Returning Asylum Seekers a Breach of Australian Values

24 February 2007

Media Release: Returning Asylum Seekers a Breach of Australian Values
24/02/2007
For immediate release

A Just Australia, a national refugee policy lobby group, has called upon
the Australian Government to respect the Australian values and the
international agreements that would be breached if the recently arrived 85
Sri Lankan asylum seekers were to be denied access to Australia's refugee
protection system.

The Government cannot return these asylum seekers and still claim to
support basic Australian values, A Just Australia said.

AJA National Co-ordinator, Kate Gauthier, said this situation is once
again a test of whether the Government was prepared to practice what they
preach.

"The proposal to send these asylum seekers back to Indonesia and then Sri
Lanka offends basic Australians values and violates international
standards for human rights. It will break the most basic of refugee
protection laws which strictly prohibit the return of people to face
persecution.

"There has been a lot said about 'Australian values' by the Prime
Minister. We challenge Mr Howard and the Immigration Minister to explain
how returning these people to danger supports the values by which they
want Australians to live, such as 'a fair go' or 'care and
compassion.'" said Ms Gauthier.

A Just Australia calls upon the Government to follow the Australian
immigration system that has been in place for decades, where asylum
seekers are at minimum granted the right to have their case heard.

A Just Australia also queries the necessity of the new immigration
detention centre being built on Christmas Island, currently facing a huge
budget blowout. "Before this centre is even finished, it appears the
government has flip-flopped on its own bad policy by saying no asylum
seekers will be sent there. They have now wasted hundreds of millions of
taxpayer dollars on something that should never have been built in the
first place."

For media comment
Kate Gauthier
National Coordinator
0414 876 139