Next L4R Meeting
Our October meeting takes place next Wednesday 23 October commencing at 6.30pm.
We held a successful and most informative meeting last month with our guest speaker Muzafar Ali, who is the Co-CEO of the Learning Centre in Indonesia, addressing our meeting.
Muzafar reported in detail about the dire situation for refugees who are stuck in Indonesia – some for more that 12 years and some so desperate that they have suicided. The situation has been made worse due to the fact that this year, the Australian Government stopped funding the UNHCR so these refugees are struggling even more, to survive financially.
We came up with a number of strategies to try and encourage the Australian Government to meet it’s ALP Platform obligations to find a pathway to assist these refugees to come to Australia. Supporting those who have skills and have received training in Indonesia, is one way of doing this by matching them with employers in Australia who are desperate for skilled workers.
For more details of what we discussed, please read our October minutes (using the link above).
Motion for skills recognition of refugees!!
We recently called for support for the following motion, which asks the government to remove barriers, by using a new fast-track system of skills recognition for refugees. The motion was supported by a number of branches. That’s great news. However, let’s try to increase that number by having more branches endorse it at their October//November meetings.
This campaign was initiated after a refugee advocacy group in far North Queensland approached Labor for Refugees, asking for our support. The group volunteers its services by sponsoring refugees but had regularly come up against a wall of government bureaucracy/delays when wanting to provide work for these refugees by utilising the skills of these refugees – skills that are much needed in our community.
We need to make it easier for refugees living in our community, to contribute to the workforce as well as providing them with a much needed source of income.
Once again, I urge you to take the following motion to your branch meeting and ask members to support it.
“Labor for Refugees NSW-ACT calls on the federal government to respond promptly and positively to the Billion Dollar Benefit campaign and to ensure that the government’s response includes a fast track program of skills recognition of displaced people in our community, so that they can qualify quickly to take on valuable work roles in our economy, and contribute to their own settlement and to Australian society. L4R urges the government to ensure that this program –
1. includes within it, free, intense and supportive TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and
on-going support to match displaced people’s skills;
2. includes, as part of the program, early contact with relevant professional and trade bodies to ensure they understand and are supportive of the fast track professional skills program, and early connections between participants and potential employers, and relevant professional and trade bodies.”
BACKGROUND TO MOTION L4RSkillsRecognitionBackgroundPaper8Oct24
Further action:
L4R will urge the government to extend and expand the TBB (Talent Beyond Boundaries) Skilled Refugee Labour Agreement Pilot program so that it can become one of the reliable permanent settlement pathways for refugees in Indonesia.
Motion to be sent to:
Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Tony Burke Tony.Burke.MP@aph.gov.au
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations of Australia Murray Watt senator.watt@aph.gov.au
Your FEC.
People with Disability in Immigration Detention
We proposed dealing with a motion a few months ago, details of which were sent to members in our September newsletter. Our L4R member who wanted to move it at our meeting was unable to do so but will be attending our meeting next week. If this motion is supported at our meeting, we will ask you to take it to your branch meeting and urge members to endorse it.
The motion with a detailed background follows RefugeesWithDisabilityMotionSep24
Good news for the Asylum Seekers Centre and for refugees!!
The Asylum Seekers Centre received a major funding boost from the NSW Government which was announced last Friday.
Labor for Refugees NSW/ACT has always been a strong supporter of the Asylum Seekers Centre and from time to time, donated funds to the Centre as well as inviting its CEO Frances Rush to be a guest speaker at some of our events.
The Centre will be able to expand primary care clinics and meet the increasingly complex health needs of some of Sydney’s most vulnerable residents, thanks to a grant of more than $1 million.
Minister for Health Ryan Park announced funding of $1.07 million over three years for the Centre, which will help employ more clinical staff to manage the growing number of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the asylum seeker community.
The funding will also help the Centre address the increasing need and cost of medicine for members of the community without access to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
The Asylum Seekers Centre is a not-for-profit organisation that was established in 1993 and offers practical and personal support to people seeking asylum. The Centre also provides primary healthcare services for people seeking asylum with limited Medicare eligibility through a specialist nurse-led health service with volunteer GPs and other specialists.
The Centre’s health service runs four GP clinics per week and has seen an 81 per cent increase in visits since June 2022. The complexity of visits has increased due to growing mental health presentations, an ageing population, and increased demand for pharmaceuticals, compounded by rising costs.
L4R is currently in negotiations with Frances Rush to be our keynote speaker at our Fringe Event, planned for our meeting date in November. All the Fringe Events were cancelled at the July NSW Labor Conference. We were promised that they would be rescheduled and they will now take the form of Zoom meetings. NSW Labor will be promoting them once we confirm the details.
Watch this space!!!
Pride in Protest Campaign
Please see the letter below regarding an Indonesian transgender woman who has been detailed in Villawood.
Pride in Protest is starting a campaign and seeks endorsement for the letter below.
We were also asked to sign a petition. We agreed to promote the campaign and sign the petition.
Dear Minister for Immigration, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Health and Assistant Minister for Health.
On your watch, as a direct result of racist profiling, the Federal Government has violated the human rights of Asian migrant women, resulting in transgender women being held in immigration detention, with their health needs being denied and at risk of transphobic violence.
After losing work for an Australian company because of transphobic discrimination, an Indonesian transgender woman was profiled at the border, detained and continues to suffer mental, physical and sexual human rights abuses in detention.
We are calling on the Federal Government to act now to restore dignity and safety to the transgender women in immigration detention, and ensure nobody else is put through the harm that too many others have been put through:
1. End profiling and turning back of Asian women at the border.
2. Dignity and safety for transgender people in immigration detention. Implement best standard health care protocols for trans people in detention, training for staff, fair access to hormones and other essential medical care, independent and transparent complaints process, and introduce routine external audits of detention conditions.
3. End mandatory detention of people awaiting immigration decisions and outcomes.
LGBTQIA+ and all asylum seekers should be supported to be housed in the community while awaiting immigration and
visa decisions. Close the detention centres, end offshore detention, and assess individuals from their location in the
community.
4. No deportations to danger. End the practice of deporting people seeking asylum.
Please consider taking this motion to your branch meeting and asking members to support it.
I hope we will see you at our meeting next week.
Nizza Siano
Secretary L4R NSW
email: contact@labor4refugees.com