MEDIA STATEMENT: Today is a dark day for multicultural Australia.

MEDIA STATEMENT
Thursday 17 September 2026
Statement from Kon Karapanagiotidis, CEO and Founder, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre:

Today is a dark day for multicultural Australia.

Today our Government chose to turn on migrants, international students and people seeking asylum who have built lives here, contributed to this country and asked for nothing more than the chance to belong.

At the National Press Club today, Minister Bourke announced a major expansion of immigration enforcement, detention and removal. And he made clear the fight over the protection system is not over. The right to seek asylum and the right to work while seeking safety remain in danger.

Minister Burke went to great lengths to reassure Australians this would not look like Donald Trump’s immigration raids. But look at what is actually being planned: 500 more compliance officers tasked with finding people, 1250 more detention beds including plans to turn former COVID quarantine facilities in Victoria into detention centres, and billions more for removals. This will double Australia’s immigration detention regime.

Behind all of this are human beings.

The woman seeking safety whose right to work may be the only thing standing between her and homelessness, exploitation or returning to an unsafe relationship.

The refugee who has already spent years trapped in uncertainty, desperately trying to rebuild their life.

They are our neighbours, our colleagues, our friends and our families. They are part of us.

And all of this for what?

To make Australia smaller, meaner and more divided in the hope that cruelty towards migrants and refugees will win back votes from the far right?

There is no bottom to this race. There is no amount of cruelty that will ever appease the far right. Pauline Hanson has already made that clear, and the Coalition is already demanding more. How much of its soul is the Labor Party prepared to sacrifice chasing people who will never be satisfied?

My parents came to Australia as migrants from Greece and spent their lives working on farms and in factories to give my sister and me the Australian dream.

I was the first person in my family to even go to high school, the grandchild of refugees. My sister went on to become the first Greek woman in Australia to be appointed a County Court judge.

I know what is possible when this country gives people safety, dignity and a chance.

For generations, migrants and refugees have repaid that chance many times over, building businesses, caring for our families, teaching our children, staffing our hospitals and enriching the country we call home.

That is the Australia worth fighting for.

And over the past month, we have shown what happens when we fight together.

Together, we helped stop the Government cutting the humanitarian intake by almost a third.

Together, refugee communities and more than 100 organisations stood against an arbitrary deadline that could have shut people out of seeking protection before Australia ever heard why they were afraid to return home.

But today Tony Burke confirmed that the fight is not over. Asked directly whether the Government would impose a time limit on seeking asylum or strip work rights from people seeking asylum, he refused to rule either out. Further legislation is coming when Parliament returns.

So we say again: we will not stand by while migrants and refugees are used as political punching bags.

We will fight any attempt to take away the right to work or shut people out of seeking protection.

We are stronger because people from every corner of the world have made Australia home.

And we will fight for that Australia with everything we have.

ENDS

For media enquiries or interviews, contact:
Ogy Simic on 0412 034 821 or media@asrc.org.au.