Month: October 2025

Next L4R Meeting
I hope you had a good break over the festive season. Unfortunately, we have now had to return to the reality of a depressing world filled with a lot of ugliness and suffering. 

I find the best way to deal with feelings of despondency, is to get active and work with like-minded people to try and address some of these challenging issues over which we have some control.

The federal election will be upon us very soon and as disillusioned as some of us feel about some of the Labor Government’s policies, it would be a tragedy if the Coalition headed by Peter Dutton, formed government.  We cannot afford to allow the Coalition to win.  It was difficult enough trying to unscramble the mess that the Coalition left for Labor to fix when Labor formed Government.  A decade of retrograde policies.  Imagine if we had to go through that again!

Asylum Matters

The minutes for October 2024, were sent to you last year, with our notice for our Fringe Event special meeting called “Asylum Matters”.  This event took place on the 27 November 2024, in lieu of our normal monthly meeting. Thirty people attended the November special Fringe Event to view the presentations made by our three guest speakers.They were Frances Rush OAM, CEO of the Asylum Seekers Centre, Dr Graham Thom, international refugee specialist (now working for the Refugee Council of Australia) and Thouraya Lahmadi, refugee and writer. They unpacked the trends, insights and experiences that they believed must shape refugee policy in Australia.  They also explored the High Court’s ruling on immigration detention and highlighted the stark reality for a person seeking safety without a safety net.  The session highlighted what we must do in order to provide protection for those who need it.

Plenty of time was put aside at the end of the presentations, to accommodate questions from members.

People with Disability in Immigration Detention 

At our October meeting 2024, we discussed a motion re people with disability in Immigration Detention who had greater than usual challenges confronting them.  The motion urged the government to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.  On the 2 November, 2024, we wrote to Immigration Minister Tony Burke as well as to three other key Federal Ministers (Giles, Rishworth and Shorten), and to the Australia & the World Policy Committee (Int Affairs Policy C’tee in the ACT), requesting their support.

Please read our letter here PeoplewithDisabilityinImmigDetentionL4Rmotion2Nov24 and the response received on the 27 November 2024 from Immigration Minister Tony Burke herePeoplewithDisabilityinImmigrationDetnResponsefromMinBurke27Nov24

Photo Exhibition on AfghanistanWe held a successful meeting in September last year with guest speaker Muzafar Ali, who is the Co-CEO of the Cisarua Learning Centre in Indonesia.  Muzafar updated us about the dire situation for refugees in Indonesia and spoke about finding pathways for trained refugees stuck in Indonesia. Muzafar is also a Hazara photographer from Afghanistan.  He has made films on Afghans in Australia and Indonesia. You may have seen the film on the school in Cisarua “The Staging Post”.There is a new photographic exhibition by Muzafar at the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, Nowra which runs from 15 February until the 8 March.   He secretly returned to his homeland to photograph the realities of daily life under the Taliban. Since the Taliban captured Afghanistan in 2021 girls have been banned from high school education along with many other restrictions. This exhibition includes images of the underground schools where girls are risking their lives to get an education. Here is the link https://www.shoalhavenregionalgallery.com.au/Whats-on/Exhibitions/Finding-Hope-in-Afghanistan

I hope you can make it to the exhibition.

I also hope we will see you at our meeting next week.

Catherine CrittendenOctober 9, 2022Uncategorized

Progress so far

Labor in government – from 21 May 2022

5 August 2022   The ‘Biloela family’ settled in Biloela, Queensland

29 October 2022  Australian women and children begin to be repatriated from Al Hawl and al-Roj camps in  Northern Syria

13 February 2023 Abolition of TPVs and SHEVs

January 2024 Establishment of the Refugee Advisory Panel

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.