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By Chris Hook
Everyone must get behind our government to do what is possible to stop people smugglers, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson told students at Mt St Joseph Milperra, “because that
is right and proper”.
But, “there still must be some questions about this particular incident and the way it has been handled”, he added, referring to the recent event of refugees stranded on the Tampa.
Bishop Robinson, who was officiating at a function to open and bless new buildings at Mt St Joseph, invoked the spirit of Bl Mary MacKillop to ask the high school students difficult and dangerous questions about
the government’s treatment of asylum seekers and the incident surrounding the 460 people on board the Tampa.
Stressing that he did not want to enter political debate, and that polls suggested the majority of
Australians supported the government’s actions, Bishop Robinson said asylum seekers arriving by sea had been pigeon-holed as queue-jumpers.
“No-one likes a queue jumper,” he said. “But that raises a question:
In Afghanistan, is there a queue they can join? Is there an Australian consulate with forms to fill out? And what would the Taliban government say?
“Can people be queue jumpers if there is no queue to join?
If, in fact, we must take people out of the pigeonhole of queue jumper and look at them as human beings, are we respecting the rights and dignity of them as people?”
The bishop asked the students about the
future: “What sort of Australia do you want? What should its make up be? What should be its principles? How should it relate to other countries in the world?”
He said he felt it was “right and proper” to ask
questions of the students, and that Bl Mary MacKillop had never been afraid to ask “difficult and dangerous questions”.
Bishop Robinson’s questions came in the wake of ecumenical action and pleas for
humanitarian concern from a range of Church leaders.
The national president of the Uniting Church, the Rev Professor James Haire, led a delegation from the Catholic, Anglican, Uniting and Baptist churches to
the doors of the Senate to appeal for a “fair go” for the people on the Tampa.
And the Archbishop of Brisbane, John Bathersby, called for the welfare of refugees to be made the primary concern.
“It is
a sad state of affairs when people are used as pawns no matter who is to blame for the situation,” Archbishop Bathersby said.
“When Australians discuss the question of refugees, they should be reminded that
200 years ago our Anglo Celtic ancestors came to Australia without an invitation from the original inhabitants. Remembering this, today’s Australians and their government should never be mean-spirited when they are
faced with a similar situation.”
Bishop William Morris, of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, called for a “concerted effort to solve the extremely complex situation of asylum seekers in our
area, always keeping humanitarian principles in the forefront”.
Sr Patricia Pak Poy, chair of the Committee of Mercy Works, the aid and development arm of the Mercy Sisters, advocated that the government
“enter into high level discussions with the government of Indonesia to find ways to stop the trafficking of vulnerable people”.
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