Launch and Dedication Of The Uniting Care Queensland Centre for
Social Justice
Parliamentary Annexe
Brisbane
17 April 2002
12.30pm
Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO
It is a great privilege to return to my hometown to give the occasional
address at the launch of the UnitingCare Queensland Centre for Social
Justice which is to be a Centre of Advocacy, Research and Education
in Social Policy and Social Ethics. It is appropriate that we launch
such a venture here in the Parliamentary Annexe. Some might wonder
what a Jesuit is doing speaking at such a launch. But here in Queensland
there has always been a fine ecumenical spirit when it comes to
advocacy for justice. I recall my ordination as a Catholic priest
here in St Stephen's Cathedral in 1985. The presiding prelate was
my ecclesiastical mentor Archbishop Frank Rush, then President of
the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. On the sanctuary with
the other Queensland Catholic bishops were Archbishop John Grindrod,
then Primate of the Anglican Church and Reverend Douglas Brandon,
Moderator of the Uniting Church in Queensland. Such an ecumenical
gathering in prayer was appropriate and natural because we had all
worked together during a heady four year period adding our voices
to those of indigenous people agitating for their rights to be acknowledged
and granted by this Parliament.
Relations between church and state have often been robust here
in Queensland. I well recall the reaction by the god-fearing Sir
Joh Bjelke Petersen when the Uniting Church synod passed a resolution
at the height of the street march ban back in October 1977 requesting
"Queensland heads of churches to mediate between the State
government and student and civil liberties groups to achieve better
ways of expressing their differences." Sir Joh replied, "If
churches want to consort with atheists and communists dedicated
to the elimination of religion, that is their problem." The
church leaders responded:
We believe that it is the role of the church, where it is
possible without compromise of principle, to reconcile and not
to divide. It is our hope that public debate be conducted with
the sobriety and maturity that befit citizens of a freedom-loving
democracy. That is all the more necessary when impending parliamentary
elections tend to inflame passions.
In making such an appeal we speak as men who are detached
from party politics but who bow to no one in our love of Queensland
and Australia and in our ardent desire for a society in which
justice, peace and freedom will prevail.
In the months that followed, Concerned Christians were still arrested
for singing hymns in Queens Park. The Premier attacked the Anglican
Church for being "closely associated in causes being promoted
by the Communist Party, atheists and humanists". Of the Uniting
Church, he said that " dwindling congregations showed that
the church was losing what moral influence it had left." They
were heady days and we all knew that we had a fight on our hands.
The issues were the Vietnam War, Aboriginal rights, apartheid in
South Africa, uranium mining and the right of peaceful protest.
In hindsight we can see that the protesters and the church leaders
ultimately did make a difference to public attitudes and to government
policy.
These are not issues of ancient history. Our present Prime Minister
has much in common with Sir Joh. Each has won a string of elections;
each has enhanced his popular appeal by abusing the rights and dignity
of a minority - for one it was demonstrators and for the other,
asylum seekers; while one politicised the police, the other has
politicised the defence forces; and each has been in government
long enough to undermine the professionalism of the public service.
Each is a Christian true to his lights, in so far as any of us can
be. And each has joined issue with the churches when we have taken
a stand for justice.
Let's recall Warren Entsch, the robust pastoralist from north Queensland,
who chaired the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Native Title, who
led the charge against the churches in Wik. After Mr Entsch called
for a boycott of churches, the Prime Minister stepped up to the
dispatch box not with a hose to douse the Entsch bush fire but with
a fan: "May I say of my colleague the member for Leichhardt
that I understand his sense of frustration - and the sense of frustration
of many people in rural Australia - about the way in which this
debate is being conducted. I do not support a call for a boycott
of church attendance, but I can understand the sense of frustration
he feels." For his efforts, the frustrated Mr Entsch was promoted.
Meawhile the Prime Minister had published his written code for "church
figures" who wish to avail themselves of the right of free
speech: "The right to speak freely on a broad range of issues
carries with it the obligation to speak in an informed, objective
and constructive fashion." If only Mr Howard and his ministers
applied this code to themselves before they spoke about children
overboard during the election.
From both sides of politics, church advocacy groups have received
a clear message. If they are not immediate stakeholders with a self-interest
in an issue, they are seen as impostors playing a political role
antipathetic to the interests of the major political parties and
their major supporters. Advocating Aboriginal and refugee rights
I find that I tend to run into trouble equally with both sides of
politics. Given the seemingly increasing lack of policy differentiation
between the major political parties, that is hardly surprising.
My most intense blooding came with Paul Keating's Wik declaration,
"Talk about meddling priests! When Aborigines see Brennan,
Harradine and other professional Catholics coming they should tell
them to clear out." He claimed that Senator Brian Harradine
and I had "saved Howard from paying the price of his folly,
and made the Aborigines pay instead."
Once John Howard had committed troops to East Timor, Paul Keating,
when accepting life membership of the ALP, suggested that Howard
was exploiting Catholic church sympathies in order to get at the
ALP. As Labor attempted to clear the decks of all issues but for
the GST in the latter part of 1999, Keating once again bought into
the fray, this time attacking the Australian Council for Social
Service (ACOSS) for their stand on the GST claiming, "ACOSS
provided Howard with the political cover he needed. It led the welfare
constituency into the largest and most regressive tax in Australian
history." Then came his credal statement, "The only social
organisation in this country that faithfully represents the low
paid, families and the aged is the ACTU." I am heartened that
the Centre for Social Justice with its links to QCOSS guided by
its charter for a Fair Queensland, and with experienced luminaries
such as John Woodley and Noel Preston will ensure that the low paid,
families and the aged will have an informed voice of solidarity
no matter which party is in government.
The Howard government's tactics in the Wik debate have been replicated
now in the debate about asylum seekers. When John Howard's government
wanted to crack down on boat people including even those who were
bona fide refugees, Minister Phillip Ruddock said the churches should
stick to what they do best and leave the politics of border control
and refugee rights to the elected government. Imagine the arrogance
of government suggesting such a division of functions in a country
which, no matter what their confessional differences, boasts such
church advocates of migration as John Dunmore Lang, Caroline Chisholm
and John Bede Polding.
Many of us Christians who engage in the political processes of
the State see ourselves called to emulate Jesus in His teachings
and actions. We discern the action of the Spirit in our hearts and
in the world, including the signs of the times. We are sustained
in the belief that there is a Kingdom to come and that there are
signs of this kingdom breaking in here and now whenever persons
freely act for justice. Acting to create a more just world, we discern
our invitation to participate in the mission of the believing community.
We need to engage in the political process, rather than being simply
prophetic observers of that process.
I have no objection to government and the Parliament stating a
preference that refugees come for resettlement in Australia having
been chosen by Australian officials while the applicants have resided
elsewhere in countries of first asylum. Given that we are a net
migration country, it is sensible to structure a migration program
in which government officials choose refugees in other countries
of first asylum who would make good migrants to Australia. But our
limited generosity through an offshore humanitarian program should
not excuse us from pulling our weight and acting decently towards
that small number or persons who turn up on our shores, this being
their preferred country of first asylum. Of course, we are also
a preferred migration country. But that is no reason not to extend
the basic protections and privileges to persons who truly have come
to this country as a country of first asylum or of preferred asylum
while ever so briefly transiting other countries where they may
feel less secure.
The Minister is right when he says, "Australia due to its
geographic location, has not historically been a country of first
asylum." The present policy is posited on making Australia
an unattractive option for first asylum. Already enjoying the advantage
of geographic isolation, we now want to add mean-spirited provisions
to distinguish us from other countries which are still prepared
to honour their obligations more wholeheartedly. This will either
encourage other countries to emulate us or it will leave us as a
shag on the OECD rock, bearing in mind that we already have the
15th (not the 1st or 2nd) ranking of per capita asylum seekers in
OECD countries. Neither policy objective is appealing for humanitarian
Australians such as myself.
The 7,500 asylum seekers on temporary protection visas are confronted
with added disincentives to integration into the Australian community
and we are now going to have to reprocess each of their cases after
three years. I commend the Queensland Government and the Brisbane
City Council for the additional support you have offered these TPV
holders (including those fine soccer ambassadors, the Tiger XI)
Conducting the Good Friday church service in the Woomera Detention
Centre during the recent protest, I witnessed the injustice of our
present policies towards asylum seekers at first hand. Later I saw
children who had been hit by tear gas. I met a seven year old boy
with bruises to the left knee and right ankle from a baton blow.
There is still a large percentage of Iraqis and Afghans in Woomera
who have been waiting 6-8 months and even longer for a primary decision.
Unashamed "do-gooders" like me espouse a return to the
basic values of a system which detains people only if it assists
in the determination process or protects public health or national
security or is a prelude to deportation in the immediate future.
I defy any elected politician to go to Woomera and look in the eye
the Palestinians who have had their cases rejected and who want
to be sent home or anywhere on God's earth so they can help their
children on the Gaza Strip. Our government tells them there is nothing
that can be done in the foreseeable future. They just have to wait
in detention. The anger in their eyes is palpable. Detention without
trial, without judicial review, and without end, when your kids
are sweating it out on the Gaza strip cannot be too much fun.
Let me give a few statistics which show just how shonky our determination
process is for those being held in detention, the overwhelming majority
of whom are proved to be refugees (even conceding that the Afghan
approval rate has gone down from 95% to 77% and the Iraqi rate from
90% to 79%). Since 1993 (to 30 June 2001), the RRT set aside 11.4%
of all primary decisions appealed. But it set aside 69% of all Afghan
decisions appealed and 81.9% of all Iraqi decisions appealed. So
far this financial year, the RRT has set aside 87% of all Iraqi
decisions appealed (109 of 126 cases) and 69% of all Afghan cases
appealed (176 of 257 cases). Meanwhile it has set aside only 7%
of decisions appealed by members of other ethnic groups. If you
were an Afghan or Iraqi fronting up for a primary decision, how
would you feel? During the last financial year, the RRT set aside
11% of all primary decisions which were appealed but in the same
time it set aside 37% of all primary decisions appealed by persons
in detention while they waited on average another two months in
detention, following the many months they spent awaiting a primary
decision.
No one doubts the need to protect our borders but we have to accept
that with the end of the Cold War and in the light of September
11 developments, it is inevitable that some boat people will continue
to turn up on our shores seeking asylum. There is a need for:
- Detention which is neither punitive nor designed as a deterrent
in the absence of a court order or periodic court review. Iraqis
and Palestinians who have exhausted all remedies and who cannot
be sent home are now enduring unconstitutional detention in Australia.
That must stop.
- Detention should be permitted only as long as there is a need
for the protection of public health and security and to expedite
processing or deportation or removal. Placement in the desert
away from services and away from the primary decision-makers and
the RRT is not designed to assist prompt and fair determination.
Imagine being an Iranian Sabean Mendean claiming persecution by
Muslims and having your review conducted with a Muslim translator
while you sit in front of a TV screen and camera at the Woomera
Hospital being cross examined by someone in Melbourne. The result
is that you are terrified to attend the Woomera Hospital again,
even for urgent medical treatment.
- Proven refugees (whether or not they came with a visa) should
be given every encouragement to be integrated into the Australian
community and to be reunited with their families without the wife
and children having to risk the journey on the next boat.
- Primary decisions makers should be better trained and equipped
to decide cases from Iraq and Afghanistan achieving non-appealable
outcomes similar to the other regular caseloads. Priority should
be given to determination of cases of those in detention.
In twenty years time when there are very disaffected Afghan and
Iraqi Australians demanding an apology and some understanding of
their social plight, it will ring very hollow when our politicians
unctuously declare, "Why weren't we told?"
Given that we have the advantage of geographic isolation, why don't
we try to be just a little more decent rather than less decent than
other countries with the same living standards when it comes to
our treatment of those who arrive (whether with or without a visa)
invoking our protection obligations? Or if that is judged too naïve,
how about we aim to be just as decent as those who receive ten times
more asylum seekers than we do? Or if that is too much to ask (given
the fear driven mandate of the recent election), how about we limit
our indecency to our treatment of adults, ensuring that never again
are kids put in the line of batons and tear gas in the name of border
protection?
I trust this Centre for Social Justice will keep such questions
on the public agenda despite the unpopularity of the cause. When
the going gets tough and the way ahead is not clear, we can take
to heart the observation of Morris West:
The pronouncements of religious leaders will carry more weight,
will be seen as more relevant if they are delivered in the visible
context of a truly pastoral function, which is the mediation of
the mystery of creation; the paradox of the silent Godhead and
suffering humanity.
At all times in the public domain, whether in dialogue with government
about social policy or in giving a public account of church policy,
we must speak with the voice of public reason. Therein lies the
tension. Without trust between those whose consciences differ, we
will not scale the heights of the silence of the Godhead nor plumb
the depths of the suffering of humanity; we will have failed to
incarnate the mystery of God here among us. This mystery is to be
embraced in the inner sanctuary of conscience where God's voice
echoes within, to be enfleshed in the relationships we share as
the people of God, and to be proclaimed in our calls for justice
in the public domain. I trust this Centre for Social Justice will
be a blessed opportunity for many Queenslanders to contribute to
a more just world.
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