Portrait of bride and groom by church
Camera IconPortrait of bride and groom by church Credit: Supplied/Getty Images/Pixland

Political stunt

Andrea Callaghan, HiltonMelville Gazette

I bet most of those politicians have never met an asylum seeker, or read the UN Convention on Refugees to which we are a signatory, or read a book or watched a movie like Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea to learn why people make the conscious decision to jump on a leaky boat to Australia knowing full well they may drown at sea.

The politicians voted in a political stunt to put people on Manus and Nauru. There are no laws yet (after six months) to allow them to claim asylum.

The mental torment of people who arrive in a country that is a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees ” ostensibly an invitation for refugees to come to Australia to seek protect ” but who are then treated like criminals is cruel, inhumane and ignorant.

I put it that if the people coming here seeking our protection were white-skinned and Christian we would not be treating them this way.

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Once you know an asylum seeker, hear of their hellish experiences in their homelands, and realise they are people like us, you could not treat them the way this Government is doing.

These are some of the most vulnerable people: 90 per cent are found to be genuine refugees and owed Australia’s protection.