It was pleasing to see Councillor Kevin Poynter welcome the Riding for Refugees team to the city of Wagga on Saturday at a well-attended event at the Civic Centre organised by the West Wagga-San Isadore Refugee Committee.
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Afghan asylum seeker Rohullah Hussaini and Swan Hill councillor Michael Adamson are cycling from Swan Hill to arrive Canberra on August 26 to present member for Mallee Andrew Broad with a petition of names gathered in support of increased rights for refugees, and seek an audience with Minister for Immigration Scott Morrison in order to raise awareness of refugee rights.
In what appears to be good news last week was also newsworthy on the refugee front as Immigration Minister Scott Morrison announced that 150 children would be removed from immigration detention centres and placed on bridging visas in the community.
The 150 children to be released are under age 10 and arrived in Australia before July 19 last year.
However, this is in many ways not a good news story, for we should ask why Mr Morrison is not releasing children from offshore detention, which has been acknowledged as significantly affecting children's mental health.
Social justice law firm Maurice Blackburn said the government needed to expand its announcement to include all children and babies in detention, including those locked in offshore centres and babies born in mainland detention after July 19 last year.
''We welcome that the federal government has now recognised that detention is no place for babies and children,'' principal lawyer Jacob Varghese said.
''However, it's disappointing that the announcement explicitly excludes those children who have arrived in Australia after July 19, 2013.''
Mr Varghese said the government had overlooked the fact that children experienced serious trauma in detention irrespective of when they arrived in Australia.
Amnesty International said the government's plan to release up to 150 children was an admission children were harmed by being kept in detention.
The organisation said while the release of any children from detention was welcome, all children in the government's care should be released.
"We support the government's admission that mandatory detention is costly and damaging," Dr Graham Thorn, Refugee Co-ordinator for Amnesty International, said. "Given this has been acknowledged by the government, it must also release kids from detention on Nauru and Christmas Island and expand this announcement to include children over the age of 10."
Ironically, whilst Mr Morrison is still imprisoning most refugee children his PM, the self-styled Captain of Team Australia was quoted as saying: "Everyone has got to put this country, its interest, its values and its people first, and you don't migrate to this country unless you want to join our team."
It seems to me that defines the aspirations of most asylum seekers.