Posted on November 16, 2009 by by 99 Red Balloons

As the Black Friday shadows grew longer, and office workers left their daily grind, a crowd of protestors began to muster in front of the Civic merry-go-round. Between 80 and 100 people eventually gathered to express their support for refugees trapped in inhumane conditions on Indonesian soil for years on end.

The first speaker was Jane Keogh from the Refugee Action Committee. I thought she spoke particularly well.

“We send boats to Indonesia, to leave genuine refugees who have fled civil war and terror, who’ve seen many in their family already killed, paying Indonesia 11 million dollars to keep them in camps that we wouldn’t keep our animals in,” she began.

“If I went in there and told the RSPCA that some little dogs were being kept in the kind of camps that these people are being housed in on Australian taxpayers’ money in Indonesia – for years – without knowing what will happen to them, with no certainty for their future, the RSPCA would straight away put its people on to go and serve notice and take them to court. Animals would not be allowed to be kept in those sorts of conditions.”

Behind Australian Doors

She went on to talk about the “Behind Australian Doors” report produced by lawyer Jessie Taylor.

“She visited eleven of the camps in Indonesia. She talked to 250 asylum seekers waiting there. The problem is they wait … and wait … and wait … and wait – no education for their children – and even if they are recognised as refugees, no country will take them. There’s noone to guarantee where they can go.

“And yet Australia takes such a small percentage of the millions of refugees seeking asylum throughout the globe. The BBC recently slated Australia for its inability to stand up to its international obligations and take more refugees. We take a tiny number.

“Jessie Taylor went behind bars and saw the conditions. Rats. No proper sanitation. Polluted water. Babies and children behind bars. Malnourished. No education. No schools. Nothing happening for years.

“One of them that she met has been there seven years. Others have been two, three, four … and noone will take them later.

“Australia has to agree to be more humane, and take more refugees. We would not even notice it if we increased our percentage intake of refugees. We would begin to comply with our obligations under the Geneva Convention and our international obligations.

“There were 13-17 year old children in adult prisons in Indonesia: 13-17 year olds with no family with them. There were many orphans just living there. The children in families are in slightly better places, mostly, than the others; but the 13-17 year olds are often in gaols with adult prisoners. Some of them are orphans. Some of them have been sent by their families to try and save themselves after the other children in the family have already been killed.”

The ‘Queue’

“Some would say they should line up on the queue, but there’ve only been 35 of the asylum seekers waiting in Indonesian camps processed in the 2008-2009 year and resettled. There are thousands in the camps. In one year 35 of them were resettled. So what choice do they have?

“If you had little children living in those conditions, would you risk a leaky boat? Some of them will say, “Death is better.”

“They don’t want to come on leaky boats. They don’t want to trust people smugglers. They want to be resettled quickly. And the solution is for Australia to take more refugees and settle them here. Bring them here.

“Jessie Taylor’s solution was simple in her report. She says we should install controlled and robust and fair assessments and settle them directly from Indonesia to Australia in a very short time.”

Temporary Protection Visas

“I have living in my house with me a young refugee at the moment, who has been away from his home for nine years; and because of the Howard Government policy he was on a temporary visa. After four years in Baxter, three years on a temporary visa, and only this year has he been able to go to Pakistan and find four orphan children for whom he is now responsible.

“He’s been sending money to keep them since he got out of Baxter, then he found that the money wasn’t actually getting to them. So when he finally got a permanent visa and went there to look, he found they were living like street children. Their parents dead, no adult looking after them, and the person he was sending some money to was keeping it for his own family who was starving. So the children were malnourished, had no food, and didn’t have enough clothing. And it’s the temporary protection policy that created that.

“And today, Malcolm Turnbull has announced that he will bring back temporary protection visas. Has he learnt nothing?

“Australia is paying millions of dollars now to try and undo the damage created by the temporary protection visas. The SIEVX … all the people who died on the SIEVX and sank in the water … most of them were coming here to try and join their family. They wouldn’t have had to do that if we didn’t have a temporary protection visa policy.

“These people need reuniting with their families.

“There are no queues.

“There is no excuse for keeping children in Indonesia in those kinds of conditions.”

To the Prime Minister

“Mr Rudd, you say that you admire Bonhoeffer. You speak of a philosophy about humanitarianism. You speak from a high moral stand. And yet you pump Australian taxpayers’ money to keeping refugees in conditions like this in Indonesia. It is a huge shame. Why should they wait there for years in squalid conditions?

“Bring the children here. Bring the boat people here. Don’t waste our money keeping people in camps like that.”

To us

“We need to get together. We need to contact our politicians.

“And I know people say that Rudd’s popularity is slipping because he is not strong enough on border protection.

“This isn’t a border protection issue. This is a humanitarian challenge.

“All this rhetoric on border protection … Rubbish! Not one person who’s come by boat has ever been found to have any links with terrorism. Yet 12,000 people came by plane and are now living here in Australia illegally.

“The boat people are not illegal. It’s not illegal to come and ask for protection in a country when you’re kicked out of your own and when you’re suffering war and strife.

“We must be more humane. We must change Australian policy.

“So talk to your politicians. Talk to your media. Let people know that we want to be proud of Australia. We want to be a country that doesn’t just respond to people who are devastated by tidal waves and all the natural disasters.

“Kevin Rudd’s doing a great job trying to give leadership in the Asia Pacific to help people who have been forced from their homes by natural disasters. Why do we discriminate? Why are we so willing to help people devastated by natural disasters, and so unwilling to help people devastated when half their family’s been killed by civil war and strife – particularly when we are talking about people from Afghanistan where we’re part of the problem.

“Let us all join together and do our bit. Let’s tell the politicians we will not put up with this.

“We want a humane Australia.

“We want Rudd to be tough on the people who have no compassion. Stand up to them! Don’t just try and get votes from people who have no compassion. Stand up and be really tough. Act humanely. Follow in the steps of Bonhoeffer, and also be fair. It’s not fair to treat refugees worse than the animals here in Australia.”

There were other speakers including a member of the Canberra Tamil community.

I was very pleased that Greens MLA Amanda Bresnan was also there to lend her support. There is more that unites us as people than divides us, and it would be nice to see non-partisan support for these victims of man-made disasters in future.

I know that most people don’t agree with my position on refugees, but there was a time when slavery was widely accepted by the general community and people wouldn’t dream of being without the family slave. I think if this attitude can change, then anything can. It’s time to really get the message out that there is no more to fear from these people than the victims of the carnage in Samoa. They are not scary. They are terribly, terribly human.

Thank you for your interest in the refugee rally, whatever your opinion.

Let the Refugees Into Australia, 3.6 out of 5 based on 12 ratings

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