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Category Archives: Social Justice

ACFID welcomes Australian Government’s reinstatement of funding to UNRWA

Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Media Release

The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), the peak body for humanitarian and development organisations, welcomes the Australian Government’s announcement to reinstate the funding of the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).

“This decision is overdue given the urgency of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and UNRWA’s lifesaving support amongst a population currently on the brink of famine,” said ACFID chief executive Marc Purcell.

“Children are already dying of starvation on the world’s watch. Parachuting aid is not a solution. Five civilians have already died in trying to reach air drops in Gaza, and the aid is only reached by those who are fit and able to do so. Women, children, elderly and people with disability are left behind, those who are sick, injured and starving will not receive this relief.

“It is essential that the Australian Government redoubles its efforts to ensure aid convoys can enter Gaza safely via land. We call on the Australian Government to urge that aid convoys and humanitarian workers are not targeted further by the Israeli defence forces as they seek to assist civilians.”

It has been almost three weeks since the Director of UNRWA in Gaza warned the Australian Government of UNRWA’s pending collapse without donors reinstating their funding. This would have meant the collapse of the entire humanitarian response.

“ACFID has actively advocated for UNRWA’s funding to be reinstated since its suspension, recognizing the vital backbone that UNRWA is in providing the humanitarian response in Gaza and across the region,” said Mr Purcell.

Since the allegations arose, UNRWA actively responded, including with the dismissal of staff alleged to have been involved in the October 7 attack.

Over 31,000 people have now died in Gaza since October 7, thousands more are injured or missing, and more than a quarter of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are estimated to be facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.

ACFID welcomes the additional funding of $4 million to UNICEF and calls on the Australian Government to continue considering further ongoing funding for the humanitarian response in Gaza, the West Bank & the region, including to Australian NGOs providing crucial and lifesaving assistance.

ACFID continues to call for the Australian Government to publicly advocate for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to prevent further loss of life in Gaza.

 

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Urgent need to address a surge in family violence-fuelled homelessness

A new report reveals a growing crisis of women and children fleeing domestic and family violence into homelessness prompting calls for an urgent funding package to provide pathways to safe housing.

Homelessness Australia’s Homelessness and domestic and family violence: State of Response Report for International Women’s Day analyses Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data to find 45 per cent of women and girls seeking homelessness assistance do so due to family and domestic violence.

It finds that over the last decade:

  • the number of women and children sleeping rough or in a car at the end of homelessness support more than doubled, from 1,041 to 2,428
  • the number of women and children couch surfing at the end of support more than doubled from 3,465 to 7,214.

And in the past year alone, the number of women and children sleeping rough or in a car after receiving homelessness support increased by 23%.

The report notes that lack of access to safe housing prevents many women from escaping violence and pushes women back to violent homes. The last Personal Safety Survey revealed that more than 20,000 women experiencing violence wanted to leave but were unable to because of a lack of money or financial support, and more than 13,000 women said lack of money or having nowhere to go was the reason they returned to violence.

Homelessness Australia proposes the Federal Government deliver a suite of measures to address the problem in the imminent National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, including increasing homelessness support, investing more in Safe at Home programs, increasing Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) and delivering more social housing.

Kate Colvin, CEO of Homelessness Australia, said: “Thousands of Australian women are faced with an impossible choice – return to a violent home or confront homelessness. This is not a decision anyone should be forced to make, yet it’s happening more and more.

“Pathways to safe housing are the missing piece in the Government’s response to family violence, but can be addressed in the soon to be released five-year National Housing and Homelessness Agreement.

“This International Women’s Day it would be refreshing to see real action to fix a desperate, parlous situation that puts the lives and safety of too many women and girls at risk.

“Australia is a wealthy, sophisticated nation. We can and must do better.”

Jocelyn Bignold OAM, CEO of McAuley Community Services for Women said: “Every day we work with women who have suffered trauma in a violent relationship who then suffer more when they become trapped in homelessness. With the right early intervention supports many women would never become homeless and could safely remain in their home.”

 

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From gender-based violence to gender pay gaps, new research finds that awareness of how gender inequality impacts women and girls is still shockingly low in Australia

Plan International Australia Media Release

New research by Plan International Australia, released as the world marks International Women’s Day has revealed that awareness of how gender inequality manifests in some of the most devastating ways in Australia – and in more vulnerable contexts overseas – is alarmingly low.

Almost half of Australians (47%) surveyed in Plan International Australia’s Gender Compass research said they do not believe that physical and non-physical violence against women is extremely common.

Violence against women is a serious and widespread problem in Australia – with two in five Australian women having experienced violence firsthand since the age of 15. On average, one woman is killed a week in Australia by a former or current partner, according to Our Watch.

And despite women being the most over represented group when it comes to homelessness – only 45% of Australians surveyed in the Gender Compass believe this to be true.

Only 2 in 10 (21%) of Australians are aware that medical research in Australia has studied men’s health more than women’s.

Almost six in 10 Australians think we have, in fact, already achieved gender equality in Australia.

These new statistics are being released today in a second installment of Plan International Australia’s groundbreaking Gender Compass research: a first of its kind study revealing what ordinary Australians really think about gender equality.

The UN theme for this year’s IWD is “Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress” – with the day set aside in this year’s UN calendar to “examine the pathways to greater economic inclusion for women and girls everywhere.”

However, when it comes to how inequality plays out in the workplace and politics, the Gender Compass findings on gender equality awareness revealed that:

  • Almost four in 10 (37%) Australians aren’t aware that there is a gender pay gap in Australia.
  • More than a third of people (34%) were not aware that senior positions in business/industry in Australia are dominated by men
  • Around the same amount (34%) do not believe that women do the bulk of unpaid labour in households.
  • Close to half of Australians (48%) do not agree that women are typically underrepresented in politics.

“Our Gender Compass findings highlight the importance of moments like International Women’s Day in continuing to drive critical awareness and action towards gender equality. We need to have conversations about gender equality with Australians in a way that they can understand to make a difference. The impacts and negative effects of gender inequality are invisible to too many Australians,” said Plan International Australia CEO Susanne Legena.

With the Australian Government today releasing the country’s first ever strategy for gender equality, alongside its second annual Status of Women Report Card, now is a critical time to accelerate progress on gender quality.

As one of Australia’s leading humanitarian and girls’ rights organisations, Plan International Australia works to build a world where we are all equal. Together with research, civil society and philanthropic partners, Plan International Australia developed Gender Compass to reveal the prevailing views on gender equality, who holds them, and what drives them. The hope is that this will lead to more targeted and effective communications and advocacy efforts by individuals and organisations working to advance gender equality everywhere – particularly in more vulnerable countries overseas, where progress on gender equality is even more fractured.

Aseel, a 22-year-old Palestinian young woman that Plan International supports said that on International Women’s Day, she is calling for a future where every young person was safe, where women and children were not the target of wars and conflict, and where all children, and especially girls, have access to an equal education.

“The right to an education is sacred. No schools should ever be bombed, no teacher should ever be the target of attacks. No war should make children miss a whole school year, or go hungry and cold,” she said.

“The world is getting hotter, conflicts are erupting at a rate we haven’t witnessed in generations and extreme poverty is on the rise – and the risks of gender-based violence are only heightened during crises like these,” added Ms Legena.

“In Sudan, UN estimates state 4.2 million girls and women are at risk of gender-based violence with that expected to increase to 6.9 million this year. Right now in Gaza, women and girls are being killed and injured in unprecedented and unspeakable ways. The death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 30,000 people in five months – more than 70 per cent of them women and children. Two years on since conflict escalated in Ukraine, gender-based violence has sky-rocketed. In Haiti, which has just declared a state of emergency, a new Plan International study found increased incidents of rape and child early and forced marriage amongst adolescent girls.

“For girls around the world, who were already disproportionately affected by these issues and held back because of their gender, there is so much at stake. The fear of physical, sexual, and emotional violence is inescapable. We cannot look away,” she said.

“Current projections indicate that the next five generations of girls and women will never see gender equality. Everyone should be alarmed by this. We need to do better. This International Women’s Day, we want to see a future where girls can live without fear of violence and discrimination. We must come together to beat the clock on gender inequality, until we are all equal in this world.”

 

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“Golden time” seasonal farming production destroyed and lost in northern Gaza amid mounting fears of worsening hunger and starvation

Oxfam Australia Media Release

Gaza farmers’ two-month-long “golden time” of agricultural production has been destroyed by Israel’s military bombing and sealing of northern Gaza, ruining the enclave’s richest farmlands which are one of its biggest sources of fruit and vegetables.

With Israel’s actions also severely restricting humanitarian aid, the loss of local agricultural production is worsening malnutrition and hunger, leading to starvation and fears of worst to come for the 300,000 people estimated still now living in northern Gaza.

“The risk of genocide is increasing in northern Gaza because the Government of Israel is ignoring one of the key provisions of the International Court of Justice, to provide urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,” said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director. Israel reported privately to the ICJ Monday.

Oxfam’s partner organisation, the Palestinian Agricultural Development Association (PARC) – one of the biggest local organisations focused on agricultural support – estimates that nearly a quarter of northern Gaza’s farm holdings were completely destroyed by Israel forces, which razed greenhouses and buildings and 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleets in the initial days of bombings and incursion.

PARC Director of Operations in Gaza, Hani Al Ramlawi, told Oxfam yesterday that “these next two months should be the golden time of production. However, if farms haven’t already been destroyed then they have been made impossible to access, because any farmer trying to do so will be directly targeted by Israel forces. And without water, and without electricity farmland means nothing.”

Malnutrition is rife and there are reports of death by starvation. Oxfam partners talk of people drinking toilet water, eating wild plants, using animal fodder to make bread, and they speak about “catastrophic hunger” and their fear of famine without some breakthrough in access, aid and security. “You cannot imagine these conditions,” Al Ramlawi said.

Juzoor, another Oxfam partner and one of the few organisations still operating in northern Gaza, reports similar fears about rising malnutrition and hunger. It introduced a vaccine program last month in the 13 shelters where it operates and also did nutritional screenings of 1,700 children there.

Juzoor Director, Dr Umaiyeh Khammash, told Oxfam yesterday that they found out that 13% of the children they measured there are acutely malnourished. Among them, around 55 to 60 children (3%) were suffering from severe wasting and underweight.

“This is a life-threatening condition,” Khammash said. “They need to be managed in an advanced setup, a hospital or specific feeding program, none of which exist now in northern Gaza. If they are not going to receive proper management and supplementation immediately, in the coming days or weeks, those children are going to die.”

There are perhaps 300,000 civilians still in northern Gaza who have been almost entirely cut off for four months and, according to Al Ramlawi, “left behind from an international humanitarian response that has pledged never to leave anyone behind”, he said.

“The landscape is complete destruction, The farmers, the people, the animals have nothing. The minimum requirements to stay alive do not exist in North Gaza.”

Palestinians in Gaza depend on local agriculture not just for their food but also their livelihoods. The sector is worth over $575m a year, Al Ramlawi said, and that the loss of crops for both sustenance and income “not only exacerbates the already dire humanitarian situation but will have severe long-term impacts”.

“This crisis will lead to the overall collapse of Gaza’s agriculture for many years to come.”

PARC is still managing to deliver some aid locally, last week “we found a trader to provide warm clothes and other winterisation assets for around 100,000 people,” Al Ramlawi said. “Food prices are crazy, most of the people in North Gaza cannot buy commodities. A kilo of flour has gone from five shekels to 180 – who can buy this?” He said the cost of providing a humanitarian food parcel was now three times more expensive in northern Gaza to procure than in Rafah, and at less quality.

“How many days, hours, seconds, do we need to wait to provide those people with the services and aid they need? Do we need to lose all the people in north Gaza? What are we waiting for? We need to convince the world to care about this issue,” he said.

 

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Peak housing bodies and unions urge end to funding uncertainty

Leading homelessness advocates and unions have united in a joint push for state and federal housing ministers to plug a $73 million funding black hole that threatens to worsen the homelessness crisis by jeopardising the future of 700 critical support jobs, as ministers meet today.

Homelessness services are overwhelmed by surging demand as the nation faces its worst housing crisis in living memory.

Each day homelessness services are forced to turn away 295 people due to a lack of resources. New analysis of the most recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data reveals the number of children sleeping rough, even after seeking homelessness assistance, has surged 20 per cent.

Homelessness Australia calculates an additional $450 million is needed to meet demand for homelessness support. Despite surging demand, services are staring down the barrel of funding cuts. A $73 million funding black hole exists because funding previously provided to meet the costs of the Equal Remuneration Order (ERO) expires in June 2024.

The joint letter outlines the severe consequences if the $73 million funding shortfall is not fixed. “If the funding cut proceeds, homelessness service capacity will be slashed by more than 700 homelessness workers nationally, supercharging pressure on an already overwhelmed homelessness system,” the letter reads.

Kate Colvin, CEO of Homelessness Australia, said the uncertainty was playing havoc with Australia’s response to the crisis. “The reality on the ground is heartbreaking. Every day, families and children are left without a roof over their heads, sleeping in cars or worse. This is not just a funding issue. It’s a human crisis that demands compassion and commitment.”

The letter notes findings from a recent survey of 252 workers in frontline homelessness support services, showing the emotional toll of having to turn people away. Concerningly, 56 per cent of respondents rated the emotional impact at the maximum score of ten, with 84 per cent highlighting the detrimental effects of potential funding cuts.

“Workers in this sector are confronted by extremely difficult choices already, like picking between a mother and child fleeing violence or a teenager without a home. The last thing they need is uncertainty about their job or that of their colleague,” Colvin said.

Negotiations on homelessness funding over the next five years from July 2024 are set to take place at the Housing and Homelessness Ministerial Council meeting today.

Signatories to the letter, including Homelessness Australia, the Australian Services Union, Community Housing Industry Association, and ACOSS, are urging an immediate guarantee that funding will not be cut. They are also calling for plans to increase service capacity to meet the demand from Australians facing homelessness.

 

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Governments must act faster and listen to Productivity Commission recommendations to Close the Gap and tackle Aboriginal homelessness

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Association Media Release

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander homelessness crisis will continue to deteriorate should Australian governments maintain their “business-as-usual” approach to progressing the National Agreement on Closing the Gap priority reforms.

The Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Forum and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Association (NATSIHA) are calling for a separate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing and Homelessness plan to address the housing emergency faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People and communities.

The Productivity Commission’s Final Report on the Agreement, released February 7 2024, underscores critical themes that demand immediate attention and robust action to rectify the ongoing challenges faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.

The Close the Gap agreement, signed under the Morrison Government, necessitates continual bi-partisan support to ensure accountability in addressing enduring disparities. This commitment demands consistent policy implementation, resource allocation, and scrutiny, avoiding symbolic gestures and guaranteeing sustained efforts for tangible and lasting change.

In Victoria alone, the number of Aboriginal women accessing specialist homelessness services increased 20 per cent over the last five years, compared to a nearly 14 per cent decrease over the same period for non- Aboriginal women in the state. Addressing these devastating discrepancies will require good faith bipartisanship.

Governments must take immediate and tangible steps to strengthen accountability mechanisms for housing solutions. This requires a radical shift in behaviour and mindset within governments and institutions.

Rob Macfarlane, CEO of NATSIHA, says, “We have brought the call for a separate First Nations Housing and Homelessness Plan to the government and are in conversations about the development of a specific schedule for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, communities, and organisations. But are yet to see any real commitment.

“It is time for governments to move beyond rhetoric and embrace true power-sharing. The First Nations Housing sector, with its long-term experience and innovative approaches, holds a unique and essential power in driving sustainable solutions. Our communities have demonstrated expertise, cultural understanding, and local knowledge necessary to lead decisions impacting their lives. The gap will widen for our people if attention is not given to addressing the housing emergency faced by our people.”

Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness Forum Secretariat Lead and Aboriginal Housing Victoria Director of Strategy and Performance Lisa Briggs said the Report showed the need for a greater focus on housing and home ownership because safe and secure housing is central to closing the gap in all areas of Aboriginal disadvantage.

“Secure housing is the missing policy piece. It is fundamental to human safety, economic participation, psychological resilience, and physical health – all the areas in which governments are falling behind,” she said.

“The data shows us that in Victoria, by 2036, the number of Aboriginal households will more than double. To maintain existing levels of social housing in line with population growth, we will need an additional 5000 social housing units just so existing, catastrophic levels of homelessness do not escalate.”

When all Australian governments and the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations signed the Agreement in 2020, they committed to mobilising “all avenues available to them” to overcome the entrenched inequality faced by Aboriginal people.

Of the 17 socioeconomic targets included in the Agreement, only four are on track to be met.

“They need to do better, for our children, our Elders and our communities. The Report reinforces the need for the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement to include a specific schedule for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, communities and organisations,” Ms Briggs said.

“It shows us how desperately we need a specific National Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Housing and Homelessness Plan.

“Now is the right time to expand on the existing Closing the Gap housing targets to include an Aboriginal homelessness target to respond to the rapid increases in homelessness experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the country.”

Rob Macfarlane, CEO of NATSIHA said a robust response is needed.

“The Productivity Commission’s report is a wake-up call for all levels of government. We cannot afford to let Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander homelessness continue to rise. The governments must prioritise and implement the necessary measures to address this crisis.”

 

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UNRWA funding cuts threaten Palestinian lives in Gaza and region, say 20 NGOs

Oxfam Australia Media Release

Oxfam, together with 19 other aid organisations, is deeply concerned and outraged that some of the largest donors have suspended funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main aid provider for millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the region. The aid cuts come amid a rapidly worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

The suspension of funding by donor states will impact life-saving assistance for over two million civilians, over half of whom are children, who rely on UNRWA aid in Gaza. The population faces starvation, looming famine and an outbreak of disease under Israel’s continued indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate deprivation of aid in Gaza.

We welcome UNRWA’s swift investigation into the alleged involvement of a small number of UN staff members in the October 7th attacks. We are shocked by the reckless decision to cut a lifeline for an entire population by some of the very countries that had called for aid in Gaza to be stepped up and for humanitarians to be protected while doing their job. This decision comes as the International Court of Justice ordered immediate and effective action to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.

152 UNRWA staff have already been killed and 145 UNRWA facilities damaged by bombardment. UNRWA is the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza and their delivery of humanitarian assistance cannot be replaced by other agencies working in Gaza. If the funding suspensions are not reversed we may see a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response in Gaza.

With approximately over one million displaced Palestinians taking shelter in or around 154 UNRWA shelters, the agency and aid organisations have continued to work in near-impossible circumstances to provide food, vaccinations, and fresh water. The countries suspending funds risk further depriving Palestinians in the region of essential food, water, medical assistance and supplies, education, and protection.

We urge donor states to reaffirm support for the vital work that UNRWA and its partners do to help Palestinians survive one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our times. Countries must reverse these funding suspensions, uphold their duties towards the Palestinian people and scale up humanitarian assistance for civilians in dire need in Gaza and the region.

Signatory organisations:

War Child Alliance

ActionAid

Norwegian Refugee Council

Diakonia

Oxfam

Première Urgence Internationale

Médecins du Monde France, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, Germany
Danish Refugee Council

Johanniter International Assistance

The Association of International Development Agencies – Aida

Humanity & Inclusion/ Handicap International (HI)

INTERSOS

CCFD-Terre Solidaire

International Council for Voluntary Agencies

Norwegian People’s Aid

Plateforme des ONG françaises pour la Palestine

Norwegian Church Aid

DanChurchAid

American Friends Service Committee

Caritas Internationalis

Save the Children

 

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Schrodinger’s Cat, Trump And Tax Cuts

Most of you have probably heard of the famous thought experiment proposed by Schrödinger where there’s a cat in a box and a vial of poison. If the poison has escaped then the cat is dead, but if the vial is still intact then the cat is alive. Consequently, the cat can be thought of as both alive and dead at the same time.

Of course, those of you who aren’t physicists aren’t so sure that a life trapped in a box is really a life although the philosophers among you may argue that we are all trapped in a box, but whatever, it’s only a thought experiment and, like the square root of negative one, the cat doesn’t actually exist, so there’s no need to call the RSPCA.

I couldn’t help but think of Schrödinger’s cat when someone started talking about Trump’s hold on the Republican Party the other day. According to rhetoric from Donald, he’s an anti-establishment outsider and that’s why Washington politicians are so opposed to him and why Deep State is working against him. However, like the cat, this hasn’t killed his sway with the Republican Party where, almost without exception, those in Congress back him to return as President. This is reminiscent of Reagan’s “Government is not the solution, government is the problem”, which could be considered a confession from someone who’d been a governor and a President, but I don’t think that was what he was trying to convey.

Similarly, Trump is both concerned about the lawlessness of various groups, while openly showing contempt for the legal system. Interestingly his argument in a number of cases is not that he hasn’t broken any laws; rather that the President has immunity. A point which his supporters consider to be both true and untrue – the cat again – because they simultaneously agree with this, while calling on Biden to be tried for corruption, treason, stealing an election and being a couple of years older than Donald…

All of which brings me to the tax cuts which Sussan Ley will wind back in government but also not wind back in government. Apparently, Labor are spreading a lie by repeating her exact words… A statement that can be true and untrue, because if her statement was a lie and Labor are spreading it, then they ARE spreading a lie, but if she wasn’t lying then Labor aren’t…

Ah, these tax cuts have caused the Coalition a bit of confusion. For example, David Littleproud has made the assertion that $190,000 a year is not a lot. This would be a good time to ask him if he thinks the payment to the unemployed should be raised. Notwithstanding that, David reminds us again that a cat can be both alive and dead, by going on to tell us that the tax changes are class warfare. Perhaps it’s just me, but if those on $190,000 aren’t earning a lot, how is it class warfare? I mean class warfare isn’t the poor against those not earning a lot as far as I’m aware.

Whatever, I expect that the Coalition may decide to wave the Stage 3 changes through, rather than hold them up and make them something that people focus on. Too much attention and people may become aware that the poor people on $180,000 are still getting a tax cut of $3729. Ok, it’s not as much as they were going to get, but when someone on $60,000 who’s only getting $1179 hears that someone earning three times as much is getting more than three times the tax cut and they’re the ones complaining, well, that’s when you will have a bit of class warfare happening…

I could be wrong. Just because it’s the sensible thing to do doesn’t mean that Peter Dutton will do it. Actually, when I think about it…

After all, Peter Dutton did say that he thought that big corporations like Woolworth’s should stay out of politics, so I guess this means that he’ll be asking his party to ban political donations from any large corporation because surely donating to a party is getting involved in politics.

It’s really quite interesting when you look at all the people who shouldn’t be involving themselves in politics. We have big corporations. Also, unions shouldn’t be involved.

There’s another example of Schrodinger’s political situation right there: Last week Liberal senator, James Paterson, was suggesting that the Albanese government was too willing to do the bidding of big business. Of course, this man is from the same party that regularly suggests that it’s the unions dictating Labor policy.

And, of course, there were suggestions that local councils were “being political” by not holding citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day and this was outrageous because local councils shouldn’t be political because politics is all about people who put forward positions and get elected which local councils don’t… oh wait!

Teachers also shouldn’t discuss anything political in the classroom. However, they should teach about the benefits of mining. Teaching about any problems with mining would no doubt be political, as would climate change or explaining how science works…

As for students, well they should be in school, not attending protests or writing letters to MPs or even thinking about anything but the 3Rs… And they shouldn’t think about the 3Rs too deeply or they may wonder why only one of them actually starts with an “R”.

And universities shouldn’t really get into politics either. Unless it’s some study that backs up Gina Rinehart’s desire to be the richest person alive.

Charities too shouldn’t be political. The Coalition passed legislation forbidding charities from getting political. Pity Josh Frydenberg didn’t understand that it also referred to people from the Guide Dog Association endorsing him. He thought it only applied to ones critical of the government.

Churches also shouldn’t get involved with politics unless they’re endorsing the Coalition. Any of this bleeding-heart lefty nonsense isn’t a position that a church should involve itself in.

So the list of people who shouldn’t be political includes ABC presenters, the Public Service, big corporations, unions, teachers, local councils, charities, students, universities…

Oh, and Marxists.

Yep, the only people who should involve themselves in politics are the people who agree with what the Murdoch papers are telling us…

 

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Unveiling the True Meaning of Social Justice

By Denis Hay

In a world where the term ‘social justice’ is often tossed around in political and social discussions, it is crucial to understand its true meaning, especially in the context of Australia. This article delves into the essence of social justice, highlighting its significance in the Australian socio-economic landscape.

What is Social Justice?

Social justice refers to the fair and just relation between the individual and society. It encompasses a range of issues including equality, human rights, and access to essential services. In Australia, social justice is closely tied to the government’s ability to support its citizens, given its sovereignty over currency and resources.

The Australian Context

Historical Perspective

Australia’s journey towards social justice has been a complex one. From the post-war era to the present day, the nation has seen significant shifts in policies and attitudes towards equality and welfare.

The Role of Government

The Australian government, with its control over the national currency, plays a pivotal role in ensuring social justice. It can fund essential services and create policies that promote equality and fairness.

Current Challenges

Despite the government’s capabilities, Australia faces several social justice challenges today. These include income inequality, access to quality education and healthcare, and environmental sustainability.

Social Justice and Economic Policy

Neoliberalism’s Impact

The rise of neoliberal policies has significantly affected social justice in Australia. These policies often prioritize corporate interests and economic growth over social welfare, leading to increased inequality and reduced access to essential services.

The Need for Change

There is a growing need to shift from neoliberal policies to more inclusive economic strategies that prioritize the well-being of all Australians.

The Path Forward

Advocacy and Action

Advocacy for social justice is crucial. It involves pushing for policies that ensure fair access to resources and opportunities for all Australians.

Government’s Role

The government must use its financial capabilities to address social justice issues, ensuring that every citizen has access to quality housing, stable jobs, education, and healthcare.

Wrapping up

Understanding and advocating for social justice is essential for a fair society. In Australia, this means recognizing the government’s role in supporting its citizens and challenging policies that undermine social welfare.

Engage with the Issue

  • How can we ensure that social justice is at the forefront of Australian policymaking?
  • What steps can individuals take to contribute to the social justice movement in Australia?

Call to Action

Join the conversation and act. Advocate for policies that promote social justice and equality. Your voice matters in shaping a fairer Australia.

Denis Hay: At 82 years young, I stand as a testament to the enduring power of dedication and belief in social justice. My journey has been shaped by a deep conviction that every individual deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and that equal opportunities for thriving should be a universal right.

My beliefs are not just ideals; they are the driving force behind my active engagement in advocating for change. I am deeply concerned about the pressing issue of climate change, recognizing its urgency and the need for immediate, collective action. This is not just a matter of policy for me, but a moral imperative to safeguard our planet for the generations to come.

As an administrator of several Facebook pages, I use my platform to challenge the prevailing neoliberal ideology, which I see as a destructive force against our society and environment. My goal is to foster a political system that truly serves the people, ensuring access to essential needs like decent housing, secure and well-paid jobs, education, and healthcare for all.

In this chapter of my life, my mission is clear: to leave behind a world that is better and more just for my grandchildren and future generations. It is a commitment that guides my every action, a legacy of compassion and advocacy that I hope will inspire others to join the cause.

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The Shame, and the Cost of no Help

HOW MANY of us Survivors of CSA have to kill ourselves before the following short paragraph is seriously considered by Churches and Government?

Too much secular Government/Taxpayer money is wasted on religious endeavours in Australia, and too many Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse experienced in religious institutions are left clinging to life by their fingernails because the money to deliver quality psychotherapy help to them is simply not there.

I have been prompted to write all of these following words by an excellent piece that was recently published on The AIMN.

(TRIGGER WARNING: A Torrent of Truth, and matters relating to Childhood Sexual Abuse and Suicide are about to follow.)

The psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who have been treating me over the last three years first met a largely untreated mind that wanted to kill itself. As you will soon see suicide ideation is a hard grip-beast to escape.

Sometimes … when I write … I do not know if it is the traumatised me, the autistic me, or just me who pulls words from my brain. I’m glad my brain box is incapable of feeling the words of self-pity because from what I have been told thoughts like that are unhelpful darkness anchors and serve no positive purpose.

When I write I pick up a word camera and take a snapshot of what my brain is saying in that moment. At the same time I am thought-looking at other CSA Survivors and wondering what their word cameras see and feel and whether or not they are being acknowledged and listened to.

I do not always write like this. Sometimes fear rules and I try to appear together and unaffected by my childhood experiences, and so I’ll self-censor and try to mirror the way other people write. Sometimes I can do that reasonably successfully. Sometimes, like right now, I tell fear to sit in the corner for a bit and I write the words that want to happen.

Bear in mind that I live in a State, Qld, where some free help of a very light nature is available for older Survivors of CSA like me. Because I tried to kill myself on a number of occasions I was offered in-depth psychotherapy assistance over the course of a year.

Three months ago, on my 72nd birthday, I spent another period in the acute mental health ward of Sunshine Coast University Hospital on suicide watch. I’m sick of such things, they really give me the shits. I’m sick of the fact that people like me, and there are far too many like me out there, have to beg for ongoing quality help when taxpayer dollars are sheeted into Chaplaincy Programs in secular state schools and unneeded government dollars are poured into wealthy private religious schools.

Feeling sorry for myself is a long-term no go and I will not let it happen. Feeling rising anger over these funding matters is a different matter and it makes me want to fucking roar.

I can write brutally about Survivor life and people sometimes react with shock horror at the ugly truths I seek to expose, but do you realise a lot of other Survivors simply nod their heads in quiet acknowledgement? Yep, been there and lived that.

So let’s chat about something that I know is not unique to me.

Yesterday, Thursday, was a day where who I am and reality spent some time together. It was a meeting I did not want to attend, and it was a meeting where I thought some of the content was a bit shitty.

Normally, but what is normal, I front up as a very quiet friendly man who is very considered with his words. I present as reasonably intelligent but a bit closed off and obviously a long-term resident of Shy City … for all I know that perhaps simply evidences me as sitting in one of the available templates of what an older Survivor of CSA can be.

I like to present as a person who writes clearly about difficult CSA issues whether they be experienced by me or others. The one thing I have struggled with is the shame of being a Survivor. That shame stops me from letting you get to know me.

Fuck the fear of judgement. Some of you know me as a person who now and then posts to AIMN on various matters. While that is part of me it is not who or what I am. What follows is just a chat about how yesterday was for me. As you read remember that I have at least received a bit of treatment and I would like you to think about those Survivors who cannot access any quality treatment at all.

The last three years of suicide attempts, and all the subsequent psychiatric assessments and periods spent in acute mental wards, plus the quality help I have received, plus all the years of living that I have done, all coalesced yesterday when my referral to the MyAgedCare system finally happened.

It hurt my pride to receive that referral.

It hurt my pride to be seen as internally frail and damaged. It hurt my pride to have to accept some truths that others perceive about me.

You know, my lower scale autism tangents my brain all the time into ‘hey let’s jump over there and pursue those thought words into their own warren of hidden possibilities’. Did you know that some of the traits of early childhood trauma can closely mirror some of the traits of what used to be called Aspergers? I cannot read faces, I cannot pick up on non-verbal cues. They are some of those traits.

My pride. My bloody pride.

To the people who mean a lot to me I am going to speak. I have hidden who I am from my friends, from my close friends, from my closest friend, and from my children. Years ago, decades ago, almost my full lifetime ago, I learned a way to mask the pain of my childhood abuse and I cobbled together a method that I hoped would help me to appear to be normal.

I was unable to release that masking for most of my life. Recently I’ve received quality mental health help and, this is me. At the risk of losing any friendship now at this time in my life I am going to be who I am. I have to stop shame of self and I want you to know this man who writes of many things, sometimes in strange or from left-field directions.

I have received some help. Others cannot access any help at all.

I was referred to MyAgedCare in the present by mental health professionals because I was seen to have been flat out developmentally arrested in some areas by my childhood abuse experiences … I was jumped on young and re-jumped on while still young by Catholics for the next seven years … so I dipped out on a couple of key early learnings apparently … and I can write a sentence like this and feel nothing in my brain … no self sympathy or other such emotional space wasters.

Now that brings up an interesting thought word jumble. If a Survivor of CSA never learned to self care, and also carries that strongly imposed Survivor of CSA belief that one possesses no self value whatsoever … do those two things combined save that Survivor from falling into a need to sympathy suck? Who knows?

But back to being arrested by a crime I did not commit. That arresting did not affect my intelligence. In life I managed to run a newspaper, I managed to set up and run not-for-profit groups. The bummer blip was the part where I never learned how to self care, or how to socialise in a comfortable manner. I have received some help, the dollars that could help others are wasted on Chaplaincy Programs in secular state schools.

The case worker yesterday was a delight of empathy and information. Association with strong female partners in my life insulated me from the knowledge that some of the most basic things in life were beyond my comprehension or capability.

Strong independent women who kitchen-claim, and why should they not if they wish to, can quite unknowingly/accidently/completely without blame/not as a misson in life/ and as an unintended consequence protect a man from discovering that, in some basic areas of responsible self care, he is utterly bloody clueless. I only started to understand that when I started to live alone.

People are coming to see me once Xmas is over to teach me how to cook. To teach me how to shop in such a way that there is food consistently in the house. To teach me that eating is a good thing even when I don’t care about it. To help me understand that routines like house work and self care are not impositions.

It hurts my pride. Perhaps there are others out there who’d be happy wear a bit of hurt pride if some help dollars were there for them. The help dollars are not there for them.

A person is coming in the new year of 2024 to teach me how to use small talk in social situations. To teach me to try to see the non-verbal facial cues that people use to convey happiness, boredom, annoyance, joy, or anger. To teach me to stop fearing people who have done nothing more than approach me to say hello. To teach me that just observing life is only part of the deal and that a thing called participation also exists.

What hurt have I caused to others, close others, by not being able to say hello this is who I am? I’ve received some help to enable myself to ask such questions. Others get no help at all.

The strength of the masking that fear can create is undeniable. Until recently nobody knew the autistic traits I carry, or the level of CSA damage I carry. The shitty shame of it all always shut me down at the wrong moments in my life when better options of more openness briefly appeared. Well good on me blah blah for developing some understanding of such things. I’ve had some help but others have had none at fucking all because the religious mobs have hoovered up too many of the available bloody dollars.

One moment out of yesterday almost broke me. Bureaucracy claims a bit of skin whenever it can … in order to get a MyAgedCare Number I was speaker-phoned through a series of questions by a pleasant enough person. Because I didn’t fit the usual tick and flick box of physical frailty and a need for home or ambulatory aids the questions quickly became forensic. My case manager tried to intervene but I was asked to detail as fully as I could the causes of my inner frailty.

To have to summarize crappy childhood horror in such an impersonal bureaucratic setting as that just to get a Number broke the dam in my heart. I thought the dam walls had been psychotherapy strengthened. The tears were like fucking battery acid. And I’ve had some help and others just as deserving as me have had no help at all.

I got my Number. I will get the help I need. The empathy from my case manager saved yesterday. How come many of the others who are like me receive no help at all? I am getting this help because the professionals who are treating me want me to choose to stay in this life. They are worried I will make the wrong choice.

The help I get helps me to err on the safer side of what can prove to be terminally bad choices. How can the other Survivors like me do that very same thing without receiving that very same solid help?

How many Survivors of CSA of any age who experienced abuse in religious institutions have to kill themselves before adequate numbers of therapy dollars are finally placed on the table?

 

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Israel’s military bombs Gaza into unprecedented levels of hunger

Oxfam Australia Media Release

Oxfam reaction to the IPC food security figures for Gaza

In reaction to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report published today on Gaza warning of a risk of famine if intense hostilities and restricted humanitarian access persist or worsen, Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director, said:

“Gaza’s shocking descent into starvation was so predictable as to be premeditated; an ongoing war crime by the Government of Israel.

“This is irrefutable proof that Israel’s attacks have decimated Gaza’s already fragile food system so catastrophically that most people are no longer able to feed themselves and their families. People are being starved in Gaza. Unless there is an immediate ceasefire and a massive scale-up of humanitarian aid, Gaza risks being pushed into a famine.

“It is abhorrent and barely conceivable in 2023, that women, children and babies, the elderly and sick, the most vulnerable people have had their food weaponised against them. The horror felt by a mother unable to feed her child is the horror of Gaza today.

“While over 90 per cent of people in Gaza cannot find their next meal, some UN Security Council member states are still toying with words rather than voting for a ceasefire.

“Those within the international community who have refused to rein in Israel’s military machine and its collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza today stand shamed and complicit – this scandal is on your watch. You must no longer patronise this Israeli aggression that is killing so many civilians, even as it fails in its own terms by sowing the seeds of future insecurity for both Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

 

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Inaction by the Australian Goverment leaves PNG refugee children going hungry

Refugee Action Coalition Media Release

Inaction by the Australian government is leaving refugee families destitute. Despite promises from the PNG Immigration minister that the problem would be fixed, refugees still have no food vouchers, income, or access to medical help.

Families have run out of food for their children; refugees have been left without electricity because they do not have the money to keep it connected. Electricity in Port Moresby costs up to $150 a week. Even drinking water has to be bought.

Some money has been raised by friends and supporters in Australia, for the last week, but it is nowhere near enough to buy sufficient food and keep the power on for the 62 refugees and their families still in limbo in PNG. Despite efforts to raise more money, there is no money to even provide food vouchers for this coming week.

While no refugees have been evicted, service providers have still not been paid by PNG Immigration, and the threat made in a letter last week remains. One of the refugee families was told by the CEO of their accommodation provider, MRT, to “move out” and added, “I can close all the accommodation anytime.”

“Clare O’Neil must urgently provide the money needed to guarantee that refugees have the services that they need to survive. There are two new babies to be supported,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, “We know there have been meetings between Home Affairs and PNG Immigration, but nothing has come of them.”

While PNG and Australia argue the toss about who is responsible for the refugees’ welfare, service providers are not being paid and refugees in PNG are facing increasingly desperate circumstances.

“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Rintoul, “Labor is spending over $400 million to keep Nauru open as an offshore detention facility. But they have found nothing to support the refugees they sent there in 2013.”

 

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Banished from Pakistan: Islamabad Moves on Afghan Refugees

Across the globe, refugees, always treated as the pox of public policy, continue to feature in news reports describing anguish, despair and persistent persecution. If they are not facing barbed wire barriers in Europe, they are being conveyed, where possible, to third countries to be processed in lengthy fashion. Policy makers fiddle and cook the legal record to justify such measures, finding fault with instruments of international protection such as the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951.

A very dramatic example of roughing up and violence is taking place against Afghans in Pakistan, a country that, despite having a lengthy association with hosting refugees, has yet to ratify the primary Convention. Yet in March 2023, the UNHCR noted that Pakistan hosted 1.35 million registered refugees. The organisation praised Pakistan for its “long and commendable tradition of providing protection to refugees and asylum-seekers”, noting that the current number comprised “mainly Afghan refugees holding Proof of Registration (PoR), as well as a small number of non-Afghan refugees and asylum seekers from other countries such as Myanmar, Yemen, Somalia and Syria.”

Such a rosy assessment detracts from the complex nature of the status of Afghans in that country, characterised by, in some cases, the absence of visas and passports, the expiration of visas and the long wait for renewals. Then comes the tense, heavy mix of domestic politics.

On September 15, the federal government ordered all individual Afghans residing in the country illegally to leave the country by November 1 or face deportation. The order affects some 1.7 million Afghans residing in the country, though the figures on the undocumented vary with dizzy fluctuations.

It is proving disastrous for those vulnerable individuals who fled a country where the Taliban has returned to power. To date, 400,000 are said to have left Pakistan via border crossings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, with one estimate from the International Rescue Committee suggesting that 10,000 are being returned to Afghanistan each day. These include the whole spectrum of vulnerable persons: women, girls, human rights activists, journalists and those formerly in the employ of the previous Western-backed government.

The picture is an ugly one indeed, complicated by Pakistan’s own domestic ills and complex relationship with Kabul. During the course of the vacuously named Global War on Terror, Afghanistan came to be seen as a problem for Pakistani security, its refugee camps accused as being incubators for fractious Afghan militants. Kabul, at that point yet to return to Taliban control, accused Islamabad of destabilising its own security by providing sanctuary for those very same militants. In the aftermath of the killing of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani in September 2011, the victim of a daring suicide attack on his residency, Pakistan’s then Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, proved roundly dismissive: “We are not responsible if Afghan refugees crossed the border and entered Kabul, stayed in a guest house and attacked Professor Rabbani.”

The latest chapter of demonisation comes on the coattails of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Brutal night raids by police, featuring beatings, ominous threats and detention, have become the hallmarks of the expulsion campaign. The police forces, themselves spoiled by corruption and opportunism, are prone to pilfering property, including jewellery and livestock.

In October, Mir Ahmad Rauf, who heads the Afghan Refugees’ Council in Pakistan reported “widespread destruction of Afghan homes in Islamabad’s B-17, Karachi, and other parts of Pakistan.” Last month, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a statement expressing concern at “reports of increased detainment, violence, and intimidation against the Ahmadiyya and Afghan refugee communities” in the country.

To add to this failure of protection is the status of many who, despite being Afghan, were born in Pakistan and never set foot in Afghanistan. In 2018, Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that his government would be amenable to granting citizenship to Afghans born in the country. The promise (amenability is always contingent) was never enacted into law, and Khan is now persona non grata with Pakistan’s usurpers.

The protective, humanitarian burden for processing claims by Afghans in other countries has also been reluctantly shared. To return to Afghanistan spells potential repression and persecution; but to find a country in the European Union, or to seek sanctuary in the United States, Australia and others, has been nigh impossible for most.

When asylum has been considered, it has often been done with an emphasis on prioritising the contributions of men who had performed military and security roles in the previous Western-backed Kabul administration. There is a delicious irony to this, given the evangelical promises of US President George W. Bush to liberate the country’s women from the clutches of obscurantist fundamentalism.

On December 1, a three-member bench of the Pakistani Supreme Court sought responses from the various arms of the government, including the apex committee led by the Prime Minister, foreign office, and army chief on their decision to expel Afghan nationals. Given the caretaker status of the current government, which has all but outsourced foreign policy to the military, including the “Afghan issue”, legal questions can be asked.

One of the petitioners to the court, Senator Farhatullah Babar, states that current government members are technically unelected to represent the country. “So, the court would need to decide whether a caretaker government with such a restrictive mandate can take such a major policy decision, and in my view, this is beyond the power of the caretaker government.” Those Afghans remaining in Pakistan can only wait.

 

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ACOSS urges root and branch employment services overhaul

Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) Media Release

ACOSS welcomes the House of Representatives Select Committee recommendations released today which, if implemented, would transform employment services for the better.

ACOSS Acting CEO Edwina MacDonald said: ‘’We urge the Federal Government to commit to the reforms recommended by this inquiry that would shift it from a system that punishes people towards one that opens up real employment opportunities.

“The fact that 600,000 people have been stuck on unemployment payments – many of them people with disability or older workers struggling to get a foothold in the labour market – is a sign of failure in the employment services system. We must do better.

“The most urgent reform recommended by the Committee is to end automated payment suspensions and ensure people have access to a human decision maker before payments are affected. In the three months to September, over 280,000 people were threatened – by computer – with the loss of their income support, often for minor infractions such as missing an appointment with an employment service provider that they didn’t know about.

“Cutting off someone’s income should never be a first resort and people should be given the chance to explain their situation before their payments are impacted. The government must act to stop automated payment suspensions now, before it becomes the next Robodebt tragedy. Until a fair alternative to the present system of unjust and automated suspensions is in place, we continue to urge for a pause in payment suspensions.

“The Committee proposes overdue, transformational reform to the 30-year-old employment services system in which private providers compete for the ‘business’ of helping people secure employment. This competitive model has not worked.

“ACOSS welcomes the proposed independent quality assurance body to manage complaints and set standards for employment services, including the qualifications of frontline employment services staff, and the creation of standing advisory bodies where people directly affected are directly represented.

“The proposed national wage subsidy and work experience schemes would offer people unemployed long-term the opportunity for experience in a regular, properly paid job. ACOSS advocates an offer of at least annual access to a wage subsidy, quality training, a job offer or health and social supports tailored to individual need. This should replace punitive and ineffective programs like Work for the Dole, which must be abolished.

“The proposed regional hubs and service gateways would join up local employment, community and training services, and connect them with employers.

“We will examine further the Committee’s recommendations over the coming weeks and commit to working with the government to implement much needed reforms.

“It is also vital to raise the rate of income support to at least $78 a day, so that people can afford the essentials of life while searching for employment.”

 

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Experts Call For Transfer of Last Refugees in PNG to Australia

Media Release

Religious leaders and healthcare professionals present Open Letters calling for the immediate transfer to Australia of the remaining refugees in PNG.

More than 500 doctors, nurses and allied health professionals and more than 300 religious leaders and people of faith will call on the Australian Government to immediately transfer to Australia the approximately 64 refugees and people seeking asylum who are still trapped in Papua New Guinea: in two open letters.

On Tuesday 28th November, a delegation of religious leaders and healthcare professionals will travel to Parliament House to meet with MPs and deliver the two open letters.

Signatories to the letters include:

  • Bishop Mark Short (Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn)
  • Bishop Vincent Long (Catholic Diocese of Parramatta)
  • Rev Tim Costello (Executive Director of Micah Australia)
  • Imam Shadi Alsuleiman (President, Australian National Imams Council)
  • Rev Sharon Hollis (President Uniting Church in Australia, Assembly)
  • Professor Clare Nourse AM
  • Professor David Isaacs
  • Professor Lyn Gilbert AO
  • Professor Roy Robins-Browne AO

Representing the religious leaders who signed the open letter, Bishop Mark Short says:

“As people of faith, and as leaders of our congregations, we are deeply concerned about the refugees and people seeking asylum currently trapped in Papua New Guinea. Continuing to hold them in PNG is unjust and denies them basic human rights. We call on the Australian Government to bring to Australia the refugees and people seeking asylum still held in Papua New Guinea.”

Mainul Haque OAM (Former President, Canberra Muslim Community and Gungahlin Mosque) said:

“We are committed to a compassionate society based on justice, hope and fairness. This is a call for the just and compassionate treatment of people who are awaiting their resettlement processes.”

Representing healthcare professionals who signed the open letter, Professor David Isaacs said:

“People have been held in PNG for more than 10 years now, causing enormous harm to their physical and mental health and they have been denied adequate health care. Australia is actively harming these people and it is time to bring this to an end. They should be brought here immediately so that they can receive the medical care that they need while they await a resettlement solution.”

Dr Nilanthy Vigneswaran (Infectious Diseases Fellow) said:

“This open letter speaks to the ever growing calls within Australia’s healthcare community to end the suffering and dehumanisation of refugees in PNG, and immediately provide them with urgent and long awaited medical care.

“Fourteen people have died in Australia’s offshore detention in the last 10 years. Coronial inquests have identified that unacceptable delays in transferring people to tertiary centres for urgent medical care directly contributed to these preventable deaths. We do not view these incidents as tragic isolated events, rather they represent a systemic failure.

The medical care available to people held offshore is far below the standard of that accessed by the general Australian public.”

Dr Kevin Sweeney added:

“Having more than 800 signatories to these open letters is evidence of the ongoing, widespread concern across the community for those ‘left behind’ in PNG, many of whom have no pathway to safe resettlement.

“It is extraordinary that these refugees and people seeking asylum are still trapped in PNG after more than 10 years; unable to see their families, unable to build a new life for themselves. The endless waiting and hopelessness has taken a huge toll on their mental health.”

Sr Jane Keogh commented: “They live in difficult circumstances where they are not safe – they are regularly targeted and attacked by street gangs. Basic supports are now being withdrawn as Australia has not provided any funding for more than 12 months. There are credible reports that funds that Australia has previously provided have been siphoned off, raising serious concerns about corruption. Off-shore detention in PNG has been a disaster and needs to be brought to an end. The Australian Government needs to transfer them back to Australia now.”

 

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