Work and knit together for humanity

It is up to all of us to stand up for refugees, says Anne Godfrey

IF you walk along Hobart’s Elizabeth Mall on a Friday, you are likely to meet with an unexpected sight — a group of women, and sometimes men, will be standing around one of the pillars, knitting.

These are only some of the growing number of members and supporters of a group called the Tassie Nannas.

Besides knitting rugs and dolls for refugees and their children, they also strongly advocate a more humane approach for Australia’s refugees. Their signs say it all: Fair go for Refugees and Free the Children.

There are many myths associated with refugees and many refer to those who arrive by boat as “illegals”. This is simply not true. Under the UN Refugee Convention, to which Australia is a signatory, every person has the right to seek safety for themselves and a future for their children. We all know that, in their shoes, we would do the same, so we cannot just turn our backs.

Initially, the Tassie Nannas focused on the unsafe and depressing conditions refugee children were experiencing on Nauru. Now they have expanded that concern to all of Australia’s refugees.

Most of us shrug off the plight of refugees by saying “it’s not my problem” or “let the Government deal with it, what do we pay them for?” but let’s remember that we live in a democracy, we are responsible for what our Government does. As Australians, do we really want a system that behaves as if it’s okay to lock people away indefinitely in secret detention facilities, fail to process their claims, and expect everyone to just forget about them?

They are not statistics in a report and they are certainly not criminals. They are just people who want a chance to make their lives worth living.

There are still 380 refugees on Nauru (45 of them children) and 861 men on Manus Island. Any of these who are not offered a place in the US have the choice of returning to the country they had to flee from or “settling” in PNG, whose people have made it very clear they do not want them. It’s therefore not clear where the refugees will go who do not have the opportunity to go to the US.

In addition to those offshore, there are more than 1300 refugees in onshore detention facilities in Australia and more than 25,000 people (including children) on various bridging visas living in the Australian community. Most of the people on bridging visas are waiting for their requests for permanent visas to be processed. Some are allowed to work, others are just waiting in limbo.

All of these people on temporary visas are living in fear of being sent back to detention either to offshore camps where no one, not even Members of Parliament, can visit them, or to the detention centres still operating on the Australian mainland, or back to the country they were forced to leave. This can drag on for years.

By anyone’s measure, nobody deserves this degree of uncertainty for so long. Politically, a bipartisan approach is the only way to improve the situation for Australia’s refugees. It is time we, the people of Australia, made this happen.

At present our Government is spending $400,000 per person per year ($9.2 billion in the past three years) to hold innocent people indefinitely in offshore camps. This is not only inhumane, it is also not sustainable in monetary terms. It simply does not make sense.

In fact, there is no logical reason to keep refugees in offshore camps now. If Navy surveillance and boat turnbacks are continuing, and if the boats have been stopped (as we are told), then there is no need to hold these people indefinitely as a deterrent to others. Some may go to the US, others could take the opportunity to move on to New Zealand (something our Government has denied them up to now), still others could be allowed to join family already in Australia.

We could be proud of giving those who have lost everything the chance of a new start. The Tassie Nannas are working towards making this happen.

If you would like to join the Tassie Nannas or talk to them about these issues, they are in the Elizabeth Mall on Fridays from 11am to 1pm and can be contacted via email at tassienannas@ gmail.com Anne Godfrey is among a group of grandmothers and others called the Tassie Nannas, who work to get refugees out of offshore camps. They advocate for the humane treatment of all seeking asylum in Australia.