Dear Ms Andrews,

I am a friend of the Centre for a Compassionate Society, which is based in the electorate of Melbourne. I live in the electorate of ***. We have committed to writing a letter to your government every week until all refugees and asylum-seekers who remain on Nauru and in PNG under Operation Sovereign Borders are appropriately re-settled. We also seek humane treatment for refugees and asylum seekers on-shore. We are copying this letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Immigration, the Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration, and to our local members of parliament.

We continue to watch with dismay as the Taliban re-instates its oppressive rule, likely persecuting women, the Hazara minority, journalists and all dissenters. We urge you to increase Australia’s quota of refugees from Afghanistan, and do everything possible to bring Australian citizens and those who worked with our military or diplomats, to safety in Australia with their families. 

Minister, on Nauru, in APODs and detention centres around Australia your government continues to lock up people who dissented: people who opposed oppressive regimes, or who offended them simply by being themselves. These are the very people that as a supposedly egalitarian, democratic society, we should welcome for their courage in resisting oppression and in making the dangerous journey to find safety in a new land. Instead, your government collaborates with oppressive regimes like the Taliban to heap more misery on their shoulders in the form of indefinite detention. How much longer must they suffer?

We urge you to release all refugees into the community, and commit to finding permanent settlement options this year for all refugees currently detained on- and off-shore under Operation Sovereign Borders. 
Yours sincerely,

*

Send your letter to Ms Karen Andrews: karen.andrews.mp@aph.gov.au (Minister for Home Affairs).
You could cc it to Ms Kristina Keneally: senator.keneally@aph.gov.au (Shadow minister for Immigration and Home affairs)

Send the text to the Prime Minister via the website HERE, and to the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, HERE.