DEAR TASMANIANS FOR REFUGEES MEMBERS
Sorry for the length of this email but below are three important emails about ways people can support the moves of Petro Georgiou and his colleagues to try to change the mandatory detention system. The first provides information about the contents of the proposed Private Members Bill (as summarised by Amnesty International) and suggests personally contacting local federal MPs and Senators, the second is specifically about putting pressure on the ALP to support the changes (as suggested by the Labor for Refugees group) and the final one is a response from Judy Moylan emphasising the importance of contacting MPs in the next week.
We realise many of you have contacted MPs in the past but would encourage everyone who can to contact at least one MP as the current climate seems to provide a real chance for a change.
Best wishes,
Kelly Madden
From: “Bellingen Rural Australians for Refugees”
Subject: FW: URGENT: Contact your local MP to end indefinite immigration detention
Dear members
You are no doubt aware of the growing debate in the media about proposals from within the Federal Liberal Party to change Australia’s mandatory immigration detention regime.
You can help to influence this debate.
You can urge your local Federal Member of Parliament (MP) to support moves to end indefinite immigration detention, release children from detention and allow refugees who have been granted temporary protection to live in the community permanently.
Why now?
Liberal backbencher Petro Georgiou MP is proposing to introduce two Private Member’s Bills, with the support of several of his colleagues, to address Australia’s inhumane mandatory detention policy. This is a significant development in the refugee debate and provides an opportunity to end the human rights violations under Australia’s mandatory immigration detention system.
In recent weeks serious cases have come to including the wrongful detention of Cornelia Rau and up to 200 others, the wrongful deportation of Vivian Alvarez Solon and the eventual release of three-year old Naomi Leong after being detained for her entire life. Most recently the Federal Court held that the Commonwealth failed in its duty of care to provide adequate psychiatric health care to mentally ill detainees at Baxter.
What does the Private Member’s Bills provide for?
those who have been in detention for more than a year will be released while their claims for protection are resolved;
release of children and their parents from detention, unless they pose a risk to the public or are likely to abscond;
permanent protection for Temporary Protection Visa holders;
asylum seekers who arrive without a visa will only be detained initially for up to 90 days, which can only be extended by application to the Federal Court; and,
permanent protection for those whose claim for asylum has failed but who
cannot removed from Australia (after 3 years).
What you can do?
In your personal capacity – as a citizen living in their electorate and not as a member of any particular organisation – politely phone, fax or write to your MP and Senators today to support reform of Australia’s mandatory detention regime.
1. Phone your MP’s office and ask that your MP support the measures contained in the Private Members Bills to end the human rights abuses against refugees and asylum seekers.
2. Write a ‘follow up letter’ outlining your concerns – and cc it to the Prime Minister the Hon. John Howard MP.
3. Get five of your friends, family or workmates to do the same.
4. Respond to any local radio talkback on the issue and write to your local paper.
Points to make:
Release all children from detention – there are currently 68 children in detention. The latest detainee, baby Michael Andrew Tran, was born on Christmas Island on Monday 23 May 2005.
End Mandatory Detention – thousands of asylum seekers have been detained for
anywhere up to seven years under Australia’s policy. Just this month an Iranian man was recognised as a refugee and released after having spent 5 years in detention.
End Indefinite Detention – under Australian law, the Australian Government can detain failed asylum seekers until they die. Peter Qasim has been detained for almost seven years, despite requesting to be returned to any other country that will accept him.
Grant Permanent Protection for Refugees – Australia is the only country to grant temporary status to people recognised as refugees. Over 9000 refugees, fearful of being returned to countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, are having to re-prove their status once their 3 year visa expires.
The Australian Government must bring its refugee policies in line with international human rights standards.
WHO ARE YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES IN THE HOUSE OF EPRESENTATIVES
AND IN THE SENATE?
Find out which is your electorate, your elected representative in the House of Representatives and your Senators.
http://www.aec.gov.au/esearch/main.htm
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mi-elctr.asp
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/senators/homepages/si-state.htm
TELL FEDERAL LABOR:
SUPPORT PETRO GEORGIOUS’S PRIVATE MEMBER’S BILL AS A STEP TOWARDS A MORE COMPASSIONATE APPROACH TO ASYLUM SEEKERS
www.labor4refugees.org/campaign/
Liberal backbencher Petro Georgiou is planning to introduce two Private Member’s Bill to the Commonwealth Parliament which aim to fundamentally change Australia’s system of processing asylum seekers.
These proposals would end indefinite immigration detention, release children from detention and allow refugees who have been granted temporary protection to live in the community permanently.
Clearly this represents a significant step forward, but Labor has so far refused to offer full support for the Georgiou Private Member’s Bill.
You can help!
Visit: www.labor4refugees.org/campaign/ to send a message directly to the Federal ALP: Labor should support these Bills as a step towards a more compassionate policy for asylum seekers!
All supporters of the campaign for a humanitarian approach to refugees and asylum seekers should get active in this campaign.
And a message from Judy Moylan in response to a TFR member’s supportive email
I deeply appreciate the hundreds of thoughtful, heartfelt letters from
people supporting changes to mandatory detention.
Many of you have made representations to your Federal Member of Parliament and the leadership, both Government and Opposition.
After the events of yesterday’s Party Room meeting it was agreed that there will be further talks with the Prime Minister to see if an accommodation can be reached before the introduction of the Private Member’s Bills on 20th June. The Prime Minister has publicly acknowledged that “the policy should be administered in a speedier, more flexible, more humane way”.
Once again, I believe that the greatest chance for success rests in the weight of public opinion and anything you can do to encourage others to make their views known will be very helpful.
We continue to stress that the Bills do not undermine the integrity of the Government’s policy of border protection. Detention remains in a targeted manner with a maximum 90 days detention, without a court decision to the contrary.
It is disingenuous of those claiming that the enactment of these Bills will allow a flood of unlawful arrivals to breach our borders. Unlawful arrivals reached a crescendo in 2001 with the arrival of 1221 boat people, nine years after the Labor Party introduced the mandatory detention policy.
The Government’s border protection policies have been the most successful deterrent. These include interdiction of people smugglers in their countries of origin and cooperation between regional neighbours. Furthermore, the United Nations has reported a 50% contraction of refugees worldwide since 1992.
Once again thank you for your commitment to a more humane policy.
Kind Regards,
Judi Moylan MP
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RELEASE
Community pharmacists assist customers who experience alcohol dependency
Pharmacists are second only to nurses as the most trusted professionals in Australia. Hence, it is no surprise that they are becoming involved in health issues that are often difficult to address. The Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER) have acknowledged this by providing funding for the ‘Enhanced Alcohol and other Drug training opportunities for Rural and Remote Community Pharmacists’ called the EAD Project. It is hoped that the Project will make a significant contribution towards the prevention of alcohol misuse and abuse within the community, in particular among vulnerable population groups identified as being groups particularly at risk (such as young people, and people in remote and rural communities).
John Dowling, President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Tasmanian Branch, said, “the EAD Project will strategically assist in the prevention of alcohol misuse among vulnerable population groups within Tasmania. Selected pharmacists will work with existing alcohol and other drug service providers to offer support and the provision of one on one counselling.”
“The Project aims to greatly enhance the promotion of community education that encourages the responsible consumption of alcohol and highlights the dangers of alcohol misuse and abuse”, he said.
The official launch of the EAD Project will be held at the Gateway Inn (16 Fenton Street, Devonport) on Wednesday 8 June 2005 at 6.30pm.
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PRESS RELEASE 4-6-05
THE TWO FACES OF AUSTRALIA
WHALES v’s PULP MILL
Australia’s attempts to ban Japanese whaling in the Southern Hemisphere is seen by many in that country as a cynical attempt to hide a much bigger environmental problem of its own.
In the small southern island state of Tasmania, Australia’s biggest eucalypt wood chip exporter, Gunns Ltd, is planning to build a pulp mill producing 800-thousand tonnes of air dried pulp a year.
The planned site at Longreach, on the picturesque Tamar River in northern Tasmania has created a heated community backlash, because the site is in a valley that is affected by a temperature inversion layer.
This means that any pollutants from the pulp mill stack will be trapped in the valley, to be breathed by the population of over 100-thousand people.
Gunns Ltd has been a longtime exporter of wood chips to Japanese pulp makers including Mitsubishi Paper Mills, Oji Paper, Daio Paper, Chuetso Paper and Nippon Paper.
The company is the only real major player in the forest industry in Tasmania, and as such wields enormous power over both the Australian government, the state government, business suppliers and the community.
It has been the focus of concerted environmental protests for the way it carries out its business in Tasmania’s pristine old growth forests which are home to the world’s tallest flowering eucalypt tree, Eucalyptus Regnans, growing to 90 metres in height.
The company divides these publicly owned rainforests into coupes, then the bulldozers move in, clearing dirt roads so the entire coupe can be clearfelled. Not a tree, fern or grass remain.
Once the choice trees, some over 300 years old are removed, and transported to the wood chip mills, helicopters fly over the site dropping what the industry calls “liquified diesel gel”, but is known locally as “napalm”,for its ability to torch the entire area.
The area is now destined to become a monoculture plantation of fast growing Blue Gum trees.
In preparing the area for plantation, carrots laced with 1080 poison, which turns them blue, are dropped over the site to kill off all native wildlife, such as kangaroos, wallabies, brushtail possums.
What once was a thriving rainforest, home to all species of fauna and flora, now resembles a flattened, black landscape with the decaying carcasses of the stateÕs wildlife.
Tasmania, according to its state Attorney General Ms.Judy Jackson is the only place in the world that poisons its wildlife.
In May this year she said “killing your wildlife with 1080 poison is not a good look, itÕs not a good image for our tourism.”
Australian government ministers have readily come out to voice their grave fears for the world whale population and the impacts Japanese “scientific” research killing of species such as the Minke whale will have, especially in the Southern Hemisphere.
But these same ministers have put their heads in the sand over the plan by Gunns Ltd to build its proposed $A1.3 billion pulp mill in the Tamar valley.
Earlier this year Prime Minister Mr.John Howard, announced a plan to appease the conservationists in Tasmania, but it fell far short of saving the state’s old growth forests, and protected land that basically couldn’t be logged.
It was a “Clayton’s solution” which allows continued logging of these pristine forests.
The close relationship between Gunns Ltd and the state Labor government, headed by Premier and Treasurer Mr.Paul Lennon, has been cemented using Tasmanian taxpayer funds.
In his May budget, Lennon announced an allocation of over $A6 million towards the pulp mill project, including $A2.3 million for its Pulp Mill Task Force, a group of specialists, including highly paid Public relations professionals, locally known as “Spin Doctors”.
Its job is to saturate the local media including television and newspapers, with positive stories about the benefits of the pulp mill, what it will mean for jobs and the economy.
People who oppose it such as groups like the Tamar Residents Action Committee (TRAC) have been branded un-Tasmanian.
This is the way of the forest industry in Tasmania. To suffocate and belittle the opposition, and pay them no regard.
But what of the airborne particulate emissions to come from the 130 metre tall stack, the biggest to be built in Tasmania, and how will that impact on the population?
Already the northern town of Launceston, which has one of the highest winter recordings of particulate (PM10) matter in the world, is suffering from its woodsmoke problem.
The Australian government will give $A1 million over the next 3 years to fight the problem because there’s been significant increases in recordings of childhood asthma and respiratory disease in the region’s elderly.
But what load of emissions will come from the pulp mill and exacerbate the problem in Launceston? There’s been no mention of it, even though the Tamar Residents Action Committee has tried to highlight the problem in the local media which it appears doesn’t want to touch the problem.
Gunns Ltd is a major financial contributor to the local media through constant significant advertising campaigns.
Then what of one of the world’s largest stocks of wild green lip abalone which gets exported to countries throughout Asia?
The proposed pulp mill will pump up to 30-billion litres of effluent into the pristine waters of Bass Strait every year, home to the green lip abalone and highly prized Tasmanian Scallop and Southern Rock Lobster.
The problem here is that it takes this section of Bass Strait 160 days to flush out, so the effluent will just be accumulating.
There is a solution to the problem, and Gunns Ltd is very good at it.
Just before announcing its plans to build a pulp mill, the company issued In December last year a lawsuit against 20 environmentalists, seeking damages totalling $A6.3 million. Included in the writ are Senator Bob Brown, the Wilderness Society and Doctors for Forests, a group of doctors concerned about the affects of forestry chemicals on human health.
So what’s the difference in calling for Japan to stop all whaling, and at the same time allowing a private company to build a pulp mill that will have significant impacts on its own community?
CONTACT:- LES ROCHESTER
TASMANIA, AUSTRALIA.
Tel:- 61-3-63947260
e-mail :- [email protected]
Les Rochester is a retired journalist and University Lecturer in Media Law and Media Ethics. He is also coordinator of the Tamar Residents Action Committee.
(http://www.tamar-trac.com)
