The battle for Batman has begun!

On Friday 23rd February the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC)announced the 10 candidates for Batman. At the same time it published the locations of the pre polling booths

AEC Batman ByElection

Early voting begins next Tuesday (27th) and the Batgrans will be setting up near selected booths at lunchtime on certain days. Use the link to the right to find us.
We have compiled a list of questions which we have emailed to all the candidates and we will be publishing their responses as they are received.

Do you support the following refugee policies?

1. Getting all refugee and asylum seeker children and their families off Nauru as soon as possible? (Yes/No)
2. Ending detention of refugee and asylum seeker children and their families except for brief assessment?(Yes/No)
3. Bringing all refugee and asylum seeker chilren and their families from Nauru to settle in Australia (Yes/No)

If you were elected, what would you do to ensure refugee children are moved to safety from Nauru?

Working to free refugee children from detention

Despite what the politicians say there are still children in detention. There are over 150 children on Nauru.
Here are some of their voices.

Every year I wish to get out of detention. I make wish on my birthday day. I have 3 birthdays in detention. Can you imagine it? (9 year old child detainee, 2016).

Whoever became sick, medical used to come to us, with a briefcase, and tell us to drink water (15 year old child detainee, 2016).

I am always sad, because I am long time stay in detention (6 year old child detainee, 2016)

Recently a young girl was flown to Australia because she tried to commit suicide. Is this how we want vulnerable children to be treated?

But surely a 17 yr old is still a minor!

The 55-year-old Iranian woman, Fatemeh, has been judged to be, "at extremely high and imminent risk of having a catastrophic cardiac event such as heart attack, or sudden death due to arrhythmias" by a doctor asked to review her medical history.

Fatemeh, who asked to remain anonymous, said Australian Border Force officials made the offer conditional on her son staying behind [on Nauru]

She said her son, who is 17, has mental health problems [I wonder why, could it be life on Nauru?] , has no-one to stay with and is very dependent on her.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-19/aslyum-seeker-at-risk-of-sudden-death-refusing-transfer/9462012