The move by the Gillard government to excise the Australian mainland from the migration zone is an absurd throwback to the draconian policies of the Howard government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe blind application of the so-called \u2018no advantage\u2019 policy has led the government to implement yet another element of failed Liberal Party policy. Excising the mainland is a nonsense. Thousands of asylum seekers are arriving at excised places. The Minister can excise all the territory he likes, but the question is, \u2018What is he going to do with the thousands of asylum seekers arriving at excised places who are languishing in Australian detention centres and on Nauru?\u2019 \u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government is desperate to be seen to be doing something, but excising the mainland is worse than nothing. The government\u2019s off-shore processing arrangements are already in tatters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe asylum seekers on boats that are arriving are filling Australian detention centres, and Nauru, and are being left in limbo. The government is refusing to process people who have arrived since 13 August, in spite of the fact that enough asylum seekers have arrived to fill Nauru and Manus Island more than twice over.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is only a matter of time before asylum seekers in Australian detention centres will have to be processed, but the Minister is quite willing to force them to endure more weeks of uncertainty while the Minister blindly implements a \u2018no advantage\u2019 test that has already been revealed to be vacuous.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister says that he is committed to the Expert Panel\u2019s recommendation but he has ignored the one recommendation that could have provided as he says, \u2018a safer way of getting to Australia.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Expert Panel recommended that 3,800 refugees be taken from Australia\u2019s immediate region. But the government\u2019s commitment to refugees from Indonesia is only 600.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was meant to be 400 immediately taken from Indonesia but people who were told they had been accepted in January 2012 are still waiting. And none of the 300 Rohingyan refugees in Medan, some waiting for three years, have been told anything about being included in any increased intake from Indonesia.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The move by the Gillard government to excise the Australian mainland from the migration zone is an absurd throwback to the draconian policies of the Howard government.<\/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-2190","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\/2190","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=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}