Fighting for permanent visas: an interview with refugee rights activist Kalyani Inpakumar

Refugees in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth have set up permanent protest encampments outside the offices of Labor MPs to demand permanent protection for all refugees in Australia. Red Flag spoke to Kalyani Inpakumar, NSW Tamil Refugee Council coordinator and an organiser of the Sydney camp outside Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke’s office, about the situation facing refugees, how the protest has developed in recent weeks and plans for the future.

What inspired you all to organise the encampment here in Sydney and what did the beginnings of it look like?

The encampments started in Melbourne because of Claire O’Neill, the former minister for Home Affairs, being there, and when Tony Burke got the portfolio, we got a call from the Melbourne Tamil Refugee Council asking if we could start something here. I got the word out within the community and asked people if they were interested in doing it. About 40 of us had a Zoom meeting with the Melbourne organisers, and the consensus was that we should go ahead. Then I held a meeting with about 70 people to start organising the Sydney encampment. These are refugees I’ve been working with for the past two to three years, and I told them that it was important they all take ownership of the encampment.

They decided to nominate ten people from the group who would be at the forefront of organising different aspects of the encampment, like talking to the media, getting the word out and arranging food and water. From the beginning, we didn’t want to accept food from people unless they come and stay at the encampment, because we want people to be a part of the protest and not feel like they are just donating to charity.

For the first couple of weeks, all of the ten leaders stayed every night, and now we rotate so that three will be staying at the encampment on any given night. On their encampment night, it’s their responsibility to bring a group of friends along, so there will be about fifteen people camping every night. Some of these leaders are part of cricket or soccer clubs, so they have been going to their clubs and asking if people can come and do a night. They do a 24-hour shift at the encampment, and the following day, the next three leaders and their group of contacts will stay, and so on. That way people only have to take a day or two off work a week and the encampment is sustainable.

What has the experience for all the refugees participating in the encampment been like for the last 37 days? Could you describe particular challenges you’ve encountered or notable experiences?

What I’ve found is that the refugees have risen to the occasion; they have been so organised and proactive. They come up with solutions to issues at our daily camp meetings and plan what we need to do to go forward. At first, we had challenges with the police, but that’s more or less sorted now. The most challenging thing is not knowing when it’s going to end because we are waiting for something that is not within our control.

What kind of response has the encampment received from the general public, either here in Punchbowl or more broadly? And what about Tony Burke’s response to your protest?

This is a very multicultural area, so it’s been good. We’ve had people from the shops downstairs come and give us water and fruit, and the general public has been quite helpful.

Tony Burke told us, “I’m working on it, but I can’t make any promises because I like to keep a promise”. One positive thing that came from Tony Burke speaking with us though is that in the past we’ve had issues with getting refugees to attend rallies because there is this perception that if you come to a protest then you could be sent back to your old country.

So it was good for refugees to see that wouldn’t happen. When Tony Burke came to speak to us about the noise of our chanting and drumming, we said that the issue we have is with the government, not with the people who live here in Punchbowl, and that he needs to understand we have been pushed to do this after fourteen years of waiting.

The only reason the minister or anybody is listening to us is because of the encampment. If we stayed at home and kept quiet, nothing would happen, another few years would have come and gone. It is sad to see that he is not able to give us a deadline for when things will happen. When he says to us, “You know, I’ve only had the portfolio for one month”, we say, “Yes, but you’ve been in power for two and a half years. You’ve known about this issue for fourteen years. You were the minister for immigration in 2013!”.

A few weeks ago, you organised a rally that brought 700 people to the encampment. Could you talk about how this came together and what your plans are for future protests?

Yes, we pasted the flyers all over. The Bangladeshis and Iraqis helped get the word out all around Toongabbie and Pendle Hill. We handed out flyers and got on community radio stations. We are hoping for even more people at the next rally, which is happening here on Sunday, 22 September. We will be starting at Tony Burke’s office at 2pm for speeches, then marching through Punchbowl.

Could you please speak about the Sydney encampment’s reaction to the death of Tamil refugee Mano Yogalingam a few weeks ago?

I think all of us were shocked, because he was somebody we knew, somebody who was organising the encampment in Melbourne. What I found really upsetting was that the media attention we got was only after Mano died. Why is it that somebody must die to bring something to attention? Why can’t you do something as a prevention? It’s no secret how refugees have been feeling. We’ve been saying all along that refugees are feeling suicidal and are having mental health problems, so why can’t something have happened before Mano’s death? We were really angry and really sad.

Could you touch on what you see as the future of the Sydney encampment and the national refugee protests? And now that there are so many encampments, how are they all influencing each other?

We are determined to stay here until there is an answer and a pathway to permanency. There has got to be an announcement from the government for us to leave, and when a decision is made, it won’t just be made by Sydney people. A decision will be made by all the interstate encampments together, because we are doing this together. I have been communicating with Melbourne, but also with the encampments in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.

We speak almost daily. Last week a group of refugees from the Sydney encampment went up to visit the people in Brisbane for a few days. I think that is all important because what we are doing is a coordinated action, we all have the same vision, and we all want the same outcome. So we will all have to make a decision together as to when we stop. It must be a joint decision because all of the refugees are facing the same problem, and the refugees will make that decision themselves.