Mission Statement

The Refugee Action Collective (Victoria) has been set up in solidarity with other refugee activist groups in Australia and internationally, in response to unjustified, oppressive, and racist actions taken against refugees by the Australian Government, namely the policies of mandatory detention and the issuing of Temporary Protection Visas. The purpose of the Collective is to end these policies, through its own actions and through building active alliances among groups and individuals who agree with the goals of the Collective.

The Collective recognises the enormous suffering individuals have endured that has forced them to flee to Australia as refugees. We therefore reject detention, which further traumatises people who have suffered violence and persecution, and who deserve compassion and freedom. We reject Temporary visas as only causing insecurity and fear, and regard permanent visas as the only acceptable option.

The Collective rejects the myths of 'swarms' and an 'invasion' of 'hordes', and quotes from Philip Ruddock of 'queue jumping' as racist scapegoating. The Collective rejects the term "illegal immigrants", pointing out that under the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is legal to travel to another country to claim refugee status. Australia was one of the original drafters of the Refugee Convention, and its sixth signatory.

The Collective makes use of various tactics in the struggle for refugee rights. Any non-violent methods will be considered and used as appropriate. To date, public meetings have been held, rallies and marches organised, signatures collected for our petition, and endorsements gathered for the Campaign Statement. A website has been designed and will be brought online in the near future. A list of volunteers for anti-deportation direct action is being compiled.

The establishment of a Steering Committee is a major step forward, giving the Collective added moral weight and support in its role as an activist group.

The Steering Committee:
Michele O'Neil (Secretary Vic Branch Textile, Clothing & Footwear Union, Vice-President Trades Hall Council)
Brian Pound (Secretary Vic Branch Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance)
Michal Morris (Ethnic Communities' Council of Victoria)
Chris Chaplin (State Secretary, Australian Greens-Victoria)
Judy McVey (Socialist Worker)
Tahir Cambis (filmmaker and activist)
Eve Bodsworth (President University of Melbourne Student Union)
Kate Davidson (National Education Officer, NUS)
Judith Bessant (Professor, Director Social Policy and Advocacy research Centre, Australian Catholic University)
Nabil Sulaiman (Australian Arabic Council)

At the first meeting, the steering committee agreed on a list of demands:

• end mandatory detention
• close the camps
• stop deportation of refugees
• abolish temporary protection visas
• let the boats land

• fight racist scapegoating

Preamble

The Refugee Action Collectives sees its role in supporting the rights of refugees and the fight against racism and racist scapegoating as inextricably linked to the struggles of Australia's indigenous people.

The modern Australian state was created as a penal colony and run by a landed gentry who enjoyed total wealth and power. 1788 was the beginning of the British invasion and the wars of conquest in Australia against the local inhabitants.

The Australian state has burned, enslaved, pillaged, raped, and imprisoned the Australian aborigines over the last two centuries in an attempt to destroy and subjugate their societies.

These acts of warfare and barbarity were often justified by the racist belief that the Australian Aborigines constituted an inferior society to that of White Australia. In the past two centuries, this racist ideology has extended to other groups who have been seen as exterior to mainstream society.

One such group were the Chinese who came to work in the goldfields during the mid 19th century. By the end of that century, the Australian state expelled around 100,000 of these Chinese people because they were not white.

At federation, the Australian state enacted the White Australia Policy which for over 60 years kept Australia racially pure and a bastion of white anglo-saxon protestantism.

After the Second World War, the Australian state, fearful of its northern neighbours, initiated a massive immigration program from Europe. These immigrants were to be as white as possible, and, once in Australia, many of them were used as cheap labour for Australia's industrial expansion. Concurrently, these same migrants were subjected to government propaganda telling them to count themselves lucky and to assimilate and become new Australians.

Thus, the present policy of returning to the English migration test, selecting only the most skilled and "worthy" migrants, incarcerating people fleeing persecution and deporting people back to dictatorial regimes, is a continuation of the Australian state nationalist and reactionary agenda that has its roots in the original act of conquest and dispossession of 1788.

Position

At the meeting of 28 August 2001, RAC adopted the following statements as guiding principles in its work in safeguarding refugee rights.

1. The Refugee Action Collective supports the right to self-determination for Australia's Indigenous people
2. The Refugee Action Collective supports the right to Land Rights for Australia's Indigenous people

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