The Turnbull government\u2019s announcement that it intends to ban for life, asylum seekers and refugees, who attempted to travel to Australia by boat after 19 July 2013, has been dismissed as political grandstanding by the Refugee Action Coalition. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a desperate headline-grabbing announcement from a Prime Minister whose is now less popular than Tony Abbott, and a government that is trailing Labor in the polls. The Turnbull government is shamefully attempting to pre-empt a looming PNG Supreme Court action that seeks orders for the asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island to be returned to Australia,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
The PNG Supreme Court action seeking compensation for human rights breaches and an order to return the Manus detainees was dismissed on a technicality on 27 October. But already over 600 detainees on Manus Island have signed court applications to ensure the court action can be resumed, perhaps as early as December. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe announcement is proof positive that the government recognises that its claim that refugees from Manus and Nauru would never come to Australia is just bluster. The government is trying to hide the fact that its offshore detention regime is disintegrating. Leaders of both PNG and Nauru have appealed for international help to resettle refugees, but the government has tried to bury its head in the sand.<\/p>\n
\u201cTurnbull\u2019s lifetime ban must be opposed,\u201d said Rintoul, \u201cIt is disgraceful that Bill Shorten and other Labor leaders have not yet completely rejected the proposal. Some Labor MPs have spoken out against the ban. They can help ensure that the Labor Party acts to kill off this draconian and misjudged legislation and declare they will vote against it. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe inherently discriminatory legislation is also legally dubious and would likely face a constitutional challenge even if it did pass the parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cOffshore detention has already divided husbands and wives and parents from children, brothers from sisters. Turnbull\u2019s threat of a lifetime ban would mean more divided partners and families. But people have had enough of cruel Coalition policies. Turnbull\u2019s threat as support to bring offshore detainees to the Australian mainland is growing.\u201d Thousands of refugee supporters are expected to attend the \u201cDoctors’ March for Refugees\u201d being held in Sydney in Saturday, 5 November starting Hyde Park north, 1pm, marching to Circular Quay.<\/p>\n For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713 (recently on Manus Island); Nick Riemer 0481 339 937<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Turnbull government\u2019s announcement that it intends to ban for life, asylum seekers and refugees, who attempted to travel to Australia by boat after 19 July 2013, has been dismissed as political grandstanding by the Refugee Action Coalition. \u201cThis is a desperate headline-grabbing announcement from a Prime Minister whose is now less popular than Tony […]<\/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":[18],"class_list":{"0":"post-5533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-press-releases","7":"tag-manus"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533","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=5533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCatholic bishops are just the latest to call<\/a> on the Coalition government to “Bring Them Here”.<\/p>\n