In November last year, I finished an essay on ‘Christian women in Nazi Germany’. The following day, I attended a rally for refugees held in Canberra. The two events became entwined in my mind, and not just because of the protesters wearing pink triangles.
Around 700 people rallied on the front lawns of Parliament House. It was a small gathering, but an impressive one for a weekday morning. Buses had come from Sydney and Melbourne; people from Adelaide and Canberra; and many lone members of Rural Australians for Refugees represented their communities. The crowd was mixed; retirees, trade unionists, politicians, business people, and families. Anger at Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is not the prerogative of the left-wing urban university student, although many were there.
The day began at the High Court, which declared in 2004 that it was lawful for the government to detain asylum seekers indefinitely if there was no prospect of removing them from Australia. We then marched to Parliament House for several hours of speeches and music.
Everything about the day was warm and welcoming. Having flown in that morning from Melbourne, I basked in (and was ultimately burnt by) the Canberra sunshine. The protesters were welcomed to country by local indigenous elders. The rally was hosted by Merlin Luck, the Big Brother contestant who appalled viewers when he emerged from the house with his mouth taped shut and a sign reading ‘Free th[e] refugees’. He was, unusually, besuited, although his neat pinstripe did have www.chilout.org painted down one arm. As an ambassador for Children Out of Detention, Merlin had taken part in a media conference and was looking the part of a trustworthy citizen, but his MC’ing had a familiar
larrikin air.
Greens’ Senator Bob Brown talked about the church service parliamentarians had attended that morning. The prime minister had prayed for God’s help to make Australia just. As Bob Brown put it, ‘Prime Minister, don’t ask God to do what you can do’. Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett, who has visited every Australian detention centre, including the one on Nauru, promised that the Democrats would continue the fight, even though it appeared to have lost them votes.
Members of ChilOut dropped 102 children’s shoes on the stage to represent the children still in detention. William Mudford, a 16-year-old student, argued that the detention of children was creating a new stolen generation. Another speaker called on those parliamentarians concerned about unborn