Refugee Advocate Movement

1. Refugee Advocate Movement

2. The issue of Refugees in Australia • Challenges the ideas behind the policies of Australia regarding who can come into Australia to live, how they can come and when. (On a larger scale the movement tackles where Australian society is heading in terms of national values and make-up.) • Australia has always had a somewhat xenophobic (scared of outsiders) mentality: • when the Catholic Irish arrived fleeing the famine in the 1800s • after WWI and WWII when continental Europeans came to start a new life • in the 1970s when Vietnamese people fled the Vietnam war • Since John Howard developed the ‘Pacific Solution’ in 2001 it has generally had support by the majority of the electorate because of this underlying xenophobia. • Hence why Tony Abbot used the mantra ‘Stop the Boats’ in the election

3. Basic Facts of Refugee Policy • Keating government introduced Mandatory Detention in 1992 • In 1994 the time limit was removed so detainees could be held indefinately • Pacific Solution introduced in 2001 • Refugees that try to enter Australia outside of the UN process are taken off Australian land and into a detention centre on a nearby island • Rudd government upheld election promise and softened the policy in 2007 • Gillard government introduce a new policy of off-shore processing in 2011 • Reopen Nauru and Manus Island • The government maintains that all of this is largely to deter people from risking their lives and the lives of their children on dodgy boats to get here

4. aims of the Refugee advocacy movement • Empower refugees and supporters of refugees • Generate pressure on the government to change it’s policies • Monitor the ethics of the treatment of refugees and violations of the UN Human Right Council • Create debate about the values Australians want their society to uphold

5. From the UN High Commissioner for Refugees • ‘everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people.’

6. Strategies Used • Protests • Conferences • Legal defense • Word of mouth • ‘Back to where you came from’ TV series

7. Efficacy • ‘It's now time to admit that, for all their good intentions, the refugee lobby and political left have failed. The major parties haven't moved, political rhetoric hasn't changed and, perhaps most significantly, a recent Lowy Institute poll found that most Australians still support offshore processing.’ • http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-16/crowe-asylum-seeker-campaign-strategies/4892374

8. Political Movements • Vietnam war • Women’s Liberation • Voting rights • Palestine/Israel • Work Choices • Occupy Wall Street • Healthcare reform • Aboriginal Land Rights • Environmental Movement

9. Task • Research a political movement of your choice in pairs or alone. • No two can be the same so if two people want to do the same movement they will have to work together. • Create a 10 minute Power Point presentation for next lesson: to be uploaded Thursday night • What is the central issue? • Why is it important to you? • What was/is being done to achieve their aim? • Was the movement successful? To what extent?