Frank Brennan

FRANK BRENNAN. Asylum policies and the election.

The following is an extract from a speech by Frank Brennan at the Yass Catholic Parish Pot Luck Dinner on Saturday 28 May 2016. The full text of the speech is in the link below. John Menadue

None of the parties likely to form government after the election has an asylum policy which is acceptable. I urge people of goodwill when casting their vote to consider the desirability of a Parliament which is not readily controlled by the government of the day, and which therefore might make the new government enact a more humane policy. I encourage people to cast a vote for a member or senators (whether members of the major parties or not) who have a commitment to reviewing the existing government policy, providing a more humane outcome both for those presently being held on Nauru and Manus Island as well as for those waiting in the Australian community without adequate work and welfare rights. I would hope that we could all then start the long term co-operative work needed to increase our humanitarian migration quota and to develop a regional solution with neighbouring countries assisted by the good offices of UNHCR, while accepting even with a heavy heart and conscientious reservation that the boats will be stopped. We need to negotiate the ethical dividend for stopping the boats.

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=48459

Frank Brennan SJ is a Professor of Law at the Australian Catholic University.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.

Frank Brennan

Fr Frank Brennan SJ has published four books on Indigenous constitutional recognition: Sharing the Country (Penguin Books, two editions, 1992 and 1994); No Small Change: The Road to Recognition for Indigenous Australia (University of Queensland Press, 2015); An Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Considering a Constitutional Bridge (Garratt Publishing, 2023, three editions) and Lessons from Our Failure to Build a Constitutional Bridge in the 2023 Referendum (Connor Court, 2024). He was a member of the Calma/Langton Senior Advisory Group on the Indigenous Voice Co-Design Process.

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