For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 28 July 2013.

Australian church leaders have strongly opposed the Rudd Government’s “PNG solution” designed to reduce the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat.

The Australian Churches Refugees Taskforce said, “Shifting the burden and sending people to stay in a malaria-ridden island with almost no supports is not an acceptable alternative to protection.”

A Catholic Church spokesman said, “We have the duty as members of one human family to help those who arrive on our shores seeking asylum and to strive with all our resources to assist them no matter how inconvenient this may prove to be.”

A statement from the Baptist Churches of NSW & ACT said:

Every person seeking asylum is created in God’s image and is loved unconditionally by God, and Christians have an obligation to demonstrate this same love toward asylum seekers through compassion, advocacy…