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Speeches and articles‘The new Australian citizenship test – a template for national identity’March 2008 Petro Georgiou, MP for Kooyong delivered this speech on the citizenship test. " The fact is that the aim of the new test is not simply to better assess whether newcomers are fit to become Australian citizens. What the new test seeks to achieve is to set out a template for Australianness which impacts on all Australians." Read the transcript. Politics in the Pub - Punishing RefugeesThere are many ways in which current govt policies or actions are punishing refugees. The most significant is excision and offshore processing, so I will discuss those policies But also important to note is the public discourse. The current immigration Minister Kevin Andrews repeatedly refers to asylum seekers as “illegals.” It’s shameful that Minister Andrews, once a practising lawyer himself, is either uninformed about the laws he is responsible for, or is deliberately misleading the Australian public by slandering vulnerable people. Read the transcript. Deportee's fate shows there's no solution in the PacificOctober 2006 Advocates of justice for asylum-seekers and refugees were justifiably relieved when the Government was forced to withdraw its proposed amendments to the Migration Act - amendments that would have seen any asylum-seeker arriving by boat in Australia being deported to Nauru to be processed. However, few people realise that the win was only partial. Article published in New Matilda Read the transcript. AJA presentation to Senate Inquiry - DUA BillJuly 2006 We challenge each of you, our elected representatives to explain in your report how this law supports the values by which this government wants all Australian to live. The simple fact is that you cannot. This law offends basic Australian values and will leave those who support it with no claim to integrity. It will render Australian values empty, and will leave our Parliament and our nation diminished. Read the transcript. AJA opening statement to People's InquiryJuly 2005 Much of the Migration Act is not just ineffective legislation or inadvertent policy failure; it is about how we as a nation legally responded to vulnerable people who came to us seeking help. That response so far has been at best inadequate and at worst inhumane. Until we achieve a fundamental shift in the thinking with which we as a nation approach this issue, we will continue to fail. Read the transcript. Open letter to the Prime Minister from prominent Australians on Pacific SolutionJuly 2006 Read the transcript. Nauru is no place for asylum-seekersMay 2006 LAST Thursday the Howard Government introduced in parliament a bill about refugees that is without precedent in Australia or in any other country. For the first time, we are proposing to deny asylum-seekers arriving in mainland Australia access to refugee protection procedures in this country even if they have come directly from a state in which they face persecution. Article by Mary Crock and Jane McAdam Read the transcript. Boatloads of Extinguishment?May 2006 Speech by David Mann - The optimism that many Australians felt following significant reforms to asylum and refugee policy in 2005 has been cruelly dashed by the government’s wretched response to Read the transcript. Justice Marcus Einfeld at Immigration Detention InquiryMay 2006 It is wholly appropriate and desirable for a country to establish policies and programs designed to ensure that it consists of only the numbers it can reasonably absorb, comprising good people who want to contribute to our national effort. But we should never allow ourselves to be so paralysed by stereotypes and prejudices as to throw out our liberalism with overblown apprehensions and crude politically motivated ideologies. Read the transcript. Closed Hearts, Closed Borders - by Sister Susan ConnellyMay 2006 I can never relegate the asylum seeker issue to the merely political in-tray. For me, they are deeply religious questions which affect my morality, your morality and the morality of this nation. Read the transcript. Desperate to Please JakataApril 2006 CAN Australia always decide who comes to this country and conditions under which they come? The announcement on Friday that the Howard Government is considering adjusting the processes by which asylum claims of West Papuans are considered so as to take into account the views of the Indonesian Government is a significant policy shift. Opinion piece by Donald Rothwell Read the transcript. Letter - Be Australian? Not at the expense of integrity17 March 2006I do not believe that worthwhile values start and stop at a country’s borders. I believe they live in the hearts of good people of all countries and cultures wherever they may travel and live. Read the transcript. Letter from Lombok Asylum Seekers11 November 2005 We are a group of Iraqi people, who are seeking asylum in Read the transcript. Statement by Chinese hunger strikers in Villawood4 November 2005 We are six hunger strikers from Villawood Immigration Detention Centre (VIDC) in Read the transcript. AJA Statement to Senate Inquiry into Migration Act28 September 2005 I would like to start off with a question for the committee. Are there any of you, faced with threats to your safety, dangers to the safety of your family, your children, with no queues to join in your country to seek protection, would you let a visa – a little piece of paper stand in the way of you and the safety of your children? There is not one person among us who would not think of the safety of their family first and foremost. We would all save ourselves no matter what we had to do. Read the transcript. Jen Harrison's Visit to NauruSeptember 2005 Jen Harrison, a social worker from the University of Sydney, reports back on his visit to Nauru with Senator Andrew Bartlett. This is an updated version taking into account changes between June and September 2005. Read the transcript. Palmer Report Speech9 September 2005 Politics in the Pub. Speech by Kate Gauthier, A Just Australia National Coordinator. The Palmer report was a very significant one, although it did not gain a lot of media attention, or get widespread support from the anti-detention lobby. Why? Because it focused on administrative processes rather than conditions of detention. Read the transcript. A Report on the Food Incident and Riot at Baxter IDF22 July 2005 Written by Jane Keogh from a forty minute phone interview with one of the asylum seekers. Read the transcript. Dr Sev Ozdowski "Human Rights in AustraliaAustralia needs the addition of a Bill of Rights to ensure the correct weighting of Mick Palmer's "checks and balances."
Read the transcript. It’s time for Beazley to act on detentionGiven the continuing controversies surrounding detention of asylum-seekers and the Government’s half-hearted attempt to deal with long-term detainees, it concerns me as a Labor supporter that the very principle of mandatory detention was first introduced by a Labor Government. Canberra Times opinion piece by Jerzy Zubrzycki, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University and AJA Patron. Read the transcript. Australia is still abusing children’s human rights with impunityA year ago today, Australia’s human rights watchdog released the report of its National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. At the time Tony Abbott tabled the report in Parliament on 13 May, successfully burying its findings in Budget week, there were 173 children in immigration detention. Article by Alanna Sherry Read the transcript. Ruth Graham's Visits to BaxterOctober 2004 A series of three stories from Ruth Graham's visits to Baxter detention centre between September 2003 and October 2004. Read the transcript. A Just Australia speech to the United NationsApril 2004 See below for the full text of Howard Glenn's speech to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. An edited version of this speech was published in The Australian on 5 April 2004. Read the transcript. Speech by Julian Burnside16 February 2004 The speech made by human rights lawyer Julian Burnside in a debate with Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone at the Melbourne Rotary Club.Read the transcript. Open Letter to Mark Latham13 January 2004 Leading immigration advocate and A Just Australia Patron Jerzy Zubrzycki pens an open letter to Labor leader Mark Latham.Read the transcript. Tampering with Asylum: Fr Frank Brennan5 November 2003 Presentation to the National Press Club by Fr Frank Brennan.Read the transcript. Ranjan Abayasekara visits Baxter21 September 2003 Story of a trip to Baxter and the relationships that have formed there. Read the transcript. Claudia Karvan's speech to the NSW Teachers Federation12 March 2003 Here is the text of a speech delivered by Claudia on behalf of A Just Australia to more than 100 members of the NSW Teachers Federation and their students. Read the transcript. |
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A Just Australia Inc |
