Across Australia in cities and regional towns Palm Sunday is being observed by Faith communities, Academics, School students and ordinary Australians who are deeply disturbed by the current treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
In Melbourne bells from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and St.Michael’s and St.Francis churches will ring out across the city as the WALK FOR JUSTICE FOR REFUGEES begins. The walk is organised by the Refugee Advocacy Network, working with a broad coalition of groups from across all ages, faiths and political persuasions.
Churchgoers from St. Paul’s, St. Patrick’s, Wesley Church and the Welsh Church will converge on the State Library to join the Walk. Church leaders, Professors and academics, Union leaders, School students, Community and Human Rights groups as well as politicians from the Greens and Labor parties will gather at the State Library. Choirs will serenade the walkers at the major intersections along Swanston Street.
Speaking on behalf of the Refugee Advocacy Network, Sister Brigid Arthur said: “We are walking for Justice for Refugees, because ‘stop the boats’ is not a policy worthy of Australia. It’s a cruel way of shirking our moral and legal obligations. People have a right to seek asylum in Australia regardless of how they travel here”.
Sister Brigid went on to say: “If we are genuinely concerned to stop people drowning at sea, then we must provide, safer ways for people to seek asylum in Australia. We must work closely with other countries not to stop the boats, but to protect vulnerable people fleeing war and persecution.”
Australians are calling for an end to the current policies. They are asking that we:
• Stop sending asylum seekers offshore and process claims for asylum here in Australia
• Close Australia’s detention centres
• Arrange for fair & speedy processing of Asylum Claims and Family Reunion
• Stop deporting people to places of danger
• Substantially increase our refugee quota
Walkers for Justice for Refugees will gather on Palm Sunday 13th April from 1.30pm for a 2.00 pm.
Start at the State Library, Cnr Swanston & La Trobe Streets Melbourne before setting off for Princes Bridge.
Contact Sister Brigid Arthur 0408101134
Marie Hapke 0409252673
Pamela Curr 0417517075
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Statements of Support:
“My parents were both refugees from the Nazis, and while they came to Australia with government approval I am very conscious of the tens of thousands of their peers who died in camps because no country was willing to take them in. I have always believed that Australia stood out as a country that was open and generous; under a series of increasingly cruel and populist leaders we have become one of the meanest countries in the world in our attitude to people fleeing persecution and possible death. Nothing in our history matches the shame of our current policies towards asylum seekers since the deliberate extermination of many Aboriginal people, and we must do all we can to build a coalition of goodwill to turn the attitudes of our fellow Australians around, and force a re-examination of the basic assumptions that have lead both major political parties to construct increasingly punitive and Orwellian responses to human misery.”
Dennis Altman AM, Professorial Fellow in Human Security, Office of the Vice Chancellor,La Trobe University
The Palm Sunday Walk is an opportunity to call for a change of Australia’s response to asylum seekers. There are at least four reasons why the current response is wrong:
- Asylum seekers are in need of protection. Australia is in a far better position to provide that protection than Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Indonesia or Malaysia.
- Unlike Papua New Guinea, Australia has the proven capacity to resettle a sizeable number of refugees.
- As a prosperous nation and regional power, Australia has the responsibility to lead the way in effectively addressing humanitarian crises.
- Australia has international legal obligations which it abrogates by exporting asylum seekers to its former colonies in the Pacific.
Professor Klaus Neumann, The Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology
“There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Kevin Bracken, State Secretary Maritime Workers Union, Victoria
“It has been written already in church documents that justice is a constitutive element of the gospel.”
Gary Walker, The Columban Fathers
“The voice of the Australian community can be a powerful force for change. Many who will march on Palm Sunday do so from a deep sense of shame that our Government condemns thousands of asylum seekers to despair and misery and fails to respect human rights and dignity. Children and the mentally ill are exported to inadequate off shore centres as human sacrifices to make political points. It is time to change and have a conversation about the values we wish to uphold and to demand better from those who claim to show political leadership.”
Professor Louise Newman AM
“I would be honoured to join the others in leading the March.”
Alex Bhathal
“Australia has many great traditions. Palm Sunday through the 1980s became a day when hundreds of thousands of people joined forces to end the nuclear arms race and to speak up for world peace. We have also had a great tradition of welcoming people of all lands to Australia. It is a powerful statement that this year the call of Palm Sunday is to stop waging war on refugees. We need more actions, more protests, more voices to stop the abuse being inflicted on people who have the right to seek protection and a new life in Australia. This is how we will shift public opinion and government policy to welcome refugees to this country. One day the crimes being perpetrated on so many will end. Our actions can make that day come sooner.”
Senator Lee Rhiannon
“Our highest priority is not to ‘stop the boats’, it is to ‘stop the injustice’.
Let’s not victimise asylum seekers but welcome them to our shores.”
Joe Camilleri
“It is vitally important that people continue to unite together in public to oppose the barbaric way in which our government treats asylum seekers, to send hope to those locked up that there are those on the outside that support them despite the culture of racism that is led from on high, but also to fly the flag of those who reject the myths dished out by politicians and the media, and to give people an alternative argument to help shift public opinion.”
Benjamin Solah, writer, activist and poet, and co-founder of Writers for Refugees
“Like many I am ashamed and angered by our punitive treatment of innocent people to further the political ambitions of a cruel few.”
Rod Quantock
“As the President of the Victorian Division of the National Tertiary Education Union I am honoured to have been asked to be part of the group leading the march on Palm Sunday.
“The plight of refugees world-wide is well known and documented. In our own country it is with intense sadness and shame that I observe daily the appalling way in which people, whose lives have been tipped upside down through war, are further traumatised by the ways in which our democratically elected government operates. We must speak out and make our elected representatives be held to account so that those seeking refuge are seen as people first and foremost who are welcome in this country we already share with so many people from other places. Join us in this important march to retrace the footsteps taken by so many before us, in that we may make a difference in the lives of those seeking refuge.”
Virginia Mansel Lees
“I am supporting the Palm Sunday Walk for justice because I believe it’s not too late to abandon our country’s harsh, demonising treatment of vulnerable refugees. I also come from a refugee background. My Mum was a little girl when her country Burma was invaded and she had to trek by foot into India with countless refugees. She taught me how to play guitar and sing. If there hadn’t been a place to go and take refuge I wouldn’t be here.”
Kavisha Mazella
Walk Leaders:
Moira Rayner, Advocate/Author/Speaker
Joe Camilleri, Singer-Songwriter & Musician
Kate Atkinson, Actress
Arnold Zable, Writer/Educator
Virginia Mansel Lees, Academic
Tess Lawrence, Journalist/Editor
Pamela Curr, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Barney Zwartz, Former Religious Affairs, The Age
Ben Solah, Writers for Refugees
Harold Zwier, Australian Jewish Democratic Society
Alan Clayton, Co-Clerk, Society of Friends Vic
Gerry Fahey, Co-Clerk, Society of friends Vic
Bobby Sundaralingam, Medical Association for Prevention of War
Ramat Yousafi, Shamama (Hazara org)
Nockie Le, Cambodian Community
Sr Brigid Arthur, Brigidine Sisters
Alistair McCrae, Wesley Church
Gary Walker, Head of The Columban Fathers
Max Kaiser, Aust Jewish Democratic Society
Kevin Bracken, MUA
Michele O’Neil, Nat Secretary TCFUA
Ron Merkel QC
Robert Richter QC
Sharon Firebrace, Indigenous Leader & Activist
Aunty Barbara Williams, Elder Yorta Yorta
Dr June Factor, Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne
Prof. Louise Newman AM, Monash University
Prof. Philomena Murray, University of Melbourne
Professor Klaus Neumann, Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology
Dennis Altman AM FASSA, Professorial Fellow in Human Security, Office of the Vice Chancellor, La Trobe University
Senator Christine Milne, Australian Greens
Senator Sarah Hanson Young, Australian Greens
Senator Lee Rhiannon, Australian Greens
Alex Bhathal, Australian Greens
Anna Burke MP, Federal member for Chisholm, ALP
Cr. Gaetano Greco, Mayor of Darebin
Archbishop Denis Hart, Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne
Bishop Phillip Huggins
Bishop Hilton Deakin
Rod Quantock
Supporting Organisations:
Act For Peace
African Australian Multicultural And Youth Services
African Think Tank
Association of Neighborhood Houses
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce
Australian Democrats
Australian Education Union
Australian Nurses And Midwifery Federation
Australian Services Union
Australian Western Sahara Association
Baptcare
Black Sash Australia
Brigidine Asylum Seeker Project
Catholic Office For Justice And Peace
City of Moreland
Collins Street Baptist Church
Combined Refugee Action Group
Concerned Australians
Electrical Trade Union
Geelong Refugee Advocacy Information Network
Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand
Humanitarian Crisis Hub
Jesuit Social Services
Kommonground
Labor 4 Refugees
Maritime Union of Australia
Medical Association for the Prevention of War
Melb Uni Campus Refugee Rights Club
Melb Uni Student Union
Melbourne Catholic and Migrant Refugee Office
Melbourne Welsh Church
National Tertiary Education Union
Pax Christi
People for Human Right and Equality
Queenscliff Rural Australians for Refugees
Refugee Action Collective
Rise of the Morning Star
Secondary Students For Refugees
Socialist Alliance
Socialist Alternative
Solidarity
St John’s Social Justice Group (Mitcham)
St Michael’s on Collins
Surf Coast Rural Australians for Refugees
Tamil Refugee Council
The Democrats
The Greens
The Victorian Greens
United Voice
Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania
Victorian Council of Churches
Victorian Trades Hall Council
Writers For Refugees