CATHOLIC organisations have welcomed the recent Australian High Court decision to grant a permanent injunction against the deportation of asylum seekers to Malaysia.
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) spokesman Bishop Gerard Hanna on behalf of the Church offered to work with the Australian Government to find a more appropriate way of dealing with asylum seekers.
Edmund Rice Centre director Phil Glendenning said the High Court ruling “should serve as a call to reflection by the major parties to forge a new policy framework – focused on compassion, empathy and respect for the human dignity of the vulnerable”.
Also about 200 organisations, including the St Vincent de Paul Society and Brisbane and Toowoomba’s Catholic Social Justice and Peace commissions, have signed a statement calling on the Government to abandon the fixation with offshore “solutions” and to establish a just and humane approach to Australia’s response to people seeking asylum.
Delegate of the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office (ACMRO) Bishop Hanna said the Government was well aware of the Church’s views on treatment of asylum seekers.
“The High Court has held that Australia must continue to process claims of any asylum seeker who arrives here,” he said.
“But now is not a time for celebration or recrimination.
“Rather, now is the time for all people of good will to work together to find a better way of dealing with asylum seekers.”
Mr Glendenning said “the Edmund Rice Centre calls on the major political parties to respect the full significance of the High Court ruling”. “For the past nine years the Edmund Rice Centre has been engaged in ongoing research to determine what happens to the asylum seekers that Australia rejects,” he said.
“My recent meetings in Malaysia with migrant-support and legal-service organisations made very clear that deportations there would yield similar fates to those suffered by asylum seekers returned to danger from Nauru or Manus Island under the failed asylum policies of the Howard Government.”
Brisbane archdiocese’s Catholic Justice and Peace Commission executive officer Peter Arndt said it was pleasing so many organisations had signed up to a statement co-ordinated by the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) supporting the High Court decision.
Leaders of Australia’s major charities and social service groups have been joined by many other concerned organisations to sign a statement urging all political parties and Members of Parliament to de-politicise policies about the treatment of asylum seekers by immediately abandoning the policy of off-shore processing and focusing on policies that uphold Australia’s human rights obligations domestically and internationally.
The statement says that instead of considering changes to the agreement with Malaysia or to the Migration Act, or looking at other off-shore solutions, the Government should use the High Court ruling as a definitive turning point in the treatment of people seeking asylum in Australia over the past decade.
