Category: Uncategorized

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.

Please send your name and postal address, and your order to our Treasurer and she will advise the total cost (T-shirts plus postage). T-shirts (all black with yellow lettering), sizes XS, S, M, L, Xl, XXL, are $20 each. Our model is wearing L.

Email: jennhain@bigpond.com

Labor for Refugees always opposed turnbacks and right up to the last evening before the refugee debate took place, intended to submit a motion opposing turnbacks plus other motions including one to close Manus Island and Nauru. However, Labor for Refugees decided to withdraw its own motion on turnbacks and argued the case at Left caucus against putting the Andrew Giles/Murray Watt motion opposing turnbacks to the floor of the conference, in circumstances where it was bound to fail.

This was because we discovered that the Left would not bind and the CFMEU National Secretary Michael O’Connor would not support it. The CFMEU had 20 Delegates and United Voice, who did not have a binding vote, had 12 Delegates. Labor for Refugees had, in the lead up to Conference, effectively lobbied Right unions including the NUW, SDA and AWU, so if the Left had been united, there would have been a good chance of getting major refugee reforms through the Conference. With the numbers so close (and the right bound on the platform remaining silent on turnbacks) any split in the Left doomed it to fail.

Labor for Refugees consistently said that the platform as it stands (which is silent on turnbacks) prohibits turn-backs. It requires compliance with international law and turn-backs involve breaches of international law. In spite of knowing that the turnback motion would not get up on the floor of Conference, after Labor for Refugees lost the argument at the Left caucus, I voted for the Giles/Watt motion opposing turnbacks on the floor of the conference, which of course went down. Losing that motion has left those who campaigned against turn backs in a much worse position that had the motion never been put.

It was a very difficult decision for Labor for Refugees to make and we knew that it may be misunderstood but we wanted the best outcome for refugees. That was always the foremost consideration for us.

On the positive side, Labor for Refugees also promoted a petition called “Labor Women Say” asking all ALP women to sign up to end abuse and close Nauru & Manus Island. The issue of turnbacks, which dominated the refugee debate, allowed barely any time to debate the issue of offshore processing centres. Labor for Refugees submitted a motion demanding that both the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres be closed. However, the Left proposed a watered down version which was moved by Murray Watt/Andrew Giles. Even this watered down version by the Left was defeated on the floor of Conference because it was not binding on the Left.

Labor for Refugees held a fringe event that surpassed all others for attendance and engagement and obtained significant media coverage. Labor for Refugees had a consistently staffed stall and the tireless volunteers there fielded many questions from many delegates and changed quite a few positions. We distributed hundreds of T-shirts which were highly visible during the ill-fated debate on conference floor. Labor for Refugees National Co-Convenor Shane Prince addressed a large rally outside Conference and received a very warm reception (notwithstanding his Labor colours). More importantly, 90% of the Labor for Refugee amendments which were settled on by the Labor for Refugees National Co-ordinating Committee during the consultation draft phase were incorporated into the platform which was adopted by the conference. Those amendments were argued by Shane Prince in the National Policy Forum Working Group, to which he was invited because of the significance of Labor for Refugees’ contribution in this area.

Catherine CrittendenMarch 14, 2021Uncategorized

NATIONAL CO-ORDINATING COMMITTEE

Labor for Refugees resolution for ALP Special Platform Conference 2021

Labor for Refugees asks that Labor’s Policy be framed to provide a positive and compassionate approach by a Labor Government to the treatment of refugees, rather than a reaction to the punitive and cruel approach of the Coalition Government. Refugees and those seeking asylum in Australia are to be welcomed under a Labor Government as assets who enhance this nation and our economy and provide positive contribution to our strong multicultural society.

To achieve this goal we urge Labor to adopt the following policies in the Party Platform: 

• End offshore detention and the offshore processing regime
• Provide a clear pathway to citizenship for any person who is granted a permanent protection visa by recognizing all time that the person has spent in immigration detention, offshore detention or on a temporary or bridging visa as qualifying time for purposes of qualification for citizenship.
• People seeking asylum are to be accommodated in government-run and urban-based reception centres.
• Create an independent Refugee Review Tribunal following abolition of the Immigration Assessment Authority. The Tribunal will be free from political appointments and only judges, retired judges, and senior counsel will be eligible for appointment by the Attorney-General. The Tribunal will apply the same procedure as applies in the General Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. 

Catherine CrittendenNovember 30, 2020Uncategorized

Labor for Refugees recommends some changes to the draft National Platform. The submission is supported by many Labor members, branches, and supporters. See the full submission here.