reichstein

Making a difference for asylum seekers

While life in Australia for asylum seekers is still fraught with difficult challenges, it was much worse 11 years ago when the Hotham Asylum Seeker Project began to tackle the problem.

Asylum seekers not in detention centres were effectively still prisoners; they had no rights - not even the right to earn an income. Being ineligible for help from Centrelink, many had to resort to begging for money for food, shelter and the other necessities of life.

With assistance from the Reichstein Foundation, Hotham has helped to make the situation much better, but there is more to do.

The foundation has been involved from the beginning when in 1998 it provided a grant for an East Timorese worker for the project. This was followed by further grants in 2003, 2004 and 2006 with in 2007 a specific grant for an Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.

This recent grant's purpose is to be in involved in processes and strategies both at government and community level which lead to long term structural changes in regard to asylum seekers seeking Australia's protection.

Hotham's projected outcomes were:

• increased visibility of the situation confronting asylum seekers

• improved community understanding of these issues

• the development of resourced and trained regional networks to increase community involvement in advocating for change in policies and practice, and

• to seek policy and structural change for persons applying for Australia's protection.

Hotham has met these goals by:

• conducting 53 community speaking events across the year to improve community understanding of asylum issues

• supporting and training six community/church based networks working specifically on policy change and material support for asylum seekers

• working with photographer Viv Meyes to facilitate a photographic exhibition of Bridging Visa E clients to increase the visibility of asylum seekers in the community

• working with a range of agencies to develop an employment pilot to support asylum seekers with no form of income to find work

• making submissions to VIC Mental Health Reform Strategy and to the Senate Inquiry into Detention in Australia seeking policy and structural changes for persons applying for Australia's protection, and

• continuing campaigning and lobbying on the "Right to Work" campaign that eventually led to a change of policy in July 2009.

As well as advocating for change, Hotham has provided more immediate help for refugees. It provides temporary accommodation through 28 donated houses which it manages. Utilities are paid and the asylum seekers are provided with $33 a week cash as well as food and transport vouchers.

Project Director Caz Coleman says that there are both short term and long term objectives for asylum seekers. The short term objective is to get them out of poverty while the long term plan is to change their situation so they can become independent.
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Safety at pedestrian level crossings - what happens when level crossing aren’t level for all?

In October 2001, Chris Jones, a long-time campaigner for public transport safety for people with disabilities, was hit by a train and killed at a level crossing. Chris was a board member of Disability Justice Advocacy at the time of his tragic death. In December 2001 another wheelchair user was killed at a level crossing.

The public transport system was first developed at a time when people with disabilities were expected to remain hidden. This situation has changed remarkably, but the rolling-stock, lines, operation and maintenance of the public transport system have changed little to make it safe for everybody.

Disability Justice Advocacy an advocacy organisation for people with disabilities formed the Safe Transport Action Group (STAG). The group understood the deep-seated, structural dimensions to fixing this problem and was committed to advocating for long-term change.

With no one body responsible for all aspects of the public transport system, safety was passed from one section of the system to another, leaving all public transport users vulnerable. By having the issue of public transport safety widely publicised, STAG was able to gain public support.

As a result of active participation of consumers in consultations, sustained community pressure, well-formed arguments and involvement of STAG members and many disability activists, long and short-term outcomes have been achieved. Most importantly, there is a commitment by government that level crossings be made safe and be maintained to remain safe - $12.5 million has been allocated to this end.

Another positive outcome is that people with a disability are now represented on relevant government public transport administrative bodies, and will ensure that the government is held accountable to its commitment and that future governments continue to be responsive to the needs of all public transport users.

Photograph: Rachel Lowe

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A community legal service

In 2003 a family violence service in Bendigo asked for funds to employ a lawyer as they found that that whilst intervention orders were easily obtained, police were not acting on breaches of these orders. Women did not have the funds to pay for legal advice

We discussed with the service ways of tackling the root cause of the issue, which in this case was police inaction but also the lack of a community legal centre. Community legal centres provide free legal advice and representation, casework, community education and undertake law reform.

Funding over three years was provided to enable the service to gather evidence about how the community and services in the Bendigo region were suffering through not having a community legal centre. The service was also able to help the community and MPs to understand what a community legal centre could offer.

In July 2005 ongoing State Government funding was provided to establish the Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre.

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Rainbow Families Council’s Love Makes a Family Campaign

On January 1 2010, with little or no fuss, some important new Victorian laws came into effect. The lack of fuss was perhaps a surprise, given that these have been “hot button” issues for conservative politicians and shock jocks alike. They included equal access for single women and lesbians to fertility services, and legal recognition of same-sex parented families. Their passing, in December 2008, was very much due to the efforts of a grassroots community group, the Rainbow Families Council, with support from the Reichstein Foundation.

The Rainbow Families Council is a volunteer-run organisation that works for social and legal recognition of same-sex parented families and prospective parents, and supports existing groups. The Council and its predecessor, the Fertility Access Rights Lobby, began working for these reforms in 1998, when Victoria had some of Australia’s most discriminatory laws for same-sex parented families and prospective parents. Yet bad laws have never stopped people from creating loving families. As a result, prospective parents were engaging in expensive and stressful “reproductive tourism”, or less-than-ideal informal arrangements, and thousands of children’s relationships with their non-birth parents were completely unprotected by law.

In 2002, the Victorian Government referred the matter to the Victorian Law Reform Commission. The Fertility Access Rights Lobby, and later the Council through our ‘Love Makes a Family Campaign’ worked hard to engage our community in the Commission’s four consultation rounds. We spoke to community groups, collected personal stories for our submissions, and provided training and resources to encourage people to make their own. As a result, that enquiry received more submissions than any in the Commission’s history.

On December 14 2007, the government announced that they would implement almost all of the enquiry’s complex raft of recommendations. We knew the vote would be tight, so the campaign got busier than ever. We had always combined more traditional advocacy methods – letter-writing, public forums, stalls, media, lobbying and alliance-building – with use of email lists and electronic newsletters. With Reichstein’s support we held an advocacy training day, extended our visits to community groups to regional Victoria, and created the key tools in our campaign: the Rainbow Families Council website, e-groups and information kit.

Through all these means, we encouraged and supported families and prospective parents to visit their local MPs, and send them emails and family photos. Hundreds of people who had never before engaged in political campaigning told their personal stories, and got their parents, friends and workmates to do the same. That was our strategy: to show that this was about real children and real families.

It worked! On October 30 2008 we called a ‘Prams and Grans’ community gathering on the steps of Parliament. After the rally about 40 parents and our children went to watch the debate in the upper house, and just happended to meet MP Robert Smith in the foyer. It was an important chance meeting, as he said in his speech supporting the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Bill: “The impact it had on me -- not confronting but meeting these women and their children face to face -- was profound. It drove home to me the fact that we are dealing with real people and real children, here and now. They exist. Are they treated fairly and equally in society through birth certificate registration et cetera? The answer is no. Should they be? My view is yes, they should.”

On December 4 2008 the Bill passed by one vote. The law is not perfect, and some issues remain outstanding. Yet it was an amazing community effort, a wonderful human rights victory, and proof that grassroots, women-led campaigning really does work!

The Council’s work is far from done. Since the law’s passing, we have been working to ensure its proper implementation – for example training staff at Births, Deaths and Marriages – and educating people about their new rights through the website and a community conference. We will continue to engage people in advocating for the remaining reforms, including around same-sex adoption, and have launched a new campaign “Love Makes A Family – Adoption Campaign” in August this year in time for the November State Election.

Homophobia and marginalisation remain all-to-frequent experiences for both children and parents. We are keen to develop our website to become a real resource for supporting and empowering rural, regional, and socially isolated same-sex parented children and families. We are also keen to further develop our new ‘Who is in your family?’ resource kit on family diversity and inclusion, produced for kindergartens and childcare centres in the City of Darebin with funding from Darebin City Council, and offer it, along with training, to early childhood services and schools statewide. So far we have provided training to childcare coordinators and staff in the City of Banyule and the City of Yarra, with plans to also develop a lower Primary School version of the resource in 2011.

Same-sex parents have always had to be advocates for ourselves and our children. And many of our children are growing up to be powerful advocates in their own right, for themselves and others. Participation in the campaign – and watching the debate and passage of the law – was a profound and empowering experience for many who took part. The Rainbow Families Council will continue to engage our community in creating ongoing legal, institutional and social change – in creating the future we want for our children.

— Felicity and Sarah Marlowe, October 2010. For more information visit www.rainbowfamilies.org.au