Refugee advocate strives for change

A PASSION for creating community is what Maureen Doonan said drives her to advocate and provide practical support for refugees and asylum seekers.

She has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the King’s Birthday Honours in recognition of her services to Ballarat, which includes providing refugees and asylum seekers with accommodation in her home, and teaching them how to drive.

“I just see it as a means of promoting the work that I do because our government doesn’t seem to see refugees as humans,” she said.

“I had three boys and I worried about them on the farm and how they’d go if they wanted to go away and study. Now I discover there are mothers who let their boys go across to countries they didn’t know.

“Two of the boys that boarded with me came on boats that sank. I think to myself how I’d feel if that was my boy.”

Ms Doonan is a member of Rural Australians for Refugees, Ballarat Refugee and Asylum Seeker Network, is a a founding member of Ballarat Afghan Action Group, and has protested for more than a decade for refugee acceptance.

She was named Ballarat’s Senior of the Year in 2023 and was inducted onto Zonta’s Great Women Honour Roll this year.

Every two weeks she rallies outside Member for Ballarat Catherine King’s office calling for changes to Australia’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

“The thing that gets to me more than anything is that they believed we were a welcoming country,” Ms Doonan said.

“Then they get here and find it’s so very different.

“Society is different now to what it used to be… In some places you can live there and not even know who your neighbours are.

“Society would be so much better if we focused on helping one another… it’s giving other people hope.”