"Cats and dogs" MP chooses actions better than her words

31 August 2004

Trish Worth, the Liberal Member for Adelaide, has been a consistent and brave supporter of refugee rights and asylum seekers over many years, working within the Government to support key reforms, Mr Howard Glenn, National Director of A Just Australia, said today.

"A Just Australia has recognised Trish's work, as one of a handful of Government MPs who received our Certificate of Appreciation for their support for policy reform", Mr Glenn said.

"Her recent comments are regrettable, and I understand that they may have offended some in the audience who she has helped.

"But we believe it is important to acknowledge that she has chosen to support our actions over the last three years. Her choice of words is obviously not as good as her choice of action.

"Under government policy, detention centres are not used for quarantine purposes - as is clear by the totally unreasonable length of time people have been incarcerated in them. A full inquiry after the election will be needed to reform the system overall.

"We are distributing today a survey of candidates for all seats, which will look at their actions over the last three years. We will also be looking for their commitment to a simple "refugee guarantee" - to ensure that refugees and asylum seekers are not damaged for political purposes again.

"We will publish the results of this survey in the coming weeks - so that we can demonstrate the difference between actions and words on this critical issue", Mr Glenn said.

The "Refugee Guarantee" which candidates are being asked to sign, is set out below. A copy of the survey of actions is available on our website at www.ajustaustralia.com

For further information: Howard Glenn, 02 9310 3900

REFUGEE GUARANTEE

I, «Candidate», provide this guarantee, that whatever else I am involved in, I will support the effort to:
§ ensure that the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers for political purposes never happens again
§ work for a just refugee program based on the human rights standards that Australia has developed and endorsed
§ remove the remaining children and their families from immigration detention
§ provide a secure future to proven refugees
§ immediately review the cases of all asylum seekers detained for longer than 90 days, aiming to provide non-custodial supervision or options, unless a court is convinced that there is a threat to the community from that individual.