Researcher, Consultant & Non-Executive Director
On the 6 May 2011, the Uniting Church Assembly issued the following statement about plans the Government was exploring to re-open the detention centre in Manus Island – another God-forsaken place we have access to for the dumping of vulnerable people who we believe we bear no responsibility for. This even though we continue to … Continue reading An angry note about Manus Island
I have been committed to social justice and human rights for a long time, but one particularly distressing event turned this commitment into a driving passion.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, God is often identified as the God who cares for the exiled and the stranger. God brings justice to the oppressed and calls on the people of faith to extend the rights of citizens to refugees (‘aliens’) in their midst.
Today the Uniting Church in Australia has again called for an end to the policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers who come by boat. Here is what we said:
A number of times I have heard Julia Gillard refer to the Labor Party’s commitment to protecting ‘The Australian Way of Life’. Every time she mentions it, it comes capitalised and in quotation marks.
I’m usually always up for a good paradox. They challenge the mind and serve to remind us that the world is not always easily understood. But we are living with a paradox that is causing serious harm and damaging many lives.
Well, here it is – my first ever blog. And I have decided to write about something that has been bothering me for a very long time.
Elenie Poulos PhD GAICD 