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Oppose racism and defend migrant and refugee rights

It’s classic divide and rule: politicians and the media get us fighting among ourselves while the billionaires laugh all the way to the bank. 

It’s no accident that repeated panics about “boat people”, “African gangs”, “Muslim terrorists” and so on, have happened at a time when the wealth of the billionaire class has soared while increasing numbers struggle just to get by. Racist scapegoating persists because it distracts us when politicians won’t address urgent problems: wages that don’t keep up, power bills that keep rising, the lack of affordable housing and so on.

The people at the top have been using divide and rule for centuries and they don’t care who the target group is – as long as they can be used to divide everyone else, then they are considered fair game. We have to counter racism with working-class unity and solidarity. Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because if we don’t, all working people will keep going backwards while the rich get richer at our expense.

The abhorrent treatment of those who have come to our country seeking asylum over the last three decades is one of the great blights on our society, a shame in which both major parties are implicated. 

In addition to pursuing action within a parliamentary framework to overturn the decades of bipartisan racism and brutality, we seek to help build a mass movement on the streets and in workplaces in support of refugee rights.

What we think

  1. Australia’s working class is one of the most racially, ethnically and culturally diverse in the world. We have a common interest in obtaining decent wages, quality public healthcare, welfare and education. We therefore have an interest in fighting against and overcoming divisions created within our ranks.
  2. Racism is not simply individual prejudice; racial oppression is a series of practices – embedded in the economy, the state, policy, the justice system and society – which manifests in social, economic or political marginalisation of particular racial, ethnic or cultural groups.
  3. Racism primarily serves the richest and most powerful people in society by:
    1. Dividing working people and generating mistrust and animosity between us.
    2. Obscuring the main causes of poverty, and social and economic inequality.
    3. Naturalising the idea of social hierarchies.
    4. Creating a layer of poorly paid and insecure workers whose precarity creates a downward pressure on the wages of other workers in the same or related industries.

We'll fight to

  1. Increase funding to specialist community legal services to ensure refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers can access legal assistance for visa and immigration issues.
  2. Address the lack of access to affordable childcare, healthcare, aged care and other social services in areas with high numbers of migrants.
  3. Hold a detailed inquiry into the nature and extent of the exploitation of migrant workers in the Victorian economy and prosecute all instances of abuse, safety breaches and systematic underpayment.
  4. Support efforts to unionise migrant workers.
  5. Provide employment and training support programs for refugees and migrants.
  6. Ensure adequate, free and readily accessible English language courses for all who wish to take them.
  7. Increase access to interpreters and translators in the education, health, social services and criminal justice sectors.
  8. Close offshore and onshore detention centres and end mandatory detention
  9. Offer asylum to all refugees and asylum seekers currently living in the community on short-term protection visas
  10. Reinstate Permanent Protection Visas for all refugees - scrap Temporary Protection Visas
  11. Restore family reunion rights
  12. Give work rights, income support & Medicare to all asylum seekers
  13. Ensure fair processing of asylum claims - restore appeal rights, end the “fast-track” process
  14. Protect the rights of medical, teaching and security staff to speak out about abuse in detention
  15. Reaffirm Australia’s commitment to the Refugee Convention and honour our UNHCR obligations
  16. Restore all Australian territories to the migration zone
  17. End deportations and end ASIO security veto of refugees