The Good Samaritan Refugee and Asylum Seeker Network held an online conference to mark Refugee Week last month, with guest speaker Julie Macken urging participants to make a stand for change and outlining the case for a royal commission into Australia’s policies on immigration detention, reports The Good Oil.
Julie is the Justice and Peace Officer for the Archdiocese of Sydney and a former journalist. She completed her PhD on an investigation into Australia’s immigration detention system. Julie issued a call to action, saying that if only 20 per cent of Australians spoke out about the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, much could be achieved.
People protesting against Australia’s refugee and asylum-seeker policies at a rally in Brisbane. PHOTO: Shutterstock.
The presentation was attended by a range of Sisters, Oblates and friends of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan.
In her welcome address, Congregational Leader Sister Catherine McCahill said Refugee Week was a time to prick consciences regarding the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia.
She said it was “unimaginable” that in a resource-rich country like Australia, asylum seekers were locked up and sent to another country with fewer resources, or released into the Australian community “with no right to work, to study, and no right to medical care”.
“So, I think that’s the backdrop. If we’re going to say we are Good Samaritan, we need to be neighbour to everyone,” Catherine said.
In her presentation, Julie gave a comprehensive timeline of Australia’s political response to asylum seekers from the mid-20th Century to the present day, saying Australia had gone from displaying “best practice” in the treatment of asylum seekers to falling outside of its international obligations in more recent times.
She said that under the Fraser, Hawke and Keating governments, Australians had largely taken for granted that the nation welcomed people seeking asylum. But that began to change with Labor’s introduction of mandatory detention of asylum seekers for initial processing in 1992.
“Unbeknownst to everyone, that 1992 change to the legislation would provide the foundations for what would soon, in a few short years, become known as the Pacific Solution,” she said.
Subsequent developments under both Liberal and Labor governments resulted in the policies of mandatory detention in Australian detention centres, turning the boats around, and offshore detention on Manus Island and Nauru under the Pacific Solution.
Political flashpoints along the way included the Tampa incident, the ‘children overboard’ allegations under the Howard government, as well as more recent policy developments under both sides of politics, including the re-activation of the Nauru detention centre under the Albanese government.
“It’s a long and ugly and complicated story, and we are all implicated in this story,” Julie said.
“We are all implicated because this only happened because the majority of Australians was silent as it was happening. So, it is a political problem. But it’s also very much an Us Problem.”
Participants watched the harrowing short film, Australia’s ‘sadistic’ history of offshore refugee detentions.
There was hope for change, though, Julie said.
“If enough of us care enough and are vocal enough to say, ‘No, we are not up for this, and we won’t vote for you if you have this policy’, it will change overnight.”
Julie acknowledged that many in the Church, including religious, are doing fantastic work in supporting asylum seekers and refugees, but called on the bishops to engage more forcefully at the political level in calling for policy change.
She said there was a growing call for a royal commission into Australia’s refugee policies over recent decades.
“The reason we are pushing for a royal commission is because it has all the powers necessary to subpoena documents, and a royal commission is usually an open court,” she said.
Sister Catherine Norman SGS from the Good Samaritan Refugee and Asylum Seeker Network said the conference had been both informative and a call to action.
“The purpose of this event was to put a spotlight on Australia’s immigration detention centres and the disgraceful way we treat these people who are coming to Australia seeking safety,” she said.
“I’m glad Julie also highlighted the work that members of the Church are doing for refugees as well as the need for bishops to show moral leadership in this area.
“I was very pleased with the presentation and the numbers of people who attended, and I will be even more pleased if I can get more responses from people to take action. We need to do something.”
One of the participants, Sister Veronica Griffith SGS, said she found Julie’s presentation “powerful and very eye-opening”.
“Julie was so passionate, and it was helpful to hear that level of awareness and expertise being brought together in such a clear way,” she said.
“I think a royal commission could be a good idea. It makes it very public and very real, and I felt excited by the idea that it would make people accountable for the decisions that have been taken in the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.”
Veronica Brogden, a Sydney-based educationalist and participant in this year’s Good Samaritan Study and Mentoring (SAM) Program, also took part in the day and found it “emotionally enlightening”.
“The period Julie Macken referred to was one where I was finishing school, getting my career off the ground and raising children. The world outside my own did not really register. To discover that looking back, the 1990s and early 2000s were a critical time in the cultural shift of how Australia, through its federal representatives, plummeted outside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was very challenging,” she said.
Veronica said she was inspired to create opportunities for her students to come to an understanding and respect for all humanity and how easily the balance can tip.
“The discussion left me with the understanding that if we truly live the Gospel in the way we navigate all our decisions and actions there will develop a real respect between all peoples,” she said.
This article by Debra Vermeer was published in The Good Oil, the monthly e-publication of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan.