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On Monday 29 June 2015 an asylum seeker forum took place at Wesley Church Melbourne. Titled “Business, Faith, Law and Morality: The Asylum Seeker Debate”, the forum featured several prominent speakers and attracted approximately 300 people.

Speakers included Julian Burnside QC, known for his legal work and advocacy for asylum seekers; Ivor Ries a business and media identity; the Rev Prof Andrew Dutney, President of the Uniting Church in Australia and professor of ethics; Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and in Who’s Who of Australian Women; Alana Elias, who fled Iraq  in 2001; and the meeting’s organiser, Ruth Bungay, a business consultant and economist who attends Wantirna church.

(panel left to right): Rev Prof Andrew Dutney, Alana Elias, Ruth Bungay, Ivor Ries, Julian Burnside QC, Pamela Curr

Ms Bungay says she organised the meeting so that our congregations and others in Melbourne could hear facts that are often absent in the political press and have the opportunity to ask questions of concern to professionals who are expert from different areas.

The meeting focused heavily on morality and economic issues.  

The condition of asylum seekers in detention was raised and the morality of locking people up for so long and the treatment they receive while in detention. Mr Burnside believes the treatment breaches the International Human Rights Convention and is also changing Australia into a less caring country.

Ms Curr pointed out that the cost of keeping each asylum seeker locked up in Australia is about $230,000 per annum, which rises to $500,000 for those off shore. To keep asylum seekers in the community would cost about $11,000 per annum.

Ms Bungay pointed out that with globalisation there has been an unsolicited shift away from the states to companies to help protect our moral conduct especially in areas with failed state agencies. She examined two companies that operate our detention centres to demonstrate that as business grapples with this new role of corporate social responsibility, ethical blindness occurs. She then covered ways to help correct this.

Prof Dutney highlighted in ethics saving lives by stopping the boats was wrong. “Basic ethics 101, mistreatment of people in Australia in order to stop people somewhere else from hurting themselves is nonsense . In ethics, what makes our obligations towards human-beings organised, is recognition that you  never reduce a human-being to a means to an end, a human-being  is always an end  in itself. So to reduce these people held  in detention,  let alone children  in detention, to simple a means to stop people getting on a boat somewhere else is to commit quite deliberately an (ethical breach ), which is unambiguously immoral.”

Ms Elias told her story. She and her two young children, with her father had fled the Iraq because it was no longer safe for them. They did not know where they were going. When they arrived in Australia, she said they were treated like criminals, but they were safe. Since arriving in Australia she has worked as a teacher and completed a Masters degree in education. She has recently been appointed to a leadership role in China.

The speakers responded to questions from the floor after the presentations.

The evening gave a good insight to the situation from various angles and we recommend downloading the live MP3 from  gwuc.org.au/as2015