MEDIA RELEASE
"Labor
for Refugees has today expressed its disgust with the way the Government has
failed to step up and deal with the asylum seeker boat issue in open, fair and
honest manner. The coalition is no better." said NSW Labor for Refugees
co-convenor Mr. Prince today.
Mr Robin
Rothfield, Secretary of Labor for Refugees Victoria added: "Both major
parties in Parliament are blinded by their obsession with outdoing each other in
punishing the very people they cry for. These poor people will be punished if
they are forcibly sent to either Malaysia or Nauru."
Mr
Prince said: "Labor for Refugees is embarrassed to say that only the Green's solution identifies a decent
and realistic way of stopping the boats. It is the same solution Malcolm Fraser
successfully employed to stop the boats to Australia from Vietnam. Refugees
should be brought to Australia in an orderly way- where our Government takes responsibility
for bringing them here. "
Mr
Prince went on to say: "Successive governments, including Labor
Governments, have created this problem by only allowing an average of 56
refugees a year over 10 years to come to Australia from Indonesia- out of a
total of 13,500 available places. They then blame the victims for trying to
reach freedom.
In fact
from the beginning of this year until 31 May - only 24 refugees were resettled
from Indonesia to Australia that’s from a pool of 5,732 places available for asylum
seekers and refugees. The Government is just not trying to find a solution
which does not include punishment."
"It
is the Government which is being intransigent and purist about not creating an
orderly queue for refugees in Indonesia. ", Mr Prince said.
"This
is not an insurmountable problem. There are only 4,239 asylum seekers in all of
Indonesia. An orderly queue could easily be formed if there was the courage in
Government to do so. People would then no longer take desperate measures- at
the moment they have no choice because of the Government's policies." said
Mr. Prince.
Mr Robin
Rothfield, said: "Deterrence just does not work. The Howard Government got
lucky because when those policies came into force, refugee numbers across the
world fell by more than half. The politicians are kidding themselves by
thinking their policies stopped people from seeking freedom."
Labor
for Refugees called on the leadership of the Party to step up, put forward a
positive proposal and stop trying to act tough. Mr. Prince said: "Our
members in the Labor Party share the community frustration with the failure of
the politicians in dealing with these problems in a fair dinkum way."
ENDS
Labor for
Refugees NSW and Victoria represent many hundreds of active rank and file
members of the ALP who are committed to fair and decent treatment of asylum
seekers and compliance with the Refugee Convention.
Media enquiries
Shane Prince 0416
229 338, Co-Convenor Labor for Refugees NSW
Robin Rothfield 03
9486 5973 , Secretary Labor for Refugees VIC
Mob 0418 338 665
