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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 703 ..

We are very keen to maintain our positive working relationship with each of you.

He then went on to talk about partners:

It’s also important to allow us to recognise the marvellous support and forbearance provided by the partners and families of our members. I want to convey a special “Thank you” to you for enabling and supporting our work.

Geoff then went on to say:

I would now like to take a moment to tell you something of the refugee situation in Canberra today.

In particular I will address the continuing need to provide support for refugee settlement in Canberra, even though the numbers of new entrants is small.

Well, why do I say there is a need to continue to provide support to refugees in Canberra? The answer is simple: refugees continue to present to our organisation seeking assistance.

In the last few weeks, for example, we had:

two requests for support for accommodation,

one request for $1,600 to pay for medical tests & police checks,

we continued the processing of a family reunion request that will eventually cost over $10,000 to fly a family here from Cairo,

we continued our thriving furniture and household effects distribution to needy refugee & former refugee families,

and we provided some letters of support to assist a Temporary Protection Visa applicant.

In addition, individual members of our group have had innumerable personal contacts with the marvellous people we help to settle here. And I would add that each one of these person-to-person contacts is highly valued.

Obviously that’s not all happened last week. The Brumbies had an important win for example—but you might get a sense of the support that the people in our community are seeking.

To date, we have been able to meet most of the requests put to us.

That’s not because we have an endless resource or because we are particularly clever. It is because people in this community, people in Canberra, actually care and want to make a contribution.

Let me illustrate the point:

You might recall that we had an Afghan family in Iran last August. They achieved approval to come to Australia as refugees but needed about $8,000 for their airfare to get here. We launched a public appeal through our friends at the Canberra Times and raised over $10,000 in no time flat! As has been our experience with previous appeals, we had not one negative reaction. Of the several hundred letters, calls or notes involved, all were positive and encouraging. And now the family is settled here, paying tax and making a contribution to their new community.

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