Asylum Seeker Resource Centre blog

    • 30 AUG 12
    • 0
    Countering the spin with facts

    Countering the spin with facts

    The airing of SBS’s ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ this week has injected a much needed dose of reality and perspective into a debate dominated by sound-bites, spin and misinformation. The program has taken 6 ‘celebrity’ guests and flung them into the very real situations faced by asylum seekers in some of the

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    • 28 AUG 12
    • 2

    Asylum seeker facts, time for a new conversation

    As highlighted by the comments in the lead up to tonight’s Episode One of SBS’s Go Back to Where you Came From, there is a current lack of accurate information in the asylum seeker debate leading to damaging attitudes towards asylum seekers.  Michael Smith, Former Shock Jock, believes that ‘we treat people who lob by

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    • 26 AUG 12
    • 0

    A Thousand Dreams

    The controversial events surrounding the Tampa 10 years ago today gave many Australians a reason to help asylum seekers build a new life. ON AUGUST 26, 2001 the Norwegian freighter Tampa, en route to Singapore from Fremantle, responded to a May-Day call issued by Australia’s Rescue Coordination Centre. Changing course, the freighter made its way

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    • 21 JUL 12
    • 0

    Postcard from a north Qld detention centre

    by Pamela Curr, campaign co-ordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre On the flight from Cairns to Weipa, a burly young bloke boarded wearing his “WE BUST OURS so WE CAN BUST YOURS” T-shirt with attitude. We were later to recognise him as a guard at Scherger Immigration Detention Centre in north Queensland. The drive

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