The Tassie Nannas may seem harmless but their fight for asylum seekers comes from a place of pure intensity

Having lived through the height of political activism in the ’60s and ’70s, Tasmanian lobby group Tassie Nannas have a fire in the belly for protesting against Australia’s detention of asylum seekers and are luring others to join their campaign

When revellers at Mac2 on Hobart’s waterfront stepped outside on to the pier for some fresh air at the Faux Mo opening party a few weeks ago, they saw a group of about 40 women seated on old painted chairs knitting. The women, stationed in front of a DJ and his enormous chest-pounding speakers, were offering handmade ‘bling’ – necklaces in gleaming gold- and silver-coloured yarn – to partygoers for a gold-coin donation towards their cause.

The women, who are all grandmothers, are known as the Tassie Nannas. For the past three years they have been meeting almost every Friday at Elizabeth Mall for two hours where they knit to protest against and raise awareness about Australia’s immigration detention policy, an approach with which they passionately disagree.

It all began in July 2014 when Pauline “Polly” Shelley had some friends over to celebrate a family birthday.

“We were all talking about children,” Shelley remembers. “My grandchild Iris was only a few months old and she was asleep in the next room. We talked of how fortunate we were and we began to get angry about what was happening to other people’s children. None of us could look at our own grandchildren and not wonder about the children in detention.”

When Shelley’s anger developed into what she describes as “white-hot rage,” she and her friend Patricia Moran decided to do something about it. “We were already writing letters to politicians, but we felt we needed to do something that would gain more attention and therefore encourage people to talk about the issue more, and hopefully to change things,” Moran says.

The Tassie Nannas group now has more than 100 members, aged between 60 and 90 years. The women have had thousands of conversations with passers-by in the mall.

They have also organised vigils and demonstrations, including last month’s Faux Mo appearance as part of the annual Mona Foma festival.

“We have kind of become the go-to group for action in Tasmania when particular detention policy-related events come up,” Shelley says.

The Nannas have inspired others to create similar groups around Tasmania. In March 2016, they teamed up with Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children (a Victoria and NSW organisation formed about the same time as the Tassie Nannas) for the Freedom Ride to Canberra, a colourful cavalcade of buses and cars travelling from Sydney and Melbourne to the national capital.

The group marched in towns along the way and then rallied outside Parliament House, met with senators and MPs and staged a protest in the Great Hall.

“We gained a lot of coverage and met a number of politicians,” Moran says.

Last September, the Nannas’ Facebook popularity soared to a staggering 60,000 Facebook hits and gained national attention when they staged a sit-in on the stairs and in the carpark of the office of Liberal Senator Eric Abetz, after being unable to enter the premises.

“We try to talk to all politicians,” Moran says. “There is something disarming about being a granny that helps to make people stop and listen. But we also try to remove the issue from the arena of political games for a moment and place it within a moral arena, a human arena.”

Early on, the Nannas focused solely on children in detention. When they first took up protest at Elizabeth Mall in November 2015, there were 135 children in detention centres, both in Australia and on Nauru, as well as 331 in community detention. Today, there are 36 children on Nauru, including babies born in detention. There are fewer than five children in closed detention and 176 in community detention within Australia.

Over time the Nannas have broadened to protesting and raising awareness about what they are describing as Australia’s “shameful and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and its wide-reaching impacts of uncertainty, loss of hope and dealing with the xenophobia and racism that [the] demonisation of asylum seekers causes”.

Another part of the Tassie Nannas’ charter is helping to make sure refugees that do end up settling in Tasmania are made to feel welcome. That is where the knitted items comes in. The Nannas knit squares that are joined to make blankets and distributed by the Migrant Resource Centre.

Approximately 200 refugees settle in Tasmania each year (in recent years mostly from African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries) so that’s a lot of knitting. Fortunately, the Nannas often receive packages of knitted squares from supporters around Tasmania, including many from a 90-year-old woman from the East Coast.

Many refugees are from hot climates, so the blankets have a practical function, providing warmth in our cooler climate, and they are gratefully received as a symbol of metaphorical warmth as well, each carrying a label reading, “Handmade with love by the Tassie Nannas”.

Carol Bristow is one of several Nannas who offers her home to refugees as they seek to become settled in Australia or when they need temporary accommodation.

“After what they’ve been through getting here, it means a lot to them to see us in such a public place supporting them and talking to different people about the situation for asylum seekers,” Bristow says.

Knitting is part of a long history of women’s ‘craftivism’, says Shelley. “Women have long used traditional crafts to help bring about social change. Yes, it is soft, warm and nurturing, but it is subversive, revolutionary and political as well.”

Elsewhere in the country, similar groups include The Knitting Nannas Against Coal Seam Gas in the Northern Rivers of NSW. The Tassie Nannas have diverse career backgrounds. “We are all blessed with having time,” Moran says. “We also have a wealth of acquired skills, experience and wisdom between us.” Some Nannas have previous experience of community activism via church groups and, indeed, just from living through the 1960s and ‘70s.

“We grew up back then, when activism affected change,” Shelley says. “It was a hopeful time and the world was a kinder place. Fraser and Whitlam welcomed asylum seekers rather than demonising them.”

Another Tassie Nanna, Sue Todd, worked in counselling roles with victims of trauma and torture for 35 years before working with asylum seekers in Nauru through the Survivors of Trauma and Torture Assistance and Rehabilitation Service in 2013.

Initially, she worked with men, most of whom were fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka, Iran and Afghanistan, until the end of that year when families began being held there as well.

“Very quickly I had learnt that the main focus of my time with the men I met there was not going to be the trauma and torture experiences that had occurred in their home countries or en route to Australia (although these were horrific), but rather the pain, frustration, anger and despair they were experiencing due to being held on Nauru,” Todd says.

Defying STTARS policy to speak to the media, which she knew would also likely mean not being permitted to travel back to Nauru, Todd felt compelled to speak out about what she had seen and experienced.

“I thought about it for a long time but eventually decided I had a moral obligation to inform people,” she says.

She contacted various media organisations – most of which weren’t interested – but eventually featured in a documentary on SBS.

“In short,” concludes Todd, “my journey to becoming a Tassie Nanna was from being a skilled humanitarian and professional to becoming an activist.”

By midnight at Faux Mo, hundreds of conversations had taken place and 160 of the partygoers were wearing the bling provided by the Nannas and had learnt what the ‘knitting nannas’ are all about.

Several of the Nannas were starting to dance.

Contact the Nannas through Facebook.com/TassieNannas or visit them in person at Elizabeth Mall from 11am until 1pm on Fridays. Donations of 8ply wool yarn are welcome. Lost Opportunity, an exhibition by the Tassie Nannas and artist Jill Nolan opened by 2017 Tasmanian of the Year Rosalie Martin is on this weekend at Mawson’s Waterside Pavilion. Senator Nick McKim will speak about his visits to offshore detention centres at the venue today at 3pm