Refugee groups have rejected the Immigration Minister\u2019s assertion that refugee boat arrivals take the places of refugees in camps as a convenient untruth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister is responsible for setting the number of refugees taken from camps each year. It has been 6000 for many years. That number could, and should, be increased.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not boat people depriving others in refugee camps; it is the Minister,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson from the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Howard government deliberately linked the number of boat arrivals to the special humanitarian program to try and turn refugee and migrant communities against boat arrivals. This cruel measure should have been dropped by Labor when it was elected in 2007, but shamefully it was kept in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo other country in the world links its onshore and offshore refugee programs in this way. Just as Howard\u2019s use of temporary protection visas pushed family members onto boats, and led to the sinking of the SIEV X, Chris Bowen\u2019s use of this policy is pushing families onto boats.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot surprisingly, Opposition Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says nothing about maintaining the Howard policy. But Chris Bowen is now using the Howard government\u2019s policy to turn community opinion against boat arrivals.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven more dangerously, because refugees\u2019 family members are artificially excluded from the humanitarian program, there is no alternative for them but to get boats. Just as Howard\u2019s use of temporary protection visas led to the refugees\u2019 families drowning on the SIEV X, Chris Bowen policies are pushing refugees\u2019 relatives to get on to boats. Chris Bowen is creating a \u2018SIEV X\u2019 affect.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Minister was really concerned about the safety of asylum seekers, he would de-link the off-shore refugee program from the special humanitarian program. If he was really concerned about refugees in camps in Africa, he would increase the pitifully small quota of 6000.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut hypocrisy rules the day. Truth is also a casualty in the war against refugees. Chris Bowen is more interested in abusing the rights of asylum seekers and promoting off-shore processing and the Malaysia Agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Refugee groups have rejected the Immigration Minister\u2019s assertion that refugee boat arrivals take the places of refugees in camps as a convenient untruth. \u201cThe Minister is responsible for setting the number of refugees taken from camps each year. It has been 6000 for many years. That number could, and should, be increased. \u201cIt is not […]<\/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-1873","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\/1873","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=1873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}