Our next L4R meeting will be held on Wednesday 27 May at 6.30pm
Anyone who supports our L4R goals is welcome to attend.
Minutes of our last meeting on the 22 April 2026 follow L4RNSW-ACTMinMtg22Apr26
L4R submission to NPF on current Draft 2026 ALP National Platform In preparation for the National ALP Conference which takes place on 23-25 July 2026, our L4R National Co-ordinating Committee (NCC) submitted our Platform amendments, to be considered for the draft 2026 ALP National Platform. Our document was sent to the National Policy Forum (NPF), which first met in March this year. NPF members who supported L4R, advocated at that meeting, for our recommendations.Our first L4R submission can be read at L4RNPFSbmtoPlatformReview15-3-26 We received feedback after the meeting which we subsequently reported to members at our April meeting (see above link to the 22/4/26 minutes of our meeting). To summarise:They got rid of unnecessary verbiage as well as the out of date material – including the Defence and Foreign Policy bits. The good news is that they removed the clause in favour of using hotels as APODs and removed clause 10 on Mandatory Detention (both L4R recommendations). They kept the commitment to legislating the 90-day rule (although this had not yet been implemented). As expected from what was reported to us, the Special Envoy and a Parliamentary Inquiry into Detention have gone (two issues that L4R won at the 2023 National Conference). Aspiration for Humanitarian Intake of 27,000 and 10,000 Complementary, remains. Relevant clauses for offshore processing (“Excision…etc.”) remain. Seeing that our recommendations were already considered by the NPF, we could not see much point in putting up the same things again to the NPF when they meet again for the final time on 11 June, as they would clearly not be adopted. Which is why when the L4R NCC met again on 12 May, we focused on our response to the current Consultation Draft 2026 ALP National Platform. Our recommendations were sent to the NPF last weekend. Our 2nd and final L4R submission with our amendments to the Draft Platform can be viewed at L4RNPFSbmtoDft2026Platform17-5-26We are hopeful that the NPF will accept our recommendations at its June meeting. L4R campaign on homelessness Since meeting with the NSW Minister for Water, Housing, Homelessness, Mental Health and Youth Rose Jackson on 31 March last, L4R has been negotiating on the wording of our motion for the 4/5 July NSW ALP Conference. We have been advocating on the issue of homelessness on behalf of asylum seekers and non-residents. The name of our campaign is “HOMELESSNESS SUPPORT SHOULD BE BASED ON NEED AND NOT VISA STATUS” and it has been supported by the Refugee Council of Australia and Asylum Seekers Centre. The motion has been endorsed by a number of ALP branches. We have now come up with an acceptable form of wording for the motion for which we will be seeking endorsement at next week’s L4R meeting before taking it to the NSW ALP Conference. We plan to promote this motion, together with the Background, to Conference Delegates, which will provide them with the facts before they vote on it. The motion follows:That this NSW Labor Conference recognises the right to housing is a human right. Humans include people in our community without visas and we recognise that the Commonwealth controls who gets visas and when, as well as the conditions on those visas, including withholding the right to work. In these circumstances, to ensure homelessness is rare, brief and non-recurring in NSW, we call on the NSW Labor Government to include accessible, safe, affordable shelter for non-residents and asylum seekers in the NSW Homelessness Strategy 2025-2035. We believe that this is an improvement on the original wording of our motion and are pleased with the outcome. We thank Minister Rose Jackson for her support. Work Rights L4R has been sending letters to the government since June last year expressing deep concern about the Department of Home Affairs removing the right to work from non-citizens who -seek Ministerial Intervention (MI) under section 48B or section 351 of the Migration Act 1958 (MA), andhave had even a day of being ‘unlawful’ (i.e., being without a valid visa, for any reason, including reasons beyond their control such as the Department not issuing a visa requested before expiry of the visa which existed at the time of the applicant’s request).Our first letter sent to the Assistant Minister for Immigration, Matt Thistlethwaite in June 2025 (copied to a number of other Ministers and Assistant Ministers), remained unanswered. We wrote to him again on the 1 September 2025 and pointed out that since first writing to him, we had sighted a letter which made clear that there is discretion available to Home Affairs in at least some Ministerial Intervention matters and that the department has been inflexible. We stated that the removal of a person’s work rights is clearly a very serious step for any government to take, but especially this Labor Government. On the 16 January 2026, we received a response from a Director in the Department of Home Affairs who referred to the Migration Regulations 1994, policy guidelines and individuals’ circumstances. Our reading of the response is that Departmental delegates, do not have discretion to grant work rights to people on bridging visas, which are intended to be very short term. This Director also stated that the Department provided needs-based support to eligible non-citizens, who cannot support themselves and can demonstrate hardship. You can read the letter here L4RWorkRightsDHAletter15Jan26 Not happy with this response, we sent another letter to Matt Thistlethwaite on the 15 April last. We stated that under the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights – everyone has the right to work.Our solution to this chronic problem, was to propose simple legislative changes. JUST AMEND THE LAW. Read our latest letter at L4RWorkRightsletter15Apr26 AUSTRALIAN FAMILIES STUCK IN SYRIA L4R wrote to the Minister for Home Affairs, Immigration and Citizenship Tony Burke and Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs on the 1 May last, expressing dismay at the way the Government has treated the Australian families trapped in Syrian camps. We pointed out that behaving recklessly or even dangerously does not mean that their rights as Australian citizens should or can lawfully be denied. Citizenship confers obligations on countries in relation to their citizens. Every time you deport a non-citizen to the country of their citizenship because they fail the Australian ‘character test’, you are in effect saying to the country of citizenship: this person is your problem, not ours. Why do we not apply the same principle to our citizens which another country seeks to deport? To abandon our citizens is to make them, in substance, stateless. This is likely an unlawful punishment outside the power of the Executive. We ended our letter saying that it was important to differentiate ourselves from the Opposition and One Nation and not allow the fear of their reprisals, influence the way we deal with these desperate Australians. Our letter follows L4RletterIsisfamiliesinSyria1May26 2026-7 Federal Budget’s impact on refugees and people seeking humanitarian protectionTo read a good analysis of the recent Budget, we recommend the Refugee Council of Australia as a source. The link is RCOA2026-7BudgetReportRefugees12May26There is some good news but not much. To summarise – The federal budget delivered last week kept the humanitarian intake at 20,000 places for 2026-2027. The budget allocated $910.9 million to refugee, humanitarian and migrant services, with $1.256 billion to fund onshore detention and compliance for 2026-2027.The government plans to improve skills recognition for the permanent migration program and to support employment for refugees across 20 regional locations. The budget also allocated $10.8 million from 2026 to 2028 for community-led health initiatives for refugee and migrant women. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s budget reply speech proposed limiting Australia’s migration intake and restricting a range of social services to Australian citizens only. Taylor linked migration to policies on housing, social services and cost of living. The Prime Minister accused Angus Taylor of ‘dog-whistling’ to marginalise immigrants. An anonymous Liberal MP described the party as being ‘corroded by hate’. Multicultural leaders have also criticised the Coalition, saying that it ‘makes immigrants feel less safe and damages social cohesion’. We agree that the Coalition’s jingoism is damaging and unacceptable to our society. |
| Cisuara Learning Centre20 screenings booked across Australia! “We Are Not Powerless” is coming to a cinema near you. These screenings are going to be full of big-hearted positivity and inspiration. Don’t miss it. Get your tickets early and share the screenings with your friends. WE ARE NOT POWERLESSRunning time: 95 minsTen years ago Muzafar Ali and his wife Nagina escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan. They found themselves living in Indonesia as refugees when Australia ‘stopped the boats’. Determined to do something, they started a small two room school, which soon became the hub of a community and the most successful refugee-led initiative in the world. We Are Not Powerless tells the story of what can happen when a community refuses to give in and work together for hope, love, and education To see the trailer and purchase tickets, go to wearenotpowerless.com.au RegardsNizza Siano Secretary L4R NSW email: contact@labor4refugees.com |
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