LABOR AND REFUGEES DECEMBER 2024
Copies to be sent to Tony Burke, Ged Kearney and Josh Burns,
Anthony Albanese
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
3 December 2024
Dear Anthony
I first joined the Labor Party in 1956 just after Labor’s split but the bills passed in Parliament last week represent for me the most disappointing moment in Labor history.
In August 1945, Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell approved a scheme for Holocaust survivors to be sponsored to Australia
Under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution;
You would no doubt be aware that Labor’s Dr Evatt played a significant role in the formation of the United Nations (UN) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and was influential in the creation of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
I refer you also to Michelle Bachelet who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022.
Michelle Bachelet, said that the newly concluded global compact on migration could help countries co-operate on migration and would protect the rights of some of the world’s most vulnerable. She said, ‘Australia, has suggested it might withdraw from the Compact, should join the consensus of the global community, adopt the compact and revise the country’s policies with respect to people arriving at its borders without a visa.’ Her fiercest criticism was reserved for Australia’s offshore immigration regime, on the remote islands of Nauru and Manus in Papua New Guinea. ‘The current offshore processing centres are an affront to the protection of human rights’, Bachelet said.
Sincerely
Robin Rothfield
Former National Convenor,
Labor for Refugees.
