More than 60 people helped raise nearly $1300 for refugee rights advocacy on March 4 at a gig organised by Cairns for Refugees and Green Left.
One draw card was Brisbane-based musician Phil Monsour, whose set of solidarity songs had people up on their feet.
Keynote speaker Zaki Haidari, a refugee campaigner at Amnesty International Australia, spoke to the event via Zoom.
He said Labor’s announcement about permanent visas for refugees, who have been in Australia for a decade, would not be complete without a fair process for those who do not even have temporary visas.
Haidari pointed out that about 500 of those who had been in offshore detention — whether in Australia following medical evacuation or among the 150 refugees still held on Nauru or in Papua New Guinea — still have nowhere to go, because no other country has agreed to resettling them.
