National RAR Petition
due – 21st September 2017
Find a copy of the Petition for printing here
Please send original forms to Mike at Bellingen RAR.
Mike’s address is on the bottom of the Petition
Congratulations and Welcome to the
New National RAR Committee
Marie – President … simply amazing person
Penny – Secretary … super cool and efficient
Margaret – Treasurer … RAR representative on ARAN and Advocacy Sector working group
Ruth – Vice President and Newsletter editor … neatly rounding our the new admin group
Contact:
Back by request:
Teachers 4 Refugees Supporters Badges
News from the ARAN Conference
Visit the ARAN Billboard for a list of ACTIONS across Australia
What is ARAN?
The Australian Refugee Action Network is a network of 48 Refugee Networks and large Refugee Groups across Australia.
RAR is a founding member of ARAN. In fact the idea for an Australian Network of grassroots activist groups was born at the 2016 RAR National Conference.
We called for One Voice, One Vision at our RAR conference.
ARAN provides the opportunity for refugee networks to become a Refugee Movement
As a result of enthusiastic discussion; a lot of goodwill; and a shared commitment to build a stronger refugee rights movement, the delegates of ARAN member groups voted in a National Coordination Committee at the inaugural ARAN conference in Canberra yesterday afternoon. #ARAN17
The main purposes of the National ARAN Committee are to:
- Provide an avenue for organised communication and collaboration between grassroots refugee advocacy and activist groups across the nation
- Suggest and promote national actions, and maximise the reach of local actions
- Support member groups by sharing resources, ideas and knowledge throughout the network
The Committee has no power or authority to make decisions for, or give direction to, individual member organisations. Each member organisation maintains autonomy and carries out its own operations as it sees fit.
The conference elected a National Committee of experienced activists/advocates with strong networks which provides broad geographical and political representation, and includes people with lived asylum-seeking experience.
The conference delegates proposed and voted to allow the Committee to co-opt a limited number of additional members in order to achieve better refugee representation and fill geographical or network gaps.
The elected members are:
- Margaret Raza – Rural Australians for Refugees
- Marie Hapke – Refugee Advocacy Network
- John Minns – Canberra Refugee Action Committee
- Linda Cusworth – Combined Refugee Action Group
- Amir Javan – People Like Us
- Lili Calitz – Amnesty Refugee Rights Group Tasmania
- James Supple – Sydney Refugee Action Coalition
- Pamela Curr – Brigidine Asylum Seeker Project
- Caron Molster – Refugee Rights Action Network WA
This group will grow slightly, with the added co-opted members.
Here’s to a stronger, more collaborative and coordinated movement for refugee rights!
All Refugee Legal Services in Australia are facing the difficulty trying to assist people urgently given the Government’s recent crack down on people seeking asylum.
This week the Turnbull government launched an unprecedented attack on people seeking asylum who after waiting over 4 years to apply for asylum, now only have as little as 30 days to lodge their refugee application.
It gets worse. If people don’t lodge their application in time, the government has threatened to take away their right to apply for asylum in Australia – something no other country has ever done.
Refugee legal services across Australia are urgently appealing to you to help us fund lawyers in order to keep the people safe.
To act now, go to one of these refugee legal services in Australia and donate:
- Melb – Asylum Seeker Resource Centre – asrc.org.au/emergency
- Melb – Refugee Legal – https://refugeelegal.org.au/
- Syd – Refugee Advice and Casework Service – http://www.racs.org.au/
- Adel – Refugee Advocacy Service SA – https://rassa.org.au/
- WA – The Humanitarian Group – http://thehumanitariangroup.org.au/
- Bris – Refugee and Legal Services – http://www.rails.org.au/
- Tas – Tasmanian Refugee Legal Service – http://rlstas.com/
A fabulous resource – Videos from the UNHCR youtube website –
Ban on Mobile Phones in Detention Centres
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- Recent Reports
- Letter Writing
- Three Organisations urgently need funds to provide Legal Services for Refugees
- Click here for ideas for a range of activities and suggestions from groups around Australia
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CHANGES TO ASYLUM SEEKER VISAS
On October 2015 the Department launched a new website for IMAs.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection says its IMA website is designed to enable IMAs and other users to navigate intuitively to information that is relevant to different stages of the IMA status resolution journey, including:
1. living in the community while waiting to apply for a visa
2. applying for a protection visa
3. after a decision has been made on the application.
For up to date always check information on the Immigration and Border Force Website
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Looking for information or resources about Refugee or Asylum Seeker issues?
Try RAC and Asylum Insight
From ChilOut – New Asylum Seeker Laws – Your Questions Answered
Australian Border Force Act explained
Asylum Policy in Australia Today
Asylum Insight have published a comprehensive update of background information on asylum policy in Australia. This content is updated annually to reflect recent changes in how Australia receives asylum seekers. The background information is presented in four main sections:
- Evolution of asylum policy in Australia
- Asylum policy in Australia today
- Protection obligations under Australian law
- Seeking asylum in Australia – Policy in practice
- The Refugee Research Blog
Those who wander are not lost : Tracking displaced people around the world
An excellent interactive graphic – Statistics based on 2014 figures supplied by UNHCR
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For details of RAR Groups, please email RAR Admin at
Cartoon by Nicholson from “The Australian” newspaper: