PALM SUNDAY ACTIONS ON THE EASTERN SEABOARD OF AUSTRALIA - THIS COMING SUNDAY!

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HIATUS OVER – EVENT THIS SUNDAY

As a logically minded person with a love for linguistics, I distinctly remember learning the true root of the proper word for brekky – BREAKFAST meant to literally BREAK the FAST that you just did while sleeping. 7 year old mind = blown. So now on this sunny Wednesday morning after a refreshing night storm in Sydney last night, I am reminded of that moment. Firstly because it is one of the first days that I haven’t had sweat dripping down my back by 11am in what seems like months and SECONDLY because there is finally a really big, important event to write about here at Born Free.

If you’re wondering if I’ve become lazy or joined the Liberal Party, you can rest easy. Lazy is debatable and well I’d join the LNP over my dead body. I’ve been really busy growing my business as a digital producer and moving house, and I’m really sorry that I haven’t been as active on this blog.

But after last week’s International Women’s Day march, my sign making skills are polished and I’m ready to march once again – with a nationwide rally happening this Sunday.

Sydney: 1pm at Belmore Park (by Central Station)

SPEAKERS:

• JESSICA WALKER (Queensland Teachers Union, Yeronga High School & Save Mojgan campaign)
• JOEL SHAKESPEARE (former Save the Children worker on Nauru)
• REV JOHN BARR (President, NSW Ecumenical Council)
• MS WIES SCHUIRINGA (Religious Society of Friends – Quakers)
• REV MYUNG HWA PARK (Uniting Synod NSW/ACT) 
• RABBI GAD KREBS (Kehillat Masada Synagogue)
• FR SHENOUDA MANSOUR (Coptic Orthodox Church)
• DR SUE WAREHAM (Medical Association for Prevention of War)
• SHOKUFA TAHIRI (Afghan refugee)
• IAN RINTOUL (Refugee Action Coalition)
• MC: DR DAVID ISAACS (Former Nauru paediatrician

Melbourne: 2pm State Library of Victoria, Swanston St

SPEAKERS:

• Daniel Webb – Human Rights Law Centre
• Nazir Yousafi – Refugee & President Victorian Afghan Associations Network
• Senator Sarah Hanson Young – Australian Greens
• Interfaith Panel: Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black – The Leo Baeck Centre,
•  Mohamed Mohideen – Islamic Council of Victoria
• Stuart McMillan, President Uniting Church,
• Lisa Fitzpatrick – State Secretary ANMF
• Shen Narayanasamy – GetUp!
• Pamela Curr – Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

Musical performances by Dan Sultan, Melbourne Mass Gospel Choir, South of the River, Little Foot and Shaking The Tree (Dan Sultan will be performing at the end of the march in Queen Vic Gardens, half the speakers will also be at the end of the march).

Toowoomba: 11:30am, St Patrick’s Cathedral, James Street

At 12.30 there will be speeches at Civic Square followed by Community Picnic. BYO food and love to share :)

Armidale: 11:30am, Judith Wright Grove, corner of Faulkner and Dumaresq Streets, across from the Farmer’s Market

Gather 11:15 for an 11:30 March to Rally in the Mall with Theatre, Speakers and Music

For further information call Bea Bleile on 0458 752 680

Any other events please contact me so I can post them!

Happy Marching!

The Dunera Boys and how Nicholas Gruen made my day on Facebook.

I had a most heart-warming experience on Facebook yesterday.  The original post is heart-rending if you go to the link and listen to the testimony of this particular woman and what she faced as a girl in state care in NSW.  She was imprisoned at Hay.  As well as re-posting the original post in the hope that people would become more aware of what has happened to this nation's children in the past, I asked the question if the prison at Hay could be the same place that the Dunera Boys were sent to in 1940.  

I often cite the Dunera Boys when speaking of the way refugees and asylum seekers have been treated by successive Australian Governments since the 1990s. Australian Governments and large sections of the Australian population have shown across decades that they dislike receiving people fleeing from all manner of hardship and life-threatening situations.  

The Dunera Boys were people who had sought refuge in England from the vicissitudes of Hitler's Europe.  They were a mixed bunch. Many of them were Jewish. Many of them were well educated.  Australia finished up being well blessed by those who came on the HMT Dunera when eventually the evacuees were settled into the broad Australian society and made lives for themselves.

Portrait of Fred Gruen

by Erwin Fabian.

Erwin Fabian, like Fred,

is a 'Dunera Boy'.

I always cite Fred Gruen. Fred Gruen became a great and influential economist.  His son Nicholas Gruen, is one of Australia's leading health economists. The blessing continues.

....and so it was that when I was sounding off once again on Facebook and did the usual mention of the Gruens - Nicholas himself entered the conversation and inserted links to material he had written about his father.  

For me, this was yet another warm social blessing brought about by social media.

  

Thank you, Nicholas Gruen for making my day.

Brigid O'Carroll Walsh

15 hrs · AddThis Sharing · 

Cruelty, exploitation and hardship was not only the province of Christian organisations - as this recording makes clear.

Royal Commission: Damning testimony from former inmate of Hay Institution for Girls - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

ABC.NET.AU

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Eileen MacLean · Friends with Vicki Jones

What an awful story!

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 14 hrs

Brigid O'Carroll Walsh And all when so many of us were sleeping comfortably in our beds. I was wondering. Have you ever read the story of the Dunera boys. They were men that Churchill shipped to Australia not long before WW11 ended. Europeans (including Jews) who had escaped to England. As the Nazis got closer to the English Channel, Churchill got twitchy in case there were any enemy aliens in the refugees. So we got a share of them. They were sent to a detention camp out back of Hay and I wondered if this facility was the same place or a different one. As for the Dunera boys, Australia scored one of best economists, FredGruen, was a Dunera Boy and his son,Nicholas Gruen, is a leading health economist. Wonder what we might be missing out on as we turn back the boats.

Like · Reply · 14 hrs

Eileen MacLean · Friends with Vicki Jones

I haven't heard of the 'Duneral boys', interesting to read your post.

Like · Reply · 13 hrs

Nicholas Gruen Thanks Brigid. I wrote about Dad and the Dunera when sponsoring some Hazara kids on TPVs on a soccer around NSW and Queensland here.

http://clubtroppo.com.au/.../fighting-them-on-the.../ and here

http://clubtroppo.com.au/.../a-speech-at-the-unveiling.../

Fighting them on the beaches - and in the detention camps *

CLUBTROPPO.COM.AU

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 13 hrs

Brigid O'Carroll Walsh Eileen, here's a whole pile of links you can explore re the Dunera Boys. It makes interesting reading. Our govt wasn't all that keen on having them ... and we find echoes of that with refugees and asylum seekers to-day.

Like · Reply · 13 hrs

Brigid O'Carroll Walsh Nicholas Gruen Thank you for your response, Nicholas. I use the example of the Dunera boys and their treatment by a government which, even historically, has great respect. I tell people that our govt wasn't keen on them coming here, but Churchill had sent them. And more than 70 years later and quite a few influxes of refugees since, it seems we are still not keen on receiving those seeking protection.

Like · Reply · 13 hrs · Edited

Nicholas Gruen Yep, goes on and on. As I mention in my post, I expected the Hazara kids to be different to the Jews of the Dunera. I expected them to be of 'peasant stock' (not that there's anything wrong with that). But something about Hazara culture (about which I...See more

Like · Reply · 13 hrs

Eileen MacLean ''Dunera boys' sorry, Facebook corrected my typing and I didn't notice it.Thank you for your second post, I will explore further.

Like · Reply · 13 hrs

#BALLARAT IS TELLING IT LIKE IT IS AND SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER - #LET THEM STAY

Posted by Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council on Sunday, 7 February 2016

Neel, Sugaa and kids are in imminent danger of deportation. Please join the Ballarat people supporting them. Details below.

The family above are known to many Ballaratians. They have charmed us. They have lived peacefully among us raising their children - in spite of the difficulties placed in their way by the Australian Government. 

There was a time when Neel worked. But the Australian Government denied him work rights. Since then, the Ballarat community has provided support for the family - and was pleased to do so. The politicians and bureaucrats involved in the forthcoming deportation don't know this family. We on the ground in Ballarat do. We want Neel and Sugaa and the kids here among us. Please come and support the family --- and let the powers-that-be know that they are doing something wrong if they deport them.

No Business in Abuse Campaign brings City of Sydney on side - the Council will refuse to do business with companies, institutions, and organisations which profit from abusive practices towards people seeking asylum

Cross-posted with Advocacy and Beside The Creek

Campaign for Councils to refrain from doing business 

with companies that abuse human rights

Companies Involved In Offshore Detention

 Frozen Out By City Of Sydney

(IMAGE: Jason James, Flickr)

By Max Chalmers on December 15, 2015 Featured

A growing campaign to stop institutions from doing business with companies that abuse human rights has claimed a major scalp. Max Chalmers reports.

Companies profiting from the offshore detention of asylum seekers could be prevented from doing business with the City of Sydney after the Council resolved to review its investment and procurement policy and bring them into line with the No Business in Abuse campaign.

In a meeting last night, the Council voted to adopt a pledge not to support companies, institutions, or organisations that profit from abusive practices towards people seeking asylum.

Moved by Greens Councillor Irene Doutney (pictured), the successful motion will not impact current contracts, but could cause headaches for companies working in the offshore detention industry when new tenders are released.

Of particular interest will be the implications for Wilson Security, subcontracted by detention centre operator Broadspectrum (formerly known as Transfield) to provide security services in offshore centres. Wilson also provides substantial carparking and security services in Australia and the company has had a number of contracts with the City of Sydney, including an estimated $2.4 million deal to manage the Kings Cross Car Parking Station which is due to be reviewed in 2017.

Doutney told New Matilda that most members of the Council – dominated by Clover Moore’s progressive independents – were appalled by the abuses occurring in detention, and that she expected the motion would make it difficult for the Council to renew contracts with companies like Wilson in the future.

“I just think it’s really important for institutions, particularly councils, to take a stand on these sorts of things,” Doutney said. “People will say ‘it’s not Council business’, but I think anything to do with human rights is Council business. It’s really important to take a stand and, being City of Sydney, maybe other councils will now look favourably on the pledge.”

Doutney said the motion would not have an immediate impact but would put pressure on the Council not to sign contracts with or invest in companies linked to detention in the future. She said the Council already avoids investments in fossil fuels, tobacco, and nuclear.

The City of Sydney’s move comes at the end of a year that has seen Broadspectrum in particular come under pressure for its role in offshore detention, with the No Business in Abuse campaign occurring in tangent to a divestment movement. In August, super fund HESTA announced it was divesting, withdrawing $18 million from the company formerly known as Transfield.

The No Business in Abuse campaign said Leichhardt Council and Yarra City Council had also signed on.

“The City of Sydney is one of Australia’s largest councils, and their decision last night provides unstoppable momentum to the NBIA campaign which has expanded to target the clients of Broadspectrum and Wilson, including councils, schools, hospitals and big resources companies,” Shen Narayanasamy, Executive Director of No Business in Abuse and Human Rights Campaign Director at Getup, said in a press release.

Narayanasamy said the Wilson Group currently had over $3 million worth of contracts with the City of Sydney. If the Council holds its resolve, that number is likely to head towards zero in the coming years.

The Wilson Group could not be reached for comment.

     Source from New Matilda: 

https://newmatilda.com/2015/12/15/companies-involved-in-offshore-detention-frozen-out-by-city-of-sydney/