Bishops call on Aust to amend law

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THE Catholic Bishops Conference (CBC) of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands want the Australian government to amend its policy on asylum seekers in order to take those that have been in the country.
In a letter sent to the Australian government, CBC said the people who were transferred in 2013-2014 to the Manus Island detention centre from Nauru had endured close to nine years waiting for their applications for resettlement to be approved.
CBC general secretary Fr Giorgio Licini Pime said the Australian government needed to consider that some of the asylum seekers and refugees were being victimised by Australia’s policy and had few options in terms of being settled into a third country.
“The Australian policy of indefinite detention of asylum seekers refugees or anybody who has done nothing wrong is unjustifiable and unacceptable to us,” he said.
Fr Pime said CBC strongly urged the Australian parliament to legislate for freedom and a home in Australia for those who had been detained on Manus Island and in Nauru since 2013.
He said the asylum seekers could not go on living in detention indefinitely as this was inhumane and they deserved to be resettled to a third country or Australia.
Fr Pime said Australia’s continual reluctance and refusal to resettle the asylum seekers impinged their rights, it also showed a lack of consideration for the host countries in the Pacific.
“We believe it is time for Australia to erase any trace of past colonial demand and implement a new style of compassionate and participative leadership in the Pacific,” he said.
Fr Pime appealed to PNG and Australian governments to close the Manus and Nauru detention centres and allow those who suffered to access a reasonable acceptable level of freedom and dignity in Australia.

2 comments

  • I support, with full faith, the stance of the CBC of PNG & Solomon Islands on the protracted delay in resolving the issue of asylum for the seekers long detained in Nauru and Manus. The Government of Australia must be humane and disclose all the facts behind this unnecessarily lengthy delay.
    By the way, the name of the General Secretary to the CBC is Fr. Giorgio Licini. PIME is the name of the Religious Order/society he is a member of.

  • Stop wasting your time fighting for economic refugees that want to move to Australua to live a good life at the exprnse of hard working Australian who pay the hard earned tax.
    You should be fighting for Australian Government amend their colonial law against Papua New Guinea so it makes it easy for citizens of PNG that once uses to be part of Australia easy access to Australia.
    Other Pacific islanders can easily waltz into Australia through New Zealand and live comfortably, yet educated PNGeans that can easily compete in the Australian work market go through stringent process to get appropruate work visas and even permenant residence visa to live Australia. I aldo notives Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia csn eadily waktz in while people uses vountey was used cheaply by Australia still struggle for easy access to Australia.
    So you Bishop need to stop wasting your time and go find other things to do like what I suggested or put effort into defending venerable PNGeans that are victims of various types of abuses, ethnic cleansing, economic disparity within PNG etc.

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