Media Release July 7, 2010<\/p>\n
Refugee groups have condemned Julia Gillard\u2019s new direction for the processing of asylum seekers. Nothing in her speech addressed the immediate issues of the rights of asylum seekers languishing in detention in Australia. And her announcement of a regional processing centre in East Timor is another attempt by an Australian Prime Minister to avoid Australia meeting its obligations under the Refugee Convention by leaning on an impoverished regional neighbour.<\/p>\n
\u201cHundreds of children are in detention. Thousands of asylum seekers remain in detention in Christmas Island, Darwin and Curtin. They are already becoming \u2018factories for mental illness\u2019 as the suicide and self harm incidents become weekly if not daily events,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven worse perhaps, was Gillard\u2019s attempt to further subvert the already questionable independence of off-shore processing, by declaring that it is highly likely that future Sri Lankan and Afghan refugee claims will be rejected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gillard\u2019s announcement that she would seek to create a regional processing centre in East Timor is another attempt by an Australian Prime Minister to avoid Australia meeting its obligations under the Refugee Convention.<\/p>\n
\u201cGillard\u2019s \u2018East Timor solution\u2019 is nothing more than a version of the Pacific Solution. It is the final step that commits a Gillard Labor government to the full suite of Howard\u2019s anti-refugee policies \u2013 mandatory detention, off-shore processing and now the East Timor solution,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cJulia Gillard\u2019s announcement has taken refugee policy backwards, not forward. We are now back to Howard. Rather than raising the level of debate, she resorted to using to the same dog whistle to xenophobia, demonising refugees by linking border protection and people smuggling to asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
\u201cGillard\u2019s East Timor solution will fail for the same reasons that Howard\u2019s Pacific Solution failed. Third re-settlement countries are not going to accept refugees that are so obviously Australia\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also highly unlikely that East Timor\u2019s government would be willing to adopt Australia\u2019s abusive model of detention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile ending the visa freeze on processing Sri Lankan asylum claims is welcome, hundreds of Tamils have been waiting for up to a year and longer for answers to their visa claims. And her speech was peppered with threats of deportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cJulia Gillard has dished up a proposal that is focussed on the federal election, aimed at competing with Tony Abbott to be \u2018tough on asylum seekers\u2019. We are still waiting for an Australian humanitarian solution for refugees,\u201d said Rintoul.<\/p>\n
For more information contact Ian Rintoul, mob 0417 275 713.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Media Release July 7, 2010 Refugee groups have condemned Julia Gillard\u2019s new direction for the processing of asylum seekers. Nothing in her speech addressed the immediate issues of the rights of asylum seekers languishing in detention in Australia. And her announcement of a regional processing centre in East Timor is another attempt by an Australian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-207","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\/207","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=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}