Vol. 77/No. 45      December 16, 2013

Signs and banners reading, “End mandatory detention,” “Let them land, let them work,” “No one is illegal” and “Refugees are welcome here” were carried by groups who came from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, as well as regional towns across New South Wales and Victoria.

“My youth is being wasted,” said a young refugee from Iran who spent four months in an immigration jail in Darwin and now lives in Melbourne under visa conditions that prohibit him from working. “I can’t afford to study. I don’t like getting money from the government. I want to work and be part of society.”

Since the conservative coalition of the Liberal and National parties won control of the government in the Sept. 11 election, Prime Minister Anthony Abbott has put in place Operation Sovereign Borders, which uses the navy to turn asylum-seeker boats back to Indonesia.

One of the first actions of the Abbott government was to reinstate more restrictive temporary protection visas. The government aims to rapidly process the claims of the 32,000 asylum-seekers currently in detention. Those deemed “genuine” refugees are to be given TPVs, with no prospect of permanent settlement or possibility of bringing family members. Those denied refugee status would be deported.

The day before the Canberra protest, Prime Minister Abbott, while in Sri Lanka attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, announced the gift of two patrol boats to the Sri Lankan navy to aid in stopping refugee boats headed for Australia.

As of January 2013, nearly half of all asylum-seekers imprisoned in Australia were Sri Lankan, many fleeing the aftermath of the more than two-decade civil war there that ended in 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in a bloody government offensive against the Tamil oppressed minority.

More than 1,000 Sri Lankans have been returned home since the former Labor government began its harsher anti-immigrant policies. All new arrivals by boat are to be sent to detention centers on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea or to Nauru and refused resettlement in Australia.  
 
 
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