CORANGAMITE residents have melded two projects to create a campaign designed to resonate throughout the electorate and put politicians on notice.<\/p>\n
The initiative combines Geelong\u2019s Combined Refugee Action Group (CRAG)\u2019s Choose Fairness and Decency campaign with Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR)\u2019s Banners along the Great Ocean Road campaign to create \u201cChoose Fairness and Decency for Refugees\u201d.<\/p>\n
Banners will be placed in towns from Bellarine through to Apollo Bay and into the heart of the electorate of Corangamite.<\/p>\n
Residents, churches and businesses in Clifton Springs, Point Lonsdale, Queenscliff, Ocean Grove, Torquay, Anglesea, Airey\u2019s Inlet, Fairhaven and Apollo Bay have already joined the campaign, and organisers expect more to follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are erecting these banners throughout coastal Corangamite to show that we abhor current government policy for refugees and asylum seekers, and support for the campaign has been extremely positive,\u201d campaign organiser Ali Corke from Apollo Bay RAR said.<\/p>\n
Point Lonsdale\u2019s Sue Longmore said many Australians were still unaware of the suffering. \u201cAsylum seekers came here hoping only for safety, yet they have been subjected to indefinite detention in distant offshore countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome have been held for six years. They don\u2019t know when or if ever they will see their families again.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd many who have been accepted as refugees and who live here among us don\u2019t have any permanency or access to family reunion.<\/p>\n
\u201cVisas can be cancelled without warning, people can be uprooted and sent back to danger \u2013 just because they came by boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is neither fair nor decent.\u201d Cathie Bond from Queenscliff said \u201cChoose Fairness and Decency for Refugees\u201d was founded on the principle that \u201cvulnerable people have a right to seek asylum, and to be treated with compassion\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have any political affiliation; we just want to see good policies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CORANGAMITE residents have melded two projects to create a campaign designed to resonate throughout the electorate and put politicians on notice. The initiative combines Geelong\u2019s Combined Refugee Action Group (CRAG)\u2019s Choose Fairness and Decency campaign with Rural Australians for Refugees (RAR)\u2019s Banners along the Great Ocean Road campaign to create \u201cChoose Fairness and Decency for […]<\/p>\n