http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/stories\/2010\/12\/15\/3093766.htm<\/a><\/p>\nRAC Media release December 15, 2010<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernment anti-refugee policy is responsible for the tragedy on Christmas Island,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur heart goes out to the people and their families of the asylum seekers who have lost their lives, so close to the possibility of protection.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the blame lies with the Australian government. If the Australian government was willing to properly process asylum seekers in Indonesia and resettle successful refugees in Australia, then far fewer people would get on boats to travel to Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government needs to stop pushing Indonesia to harass and detain asylum seekers. The intimidation in Indonesia is itself pushing people to leave Indonesia to find safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government also needs to drop its people smuggling laws so that boats travelling to Australian would be able and willing to notify Australian authorities of their travels and arrange to rendezvous safely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government recently increased its quota of resettled UNHCR refugees from Indonesia to around 500 but as of the beginning of November only 50 had been resettled from Indonesia. No amount of talk about a regional pr0cessing centre will alter the realities for asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless the government changes its policies and adopts a welcome refugee policy there will be more tragedies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe race to the bottom on refugee policy between the Labor government and the Opposition is costing lives \u2013 inside and outside of detention. Australia urgently needs a welcome refugee policy,\u201d said Rintoul.<\/p>\n
For more information contact Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dozens of asylum seekers have died this morning after their boat crashed into cliffs on Christmas Island http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/stories\/2010\/12\/15\/3093766.htm RAC Media release December 15, 2010 \u201cGovernment anti-refugee policy is responsible for the tragedy on Christmas Island,\u201d said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. \u201cOur heart goes out to the people and their families of […]<\/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-568","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\/568","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=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refugeeaction.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}