Editorial: A just solution

The
Catholic Weekly
Online

Sydney
23 May 2004

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Editorial: A just solution

THE second verse of our national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, includes a line that underscores the salience of immigration in our country.

We sing: “For those who’ve come across the sea, we’ve boundless plains to share.”

The line echoes the stirring words of Emma Lazarus on New York’s Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Such sentiments have represented salvation – from poverty, misery and oppression – for millions.

In the vanguard of Australia’s first refugees were the Irish after the Potato Famine. A century later followed the displaced people of Europe after World War II. Thirty years ago the Vietnamese arrived in flimsy boats.

None was particularly welcome at the time. Such is human nature. But history attests to the great

contribution they and others like them have made to our nation.

In recent years other ‘boat people’, this time from the Middle East, have arrived, again unwelcome in many quarters. Our response has been to lock them up either inside the country or, having artificially manipulated our migration zone, outside the country – the so-called “Pacific Solution”.

Australia’s Catholic bishops have called for an immediate change to our policy, that “the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia be more humane, more respectful of human dignity”.

The bishops particularly want “urgent” alternatives to the detention of children.

It is a just call, made not only to politicians who frame day-to-day policy, but to all Australians – we who are responsible for ultimate policy direction.

The bishops are hopeful that “hearts and minds will change”, not from any political imperative but “because the Gospel compels us to do so”.