Searching for Freedom is a reminder of what people are doing when they flee situations of persecution and grave danger.

Taken from the second verse of the Australian national anthem, this year’s Refugee Week theme, ‘With courage let us all combine’, celebrates the courage of refugees who have refused to deny their beliefs or identity in the face of persecution, fled their homeland and often endured terrifying and dangerous journeys only to face the cruelty of detention before working hard to make a new life for themselves and their families.

On 5 December 2014 the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Act 2014 was passed by both Houses of Parliament. This Act puts into domestic law the powers the Government exercises under its current refugee and asylum seeker policy, ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’.

This is a resource to help you talk to your local politician, your friends, work colleagues and congregation about why asylum seeker children should not be detained in immigration detention centres.

When the Government failed in its attempt to reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas in December 2013, it looked for another way to ensure that asylum seekers arriving by boat would not be granted a permanent protection visa.

The reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) was a key pre-election policy of the Government. 

In 2000, the Ninth Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia expressed our commitment to seek "fair, humanitarian, adequately resourced and culturally appropriate government policies and procedures for the processing of refugees and asylum seekers".