Six protesters, including three ordained ministers, were arrested after occupying the Prime Minister’s office to host a prayer vigil for children in asylum seeker detention centres.
The protesters from the Christian group Love Makes A Way were calling for the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to accept a Senate amendment to give 112 kids in Australian detention centres “the ultimate Christmas gift – the gift of freedom from detention”, and said they refused to leave until the Senate amendments were accepted.
The House of Representatives (you know, the one with all the politicians you actually know) have until Thursday, the last sitting day of the year, to pass the amendments.
“In the end,” said Father Mostowik, one of the ministers who was arrested, “We are just asking this Government to treat people the way we would all want to be treated if we were fleeing for our lives, seeking safety in another country.
“It is not really a lot to ask.”
After being given the Great Aussie Boot (and getting arrested for trespass), the six were released without charge, but they are now waiting to hear if they will be issued a court summons at a later date as police investigate further.
The Love Makes A Way gang have faced over 160 arrests during the nationwide efforts to end the “inhumane treatment of people seeking asylum” – though no convictions have come of these arrests.
On Facebook, the group wrote: “While we get to go home to our families this evening, so many remain locked up in immigration detention.”
Sitting on their bums for a cause
Old mate Malc probably wasn’t too bothered about this most recent prayer vigil in his office, considering he’s in Paris right now, but he might have to grow used to the occasional sounds of hymns and heady vanilla candle aromas wafting in from reception, since this is unlikely to be the last time Love Makes a Way occupy his office.
In fact, this protest was the third time this year the group have sat-in at Turnbull’s office: once in May before he was PM, and the second in October, just after Turnbull became PM – neither of which saw arrests.
This most recent sit-in was a desperate last-minute attempt to get Turnbull – and the House of Representatives – to pass the amendments made by the Senate before Christmas.
“The bottom line is this: one child in detention is one child too many. Everyone is anguished by having children locked up in detention.” Malcolm Turnbull, 25 February 2015
The Senate amendments are due to go before the House of Reps today, and they propose 30-day limits on having children in detention, better protections for whistleblowers, independent oversight of reporting of abuse, reasonable requests for media access, and the reversal of recent laws that made it an offence for workers to disclose information about the goings on in detention centres.
One of the Love Makes a Way protesters, Justin Whelan, told us he can’t say whether the group will take further action before the end of Parliament’s sitting year, “But I’m not ruling it out.”
Praise from on high
The group have seen about 70 of their members face court this year, but Whelan says despite members pleading guilty every time, they have never been convicted.
One time, after holding a prayer vigil in Liberal MP Jamie Briggs’ office in Adelaide, seven of the protesters who were brought into court for either trespassing or being unlawfully on premises all had their charges dismissed by the magistrate, who said anything he could say seemed “trite” after hearing their cases, saying:
“You are a credit to your faith and an inspiration … I’ve no hesitation about letting you go without conviction or penalty.”
And last year in March, when the Christian group pestered the then-Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, also a Christian, five members were charged with trespass after refusing to leave. Whelan at the time, writing for the Guardian, said the group were driven to engage in these civil disobediences to “arouse the conscience of the nation over this injustice”. Again, though they pled guilty, the group’s charges were dismissed.
These are just two of dozens of sit-ins at the offices of MPs that the group have staged over the last 18 months, and over several governments. But perhaps they hope that this time, as many Australians and many Members of Parliament remember the birth of the famous refugee Jesus Christ, Parliament might, in fact, give “the ultimate Christmas gift”.