- Target:
- Ms Terri Butler MP for Griffith, Brisbane
- Region:
- Australia
- Website:
- www.rethinkrefugees.com.au
In Australia, the rights of asylum seekers arriving by boat have been systematically abused.
The change in rhetoric, from ‘Irregular’ Maritime Arrivals to ‘Illegal’ Maritime arrivals; from the ‘Department of Immigration and Citizenship’ to the ‘Department of Border Protection’; and to the new slogan “No Way- They Will Not Make Australia Home” is alarming in that it institutionally criminalises asylum seekers arriving by boat who may have no other options available to them. Under Article 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to seek asylum.
Furthermore, the outsourcing of Immigration Detention, to Nauru and Manus Island, is concerning in terms of the poor quality of infrastructure and health services. Following the violence at Manus Island Detention Centre in February 2014, Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that: ''The practice of detaining migrants and asylum seekers arriving by boat on a mandatory, prolonged and potentially indefinite basis, without individual assessment, is inherently arbitrary. Moreover, alternatives to immigration detention should always be considered" (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2014).
In March 2014, the Federal Government cut funding to the Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme (IAAAS), leaving many thousands of asylum seekers reliant on pro bono legal advice to understand and exercise their legal rights and with little assistance to outline their claim in an appropriate written form (Law Council of Australia, 2014).
We, the undersigned, insist that the Australian government’s inhumane policies on asylum seekers arriving by boat are not in our name.
We urge that the government reconsider its policy on not granting temporary or permanent protection visas to anyone who arrives in Australia by boat; we urge that it close down the Pacific Solution Detention Facilities; and we urge that it reinstate funding for the Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme (IAAAS); and we urge that the following solutions proposed by Julian Burnside AO QC are taken into account by government:
•Boat-arrivals would be detained initially for one month, for preliminary health and security checks, subject to extension if a court was persuaded that a particular individual should be detained longer;
•After initial detention, they would be released into the community, with the right to work, Centrelink and Medicare benefits;
•They would be released into the community on terms calculated to make sure they remained available for the balance of their visa processing;
•During the time their visa applications were being processed, they would be required to live in specified regional cities. Any government benefits they received would thus work for the benefit of the regional economy. There are plenty of towns around the country that would welcome an increase in their population (Julian Bursnide AO QC, 2014).
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The Support a change to refugee and asylum seeker policies in Australia petition to Ms Terri Butler MP for Griffith, Brisbane was written by Jane and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.