Category: Uncategorized

Our usual 27 November monthly meeting will be replaced by a L4R Fringe Event.
This will be the last time we meet in 2024.Our Labor for Refugees Fringe Event was meant to take place at the NSW Labor Conference earlier this year.  However, the Fringe Events were cancelled by NSW Labor with a promise that they would take place at a later time.
 
Our Fringe Event is now being held online at 6.30pm on Wednesday 27 November 2024.

We are very lucky that the same guests invited to our original Fringe Event, are still available.

They are:

• Dr Graham Thom, international refugee specialist
• Frances Rush OAM, Asylum Seekers Centre CEO
• Thouraya Lahmadi, refugee and writer

In this session, our guests will unpack the trends, insights, and experiences that must shape refugee policy in Australia.From exploring the High Court’s ruling on immigration detention to highlighting the stark reality for a person seeking safety without a safety net, this session will highlight what we must do in order to provide protection for those who need it.

The link to the leaflet follows 

L4RFringeEvent27Nov25
 

Please rsvp by clicking the following link and complete the form https://6b2swhmjz0t.typeform.com/to/xiSs6QXO 

The Zoom link to our event will be sent to you prior to 27 November.

I hope to see you at our Fringe Event on the 27 November.

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.

Jenny HainesAugust 25, 2025Uncategorized

Catherine CrittendenNovember 15, 2022Uncategorized

Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education (ERCJ) is organizing a 5-week Free Legal Empowerment Course for refugees, people seeking asylum and migrants. The purpose is to empower multicultural communities in NSW by increasing their core legal knowledge and associated skills. The program also aims to foster integration and encourage the participants to advocate for their own rights and interests as well as pursue professional and personal goals, using the information and techniques they learn during the sessions.For detail about the program please visit our website here.

A consultation draft of Labor’s National Platform is being released in the lead up to the 48th ALP National Conference, which will be held in Adelaide on 16, 17 and 18 December 2018.

The consultation draft is the work of Labor’s National Policy Forum, which over the past 12 months has engaged more than 3,000 Party members in the Platform Development process through workshops, policy submissions and surveys.

The consultation draft is available for download here.    https://www.alp.org.au/national_platform

On Tuesday 2 June 2020, Labor for Refugees held a Q&A, What is Labor doing? with the shadow minister via Zoom. The recording of the event can be found here.

Senator Keneally sent the following letter after the event:

Thank you for attending the Zoom Q&A session. The insights from Labor 4 Refugees are always valued and I value the open dialogue we have on migration, refugee and asylum issues.  

Australians are enthusiastic supporters of migration and as I said the other night we are one of the most successful multicultural nations on earth. We can be proud of the role migration has played in our past – and will play in our future. Our identity as a nation of migrants is unifying and we have welcomed people from every corner of the globe. Refugees and asylum seekers continue to – and will always play – a key part in Australia’s story. 

We covered a wide array of topics which canvassed the implications of COVID on temporary migrants, the additional powers for Australian Border Force officers in detention centres, Medevac, and a range of other topics. The questions were brilliant, and I thank everyone who took the time to draft and submit one. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to them all. 

A prominent issue for the community and one we spoke about the other night is the lack of financial relief or income support for temporary migrants in Australia, including SHEV and TPV holders and the hundreds of thousands of students and other visa holders with work rights – but no work – who have been left without any support.    

As I mentioned during the call, we are collecting case studies of people on temporary visas who are facing difficulties here in Australia. I am concerned that the Government does not understand the situation many temporary migrants are currently facing and believe that the Treasurer and Minister Ruston need to hear about the contribution migrants make to our country. If you have a story to tell about temporary migrants you know or know a temporary migrant who wants to tell their story,  please contribute here. 

Your perspective is appreciated. You can sign up to my regular stakeholder newsletter here, or if you have any additional thoughts or ideas please don’t hesitate to contact me at senator.keneally@aph.gov.au.  

Kind regards

Kristina

Facebook post by Andrew Giles MP 

The Albanese Government has made a commitment to transition those who have been found to be owed our protection on temporary protection visas to permanent protection – we will keep this promise, and meet our commitment as soon as possible.

In working towards this, we have met and consulted with TPV/SHEV holders, legal experts & members of the crossbench. To put in place a mechanism that is effective, which can be applied to all members of the cohort consistently, and which is enduring.

We recognise that over the last 10 years, those on TPVs and SHEVs have been living in limbo.

Temporary protection visa holders deserve stability and assurance for their futures – to grow their businesses, buy houses, study and gain secure employment – many of them in regional areas.

6^th September 2022

Book Launch  – The Drownings’ Argument

On Saturday 21 February 2015 at Balmain Town Hall meeting room, Julian Burnside QC launched this small, but significant volume of essays! He began by apologising for the book’s title, not so much the stray apostrophe as for the fact that it should have been The Drownings Excuse…..and for the fact that we need such a book at all. The room was packed; no where near enough chairs to go round. He told us of the misery of particular individuals; he told us about people having their medications and hearing aids etc taken from them; he told us about the mammoth task he had undertaken to get letters from Australians to asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus, and how , after 12 months, the Dept had returned all the mail to him as sender, unopened. Where has our humanity, where has our basic decency gone?

Verity Firth, Labor candidate for Balmain, chaired the meeting, and she and Shane Prince, Co-convenor of Labor for Refugees, told audience members about Labor’s appalling record in government on this issue, Labor’s timidity currently in opposition, and the efforts of Labor members to change this and set the refugees free. Read Verity’s welcome here.