The Tampa Legacy, 6 years on
Time for a New Beginning
1pm, Sunday,
26 August 2007
Human Installation for an Alternative Vision

This commemoration will include a colourful, musical procession along the banks of the Yarra, followed by an indigenous welcome, and speeches from:

former Prime Minister
Malcolm Fraser
Julian Burnside QC
asylum seekers
story telling from writer
Arnold Zable
singer Kavisha Mazzella
and much music, dance and song from refugee and asylum seeker communities and their supporters.

On 26 August 26 2001, six years ago, the Norwegian cargo container MV Tampa rescued 433 men, women and children from a sinking Indonesian fishing vessel. In violation of our most fundamental human rights obligations, Prime Minister John Howard declared that the asylum seekers would never set foot on Australian soil.

Howard ruthlessly denied those in need of our help in order to exploit community fears, and so laid the ground for a decisive victory at the polls later that year. And yet, after having spent two wasted years on Nauru, many of those 433 Tampa asylum seekers were accepted into the Australian community.

Things have changed since 2001.

Since Tampa, tens of thousands of Australians have become committed to the cause of refugee rights. The community no longer believes that mandatory detention is acceptable, that the Pacific Solution is a fair or sensible policy, or that those determined to be refugees should be forced to live a second class existence on temporary protection visas.

Australians have opened their hearts to refugees.

Our political leaders, on both sides of the fence, need to do the same.

For further information call:
Tim 0438 399 973
or Marie 0409 252 673
or