The next two weeks are vital in our efforts to secure a change to the cruel system of indefinite mandatory detention, and to the temporary protection visa regime. The issues raised by Petro Georghiou's private members bills are being discussed at Prime Ministerial level. It is a rare opportunity to put pressure on the Howard Government.
This is the ideal time to write to MPs, both in the House of Representative and Senate, to your local member, or directly to the Prime Minister's office. Past experience has shown that the most effective letters, emails, faxes and so on, are those that are written with genuine feeling, and with reference to individual experience. Write about what you have seen and heard, about your direct contact with asylum seekers who have suffered from being in long-term detention, or on Temporary Protection and bridging visas.
If you have not had direct contact with asylum seekers, you can speak about the impact of mandatory detention and treatment of asylum seekers on your own sense of Australia, and of the importance to this country of putting an end to these gross abuses of human rights. Or you may be moved to focus on the issue of children in detention. Express your individual feelings in your own voice. It is not a time for packaged messages. This is the time to make your voice heard in the way you want it to be heard.
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