Members of Casey Cardinia for Refugees joined the Palm Sunday Rally for Refugees in Melbourne on Sunday 10 April.
We marched from the State Library to the Park Hotel, from where the eight remaining refugees and asylum seekers detained there were released on Friday.
Another 12 were also released from other centres around the country.
This leaves about 10 people, transferred to Australia from offshore detention for medical treatment, still in detention centres after nine years. Locking up innocent people indefinitely is the worst cruelty.
The Government has provided no reason as to why the remaining 10 people are held against their will, while 230 others, in almost identical situations, are in the community.
These people were rushed from PNG and Nauru for emergency medical attention on the advice of doctors under the short-lived Medevac legislation.
They came with various debilitating conditions.
They were supposed to receive medical care but, since the Medevac legislation was repealed after they arrived, they did not receive any.
These are the people the government is releasing into the community; they are left with a completely inadequate support system that has prevented refugees from accessing mainstream social services and keeps them on precarious temporary visas, leaving it to charities and advocates to make up what is not available.
Whilst we celebrate their release, this is just the beginning – they need permanent protection visas.
They cannot rebuild their lives on a temporary visa.
The Minister for Home Affairs, Karen Andrews, says that those in Australia on health detention will not be resettled in Australia.
They have the option to return to Nauru, seek resettlement in the US or NZ (limited places) or return to their home country.
We should be ashamed of this. After nine years of misery and uncertainty, they deserve a home here with permanent protection and all the support they need to start again.
To start again, to rebuild their interrupted and damaged lives and become thriving and contributing Australian citizens.
Let us work together to make this happen.
