Advance Australia Fair - Building Sustainability, Justice and Peace
Workshop - Reigniting hope for refugees and asylum seekers
Sunday 31st July 2005

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Jan Hale

Secretary, Surf Coast Rural Australians for Refugees

History of the Surf Coast RAR and activities in the area

Rural Australians for Refugees was founded in October 2001 by three depressed and angry women meeting in a lounge room in Bundanoon, NSW. They had just returned from a Tampa rally in Sydney and were asking themselves: ‘What can we do about this government’s awful treatment of asylum seekers?’ One of them said: ‘Let’s be rural Australians for refugees’ - and a movement was born.

They leafletted their community and wrote to the local paper. Then they called a public meeting and 500 people turned up. Before long there were enquiries and emails from people in other places who wanted to take action. An RAR format was soon set up. Groups were to be strictly a-political; all that was needed was an adherence to 10 Points or goals. The four key ones were: the closure of detention camps, the removal of Temporary Protection Visas, an end to the Pacific Solution, and an increase of Australia’s annual refugee intake to 24,000 people. Beyond this, each group would set its own course.

Today there are almost 90 RAR groups Australia-wide with thousands of members. Since 2002, there have been three National Conferences, which have brought RAR groups together and re-energised them. A National RAR Newsletter goes out regularly to all groups with up-to-date information on DIMIA, detainees and detention centres, as well as news from the different groups. RAR and the rest of the refugee support movement have now been credited with influencing politicians to push for the recent reforms to the Howard Government’s hardline refugee policies.

Surf Coast RAR started as an idea almost a year after RAR’s Bundanoon beginnings. Information about RAR had come to the attention of a Uniting Church Social Justice group in Torquay, Victoria. Some of us from that group went out to canvass support from others in the community, then made plans and finally registered the new group with RAR. We invited speakers and held our first public meeting on December 5, 2002. Over 75 people attended. A number of ambitious goals were set and we went on to have an information stall at a local market a few weeks later.

Our next step was a bold one, but it paid off. We invited Kavisha Mazzella and Arnold Zable to perform for us in a fundraiser concert. A large audience heard deeply moving refugee stories and songs. $3700 worth of tickets was sold and Kavisha and Arnold split the profits with RAR. We were able to make our first really big donations to asylum seeker support centres as well as young refugees in school.

This experience set a pattern for the next two and a half years. Thanks to generous harpists, folk musicians and jazz groups, we have had eight successful fundraiser concerts, as well two dances with popular bands for young people. Actors for Refugees have performed twice in our area, as has comedian Rod Quantock, on each occasion to capacity audiences. At present we are holding monthly benefit concerts until December with a number of well-known musicians willing to perform for less than their usual fee for the refugee cause.

Other fundraisers have been garden parties and film benefits at local cinemas. More recently, Age cartoonist Ron Tandberg spoke and offered cartoons for auction at a highly successful luncheon fundraiser organized by the Bellarine branch of Surf Coast RAR.

Special efforts have included our Aireys Inlet branch Christmas appeal for books and toys to mail to children on Nauru. There was a great community response to this, but unfortunately the big package never reached the children. At that time, there was a lot of theft from Nauru’s Post Office. More successful recent appeals have provided phonecards for Nauru and the delivery of household goods to Melbourne for families arriving from Nauru.

Since 2002 we have aimed to raise public awareness with information nights addressed by a range of speakers: Marc Purcell. Peter Mares, Julian Burnside, Dave Corlett, Anne Horrigan-Dixon, Pamela Curr, Michael Leach, and most recently, Ian Skiller. Ian was also invited to speak to local Councillors about his work in refugee employment at a Surf Coast Shire Council Briefing. This year, our Aireys RAR branch hosted ‘Through Our Eyes’, the photographic exhibition devised by refugees to record their own lives. Shown in the local primary school, it attracted a good crowd who also heard researcher Dave Corlett read from ‘Following Them Home’, an account of his visits to people Australia has deported to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

Recognising that local markets attract the public, we purchased a market tent in November 2003 and acquired a good stock of ChilOut t-shirts, an RAR banner, bumper stickers, flyers and other information. Since then, our tent has been a constant presence at monthly markets from spring through to autumn in Torquay and on the Bellarine Peninisula. The markets regularly bring us extra memberships as well as signatures on petitions. A badge machine purchased last year has paid for itself with a supply of badges that have sold well at markets and meetings.

During Children’s Book Week last year, we arranged for children’s author and illustrator Bob Graham to speak at our local bookshop and also spend time talking to children at Torquay Primary School. We advertised the fact that Bob donated all of his Kate Greenaway Medal Prize money to refugees and often promotes the notion of befriending ‘different others’ in his books.

UN World Refugee Day each June has provided us with an ideal focus to work with our four local primary schools. In 2OO3, we exhibited Lara McKinley’s Connections exhibition along with local students’ posters for refugees. A school group visiting the exhibition went away with a clearer understanding of refugees’ lives. In 2004, we gave out a large number of coloured plastic hearts for students to decorate with messages for refugees. Many of the hearts were installed on the Torquay foreshore along with a tree-planting ceremony. This year an Afghani man recently released from detention was a welcome guest at Torquay Primary School’s weekly assembly on June 20.

Surf Coast RAR has formed links with Fitzroy Learning Network and this resulted in our successful application for a Minor Grant of $1000 from the Surf Coast Shire Council. This was to fund the visit of 40 refugees from the Network together with their play ‘Kan Yama Kan’ in March 2004. By March the play was no longer current, but the grant paid for the refugees’ bus to and from Melbourne as well as some food for a welcome party. The visit was a landmark experience for the refugees and their local hosts. For many of the refugees, it was their first holiday and their first visit to an Australian home. The Mayor gave them an official welcome and many in the community joined together to provide a memorable welcome party.

The Refugee Council was made aware of these positive developments and approached the Shire to declare the area a Refugee Welcome Zone. After some delay, the Shire Council took up the invitation and published their official declaration in October 2004.

Leading up to the 2004 election, we linked up with the Justice Project and attempted to elicit local candidates’ responses to the Project’s questionnaires. We also invited all candidates to explain their refugee policies at a public meeting. The meeting was well attended, with only one candidate, the Coalition member, unwilling to front up. We were able to publish the Project’s findings in the local paper. These may have had some influence but not enough to alter refugee policies.

Where possible, we work closely with GRAIN (Geelong Refugee Action and Information Network), making a joint effort in film benefits in Geelong cinemas. GRAIN and RAR have also worked together to bring Lara Mckinley’s Connections and Viv Mehes’s Shadowland exhibitions to The Gordon Gallery in Geelong. We also expect to be involved when the SIEVX Memorial Exhibition of student designs comes to Geelong in November (a joint project of Wesley Uniting Church and St Mary’s Social Justice groups).

When the anniversary of the SIEVX sinking came around last year, 30 people took up our invitation to lay flowers in the sea in memory of those who drowned. A local paper gave the ceremony a front- page photo and a positive news report with a second photo.

Surf Coast RAR has expanded to over 390 supporters who are contacted via mail or email with a monthly newsletter. In this, we try to keep people up to date with accurate statistics, refugee news and events. We now have active branches in Torquay, Airey’s Inlet and the Bellarine Peninsula and through our combined activities we have raised just on $37,000.

Our three local planning groups are not large, but are open to all to take part in decisions. We do not take membership fees, but ask for a supply of stamps from people on ordinary mail. Donations come in regularly, some of them quite large, and we always receive a good amount in donation buckets put out at meetings. We aim to keep only a basic amount for publicity and mailouts; the rest of our money has gone to front line asylum seeker and refugee support groups. More recently, we have concentrated our fundraising on supporting Baxter detainees and helping them with the difficult transition from detention to life in our community.

This move is inspired by a key group within Surf Coast RAR called the Baxter Mums. These five women and their families from the Bellarine area were supporting asylum seekers in detention long before our first meeting. They were quick to join us and have become a guide and inspiration for much that we do. For some years they have corresponded with detainees and regularly driven to Baxter, taking gifts and providing emotional support to their friends inside. They are also talented artists who have developed ‘Pillows of Tears, Tears of Shame’, a traveling exhibition, which speaks eloquently of how their detainee friends have struggled to survive their imprisonment. ‘Pillows’ leaves a deep impression and attracts donations and signatures wherever it has gone: to Queenscliff, Melbourne, Torquay, Castlemaine, Bendigo and more recently to Horsham.

Supported by our whole group, the Baxter Mums have driven the efforts that have brought six Afghanis out of detention. Four of the men have chosen to settle in the Mums’ area, while other Afghanis regularly visit these supportive friends. Money has been raised to help two former detainees reconnect with their families struggling to exist as refugees in Pakistan. Two of the Mums still support and maintain contact with detainee ‘sons’ who were deported to situations of poverty and danger.

Looking at the national RAR scene - all groups write to papers, lobby politicians and collect petitions for asylum seekers. Other actions are dictated by particular factors: an RAR group’s size and proximity to a detention centre, its area’s political complexion and its potential for refugee resettlement and employment. The Surf Coast is not close to detention centres, our Federal Member strongly supports Coalition policies, housing prices are very high and job opportunities are limited. Therefore our major focus has been on community awareness and fund-raising for groups able to give direct assistance to asylum seekers and refugees.

Port Pirie and Whyalla RARs are frontline groups near Baxter. Their focus is on getting to know detainees and meeting their needs, as well as organising occasional outings for them. They have also made life easier for Baxter visitors by setting up a flat where these people can book ahead, stay fairly cheaply and cook for themselves - a boon for the visitors who have borne the cost of travelling long distances to meet up with detainees.

Rural areas such as Gippsland, Shepparton and the North West Riverland are ideal places for refugee settlement and employment. RARs in these areas have taken the initiative to assist refugees with housing and work and this has brought economic benefits and increasing acceptance of refugees in these communities.

All RARs will be continuing their efforts because the Howard Government’s recent concessions on asylum seekers are just small steps when so much more needs to happen. The Pacific Solution needs to end, with all 32 men left on Nauru free to pursue their claims in Australia. We also want to see Permanent Protection for people on TPVs, work and other survival rights extended to Bridging Visa E holders, and very much better employment opportunities for all refugees.

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