Please find below the full text of Sen. Bob Brown's speech to the thousands who converged on Australia's national capital last month to protest the shameful bipartisan treatment of refugees.
Apologies for x-posting. :: Chris Chaplin :: Spokesperson for Immigration, Housing and Trade :: The Greens (Victoria) :: M: 0400 886 876 :: E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] :: Greens Immigration Policy: :: http://www.greens.org.au/g1societyfull.htm#487_IMMIGRAT --------------------- Senator Bob Brown: Speech at the National Refugee Rally at Parliament House, Canberra February 12th, 2002 Ladies and Gentlemen This is today, where thousands of us are expressing a different type of Australia to the shallow and cold Australia which is being misrepresented by our leaders in the Parliament behind us on the hill. This is a warm hearted, caring, loving and accepting multicultural country which has a different message to give through its people to the rest of the world. That is, where there are people who suffer fear of death or persecution. Where there are human beings with red blood coursing through their veins like ours who live in disgusting subhuman and frightening conditions, those people are welcome to this great land of ours to share peace and hope with us. And we Australians who are humanitarian, and I submit in the great majority, deplore the approach which says other human beings who seek refuge on our shores should be put behind razor wire, deprived of rights and persecuted from the moment they arrive on our shores. That is not the Australia we stand for. Moreover, besides expressing the, I am sure, unanimous feeling here today that the razor wire should be removed and that the detention centres should be closed and the refugees should be welcomed into our country - I know they would be welcomed for example to the Brighton camp which welcomed the Kosovars but is now empty in Tasmania. Bring them to Tasmania! There is this message which is very sobering: If international law were to have penalties and if the Woomera Centre were to be a receptacle for those that breach international humanitarian law, our Prime Minister and Immigration Minister would be behind the razor wire in Woomera - not the refugees. Ladies and Gentlemen, I applaud your great heart. Many of you have come a great distance to be here today. In our midst are our indigenous original Australians and the newest comers who have been equally mistreated in this land. We will raise this fight. The crowds will get bigger, the heart will get warmer, until the true Australia shows its face again, its sunny face, to the rest of this planet earth. Finally this, ladies and gentlemen. This morning at St Paul's Anglican Church in Manuka our national leaders prayed to God. Amongst them the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition with the congregation prayed, and let me use their words, I quote: "Let us pray for those for whom each day is threatening, the persecuted and rejected refugees and all displaced persons..." Now I say to the Prime Minister, do not ask God to do what you are empowered to do yourself. There can be no greater hypocrisy than that. Thank you everybody. . -- -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
