Refugee groups today condemned the Gillard\u2019s government\u2019s announcement that it intends to change the laws to get around the High Court decision that the Malaysia Agreement is unlawful.<\/p>\n
Disgracefully, the government has also announced that it wants to change the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act so the Minister can make blanket decisions to send unaccompanied minors off-shore regardless of the conditions or lack of safeguards that might exist in any third country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Gillard government has missed another opportunity to put human rights at the front of its refugee policy. As it slides in the polls, it seems determined to take asylum seekers\u2019 rights down with it,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpinion polls show a majority are in favour of processing asylum seekers on the mainland. But the government is paralysed by its own rhetoric and its race to the bottom with the Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is willfully and blatantly subverting the Refugee Convention and its obligation to asylum seekers and refugees. Its hypocrisy is now on display once again for the electorate and for the international community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Gillard government is following the long and dishonorable history of the Howard government changing refugee laws whenever courts found their actions to be unlawful. But refugee bashing didn\u2019t save the Howard government,\u201d said Ian Rintoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may be that in spite of the Coalition\u2019s history, Labor\u2019s amendments go too far even for the Liberal opposition. We hope Labor\u2019s proposed amendments will be defeated in the Parliament, but the choice is not between Malaysia or Nauru.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government should drop all third country and offshore processing. Australia has processed asylum seekers on shore for 46 of the 53 years since the Migration Action was introduced.<\/p>\n
\u201cThird country processing is not a deterrent. It is cheap politicking at its worst, with asylum seekers being the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Refugee Action Coalition has called a rally and march \u2013 \u201cNot Malaysia, Not Nauru \u2013 No offshore processing\u201d in the Minister Chris Bowen’s Fairfield electorate for Saturday 17 September, at 11.00am. The rally will assemble at the Fairfield railway station and march through Fairfield to Chris Bowen\u2019s office in The Crescent.<\/p>\n
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Refugee groups today condemned the Gillard\u2019s government\u2019s announcement that it intends to change the laws to get around the High Court decision that the Malaysia Agreement is unlawful. Disgracefully, the government has also announced that it wants to change the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act so the Minister can make blanket decisions to send unaccompanied […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/311091"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}