on the constitutionality of Australia funding offshore detention. This new development allowed the Solicitor General, Justin Gleeson SC, to tell the Court that the detention centre on Nauru could now be properly described as a "designated place of residence", and that the case should therefore be thrown out. George Orwell would have been impressed.

 The kindest thing that one could say about all this is that it is an utterly cynical move on the part of the government.

But does it change anything for the asylum seekers?

Sadly, the effects of the change are overwhelmingly negative. The reality is:

·       The detention centre is where they will have to continue to live as there are no other places for them on the island.

·       There is abundant evidence, in spite of the secrecy, that life on the island outside the detention centre presents even greater danger for asylum seekers than the centre itself - which we already  know is an unsafe and inadequate facility for women and children.

·       The asylum seekers will not be resettled in Australia once their claims for refugee status have been processed. They will be issued 10-year visas to stay on Nauru, which is an indication of how long our government thinks it might take to resettle them elsewhere. Their already-shattered lives will remain on hold.

·       Nauru is a tiny island of just 21 square kilometres and a population of 10,000. Settling the refugees here would be the equivalent of Australia taking in 2 million refugees. And Nauru is a poor nation. Human Rights organisations and Save the Children have constantly reported that Nauru is not an appropriate place for the resettlement of refugees.

·       The effect of "opening up" the detention centre will make it even easier for the Australian government to wash its hands of any responsibility for the asylum seekers on Nauru. We will undoubtedly and increasingly  hear our government claiming that the asylum seekers are entirely the responsibility of the Nauruan government, notwithstanding the fact that we sent them there and we are paying billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to keep them there.

The asylum seekers on Nauru, therefore, will now simply live in an open, rather than a closed prison, with no hope for the future unless our government changes its policy. Their situation is as desperate as ever, and we should redouble our efforts to bring this shameful  situation to an end.

Mike

Letter to Bill Shorten urging the Labor Party to oppose the governments's policy on asylum seekers 5 October 2015

5th October 2015

Dear Mr Shorten,

Please find enclosed the details of the 370 people who have recently signed the petition published by the Bellingen and Nambucca District Rural Australians for Refugees. The petition reads:

"We, the undersigned, call on the Australian Labor Party to support the millions of Australians who are dismayed by the Coalition government's cruel, immoral and unlawful treatment of asylum seekers. Specifically, we urge you:

·       to seek an end date to the indefinite detention of children on the mainland, on Manus and on Nauru.

·       

to develop policies for the transparent and independent oversight of these centres.

·       to seek amendments to the Border Force Act, in order to enable doctors, nurses and other support workers to report on their experiences in these centres without the fear of prosecution.

·      

to demand access to the centres by NGOs, such as Amnesty International, and by journalists."

We are two relatively small communities, but the support for our campaign to seek an end to the cruel and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus and Nauru grows stronger each day. 

We have long since lost count of the number of angry people who tell us that they feel ashamed to be Australian. They are ashamed and angry that the government, with the support of the Labor opposition, continues to preside over the indefinite detention, the cruel and inhumane treatment and the sexual abuse of vulnerable people who have committed no crime.  These people are entitled to our protection, yet we continue to punish them.

We urge the Labor Party to strongly oppose the government's asylum policy and to actively campaign for the closure of offshore detention centres.

                                                                                 

Yours sincerely,

Copy to Ms Tanya Plibersek MP                                                        Mike Griffin          

Newsletter for 29 September 2015 Rural Australians for Refugees Bellingen and Nambucca Districts

Hi everyone 

This newsletter is stored here for archive purposes .

To read the newsletter click below

Letter to Prime Minister concerning treatment of Asylum Seekers at Offshore detention centres

25.9.15

Dear Prime Minister,

It was deeply depressing to listen to you on Radio National on 23rd September, telling the nation that "there will be no resettlement of the people on Manus and Nauru in Australia".

The government has gone to great lengths to maintain a veil of secrecy around the treatment of asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru, and it is clear that there is much to hide.  The available evidence from a number of reliable sources paints a picture of people living in fear and despair, in wretched conditions and with the ever-present threat of physical and sexual abuse. These people, who include some 90 children, have committed no crime and yet they find themselves locked away indefinitely, far from the public gaze and with little access to legal and other professional advice. We don't treat convicted criminals like this. These asylum seekers are our responsibility, and this is not the way that a wealthy, first-world nation should treat some of the world's most vulnerable people. What the government is doing in our name is neither humane, morally defensible nor compatible with our international obligations.  It is simply not acceptable for you to assert that "you could say it is a harsh policy, but it has worked". Locking up children indefinitely in such appalling conditions can never be justified. They cannot be used as the "price" to be paid for deterring asylum seekers from seeking safety on our shores.

I do hope that, in the weeks ahead, you will indeed pay "close attention" to the current policy and that your government will quickly bring to an end this shameful chapter in our nation's history. These offshore detention centres, which are costing Australian  taxpayers billions of dollars to maintain, should be closed as a matter of urgency and those detainees who are found to be entitled to protection under international law should be resettled in Australia.

                                                                                                            Yours sincerely,

                                                                                                            Mike

Another asylum seeker boat not noticed by Australian Border Control

Asylum seeker boat drifted for three days before washing up on Java Coast.

Border Control did not see it. Do they only find a boat if they get a distress call?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/asylum-seeker-boat-with-21-aboard-ran-out-of-fuel-three-days-before-rescue?CMP=ema_632

Letter to Nambucca Guardian - "denial of human rights to us all?"

Letter to Nambucca Guardian - "denial of human rights to us all?"

Dear Editor,

There is a book by the famous author, Ursula Le Guin, titled "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas".  In the village of Omelas everyone is happy and fulfilled. There is no war or strife and everyone prospers.

When young people come of age the price of this happiness is revealed. They learn that underneath one of their stately public buildings, or a fine private mansion, there is a cellar with a locked door and no windows. In this room there sits a neglected, malnourished child who spends its days in abject misery. As long as this one child is suffering the rest of the community can be happy. This is the bargain.

At this point in their life the young person learns this and must make a decision: to stay or to leave. If they choose to stay, and remain in the village with a happy and contented life, they have assented that the life of this child does not matter.

If they choose to leave then they have made the decision that this one miserable, dirty, despairing life matters.

Our own lives are like this in many ways. We are told by the government, Labor, National and Liberal, that our way of life, our safety, our security, depends on keeping people locked up in concentration camps on Nauru and Manus Island. 

We are told that we must pay billions of dollars, at a time of budget emergency, to keep people who are innocent of any crime in indefinite detention. This includes 88 children in detention in Nauru.

Omelas is not a place but a state of mind. Walking away from Omelas requires us to reject this Faustian bargain. It requires us to reject the idea that our safety and security depends on denying hope to 88 children. It requires us to act.

If we give our consent to the passage of laws that codify the denial of human rights to some is it really unrealistic to think, given the history of the twentieth century, that it may not lead to the denial of human rights to us all?

Peter Sobey

Monthly Picket outside Luke Hartsuyker's office 24 September 2015

Report from Green's MNC

"On the subject of refugees....Yesterday Richard, Craig and Craig's kids from Coffs Greens joined the rally organised by https://www.facebook.com/Rural-Australians-for-Refugees-…/…/ outside Luke Hartsukyer's office in Coffs Harbour. Just like our new PM we are concerned about the conditions these desperate and vulnerable men, women and children find themselves in Australian detention centres - unlike Mr Turnbull we want something to be done about it! 

Greens and many others in our community agree - The time has come to close down these expensive and cruel offshore 'deterrent' detention camps on Nauru and Manus!

During the one and half hour rally people came and went, however It was good to meet others who understand the need and urgency to end this horrible current policy. The media came along and John Pollock spoke about the on-going monthly rally, RAR and the need to continue to raise awareness and provide facts often lacking when discussing asylum seekers. Craig highlighted the Greens stance on returning the humane processing of asylum seekers to Australia. This is both compassionate and a less costly option. It really is quite shocking that there are children already traumatised - as young as my own kids - that are now treated so terribly by our government… surely this is un-Australian!"