Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay have joined a group of councils calling for better treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.
As part of Refugee Week, the councils last Thursday released a joint statement calling on the Australian government to “abandon its harsh policies and practices in dealing with asylum seekers who arrive by boat” and restore Australia’s international reputation and record on human rights.
At the statement’s launch, Maribyrnong mayor Grant Miles said there could be no better example than Footscray of an area proving the benefits of asylum seekers, refugees and immigration.
“Footscray is living and wonderful proof that today’s asylum seekers and refugees and their children are tomorrow’s doctors, chemists, business leaders and members of government,” he said.
Cr Miles said asylum seekers had never been more needing of advocacy and support.
“Locking women, children and families up in offshore prisons breaks the most basic fundamentals of the UN convention on refugees, of which Australia is a signatory,” he said.
“When our Prime Minister Tony Abbott enthusiastically spruiks that his government has stopped the boats, what he’s really saying is that he has made it more difficult for genuine refugees to escape persecution from regimes where people are raped, tortured and murdered.”
He pointed to the Australian government’s commitment to the protection of livestock as a damning indictment of its treatment of vulnerable humans. “If only we showed the same compassion for asylum seekers”
