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Bring asylum seekers to Australia!

From the newswire: October 16, 2009 - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he will not be moved by a group of over 250 Sri Lankan asylum seekers moored in West Java, Indonesia. The group were intercepted last weekend by the Indonesian navy, following a personal plea from Mr Rudd to Indonesia's president. The group of ethnic Tamils are staging a hunger strike to highlight their plight - refusing to leave their wooden boat in Merak Harbour. WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom says Mr Rudd "should show some real guts and arrange a rescue flight to Indonesia to pick up the 260 Sri Lankans whose story... clearly sounds worthy of a full hearing and assessment under the UN Refugee Convention." Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull says the Prime Minister has "lost control" of Australia's borders, renewing calls for much harsher border protection policies, and a return to the controversial Pacific Solution, whilst former hardline immigration minister Philip Ruddock says people smugglers are back in business because the Government unwound Coalition policies. Mr Ruddock says 10,000 people a year will soon be in transit to Australia. Read more... Project SafeCom's Jack Smit says: "Kevin Rudd has to start offering some alternatives in bringing asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia - otherwise it's just another nasty John-Howard-type strategy, that sacrifices the world's most vulnerable population group on the altar of electoral advantage... The desperation and "urgent group claims"... was palpable, real, and immediate and visible to all Australians..." Pamela Curr, campaign co-ordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) said recently that Australia, "as the wealthiest and best resourced nation in the region, has an opportunity to lead the world with a moral response to the challenge of people movements..." Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition says: "What is needed is a welcome refugee policy. Kevin Rudd should close Christmas Island. Excision is a disgraceful monument to the Liberals' failed deterrence policies. The vast majority of boat arrivals are found to be refugees. Christmas Island is simply inflicting unnecessary suffering on detainees. The Labor Party should live up to its declared policy of using detention as a last resort." "Instead of spending millions of dollars on 'border protection' to use Indonesia as a warehouse for asylum seekers, that money could be spent processing refugees in Indonesia and bringing them to Australia. We don't want any more SIEV X's. Asylum seekers have already drowned on boats heading to Australia." Read more... Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young who has toured the asylum seeker detention facility on Christmas Island says it is effectively a high-security prison with some detainees being held there for more than eight months. She says it is not appropriate to punish asylum seekers. "Because it isn't a crime, it's actually upheld in international law, it's a right in Australian law as well," she said. "So it's more about the fact that doing it here on Christmas Island is perhaps not the most appropriate location. But also we need to ensure that we do remember that it is a right to seek asylum in Australia." There are over 1000 asylum seekers being held at the Christmas Island detention centre - which has a capacity of 1,250 people. There were 42 million forcibly displaced people around the world at the end of 2008. READ MORE/Comment...

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