It's time for Labour to be more compassionate

Many letter writers to The Age agree with Ged Kearney

Asylum seekers: It's time for Labor to be more compassionate

Congratulations to Ged Kearney, the new Labor MP for Batman, for her rousing speech highlighting Australia's shameful treatment of those who seek asylum in our "lucky country" – "Kearney vows to end 'racist dog whistling"' (The Age, 22/5).

Of course we abhor the maltreatment of vulnerable animals via live export and we want our politicians to legislate to eradicate this cruelty. So what will we do about the lifelong damage to vulnerable refugee children who are in indefinite detention? All delegates to Labor's national policy conference in July need to make a stand to close offshore detention and adopt a more compassionate approach to our fellow human beings who are seeking asylum.

Francine McCabe, Northcote

We must work together to end this inhumanity

How good that Ged Kearney used her maiden speech to call for an end to Australia's "shameful policy of indefinite detention on Manus and Nauru". Like many Australians, I alternate between disbelief and shame that our country has left asylum seekers in suicide-inducing situations in Manus and Nauru, even though 90per cent of them have been assessed as genuine refugees. Appallingly, there are still more than 140 children in Nauru, 40 of whom have spent their entire lives there. Surely it is time for many MPs and Australian citizens to act to bring an end to this inhumane situation.

Judy Bissland, Hampton

And the asylum seekers continue to wait...

Another refugee death by suicide on Manus and another week passes with no hope of release given to those who are detained there. I wrote to the New Zealand Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, asking them to intervene and take the refugees, and they wrote back saying that Australia would not allow them to to this. So these people continue to die.

Di Cousens, Mount Waverley

At last, we may have an agent of change

Congratulations to Ged Kearney for standing up for the asylum seekers in offshore detention. For too long their inhumane treatment has been conflated with the totally different issue of stopping drownings at sea. I hope she is an agent for change of a Labor policy which, currently, supports the endless detention of children.

Helen Pereira, Heidelberg Heights