Culture

The Artist Behind ‘Real Australians Say Welcome’ Finished His Tour Of Canberra In Perfect Style

Happy World Refugee Day, Peter Dutton!

by Meg Watson  20 June 2015

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Today is World Refugee Day: a revered event which is organised each year by the UN. Since 2000, this day has been recognised as an international commemoration of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees which guaranteed rights and liberties to those seeking asylum. It’s intended as a solemn acknowledgment of the ongoing struggles many face and the necessity of compassion for those with the means to help.

Naturally, it’s a little bit awkward for us in Australia.

Though the day comes at the end of our own national Refugee Week — a time to educate the public about the plight of asylum seekers and celebrate their inclusion in our communities — things are still as terrible as ever. The government are still implementing an immigration policy the United Nations have condemned as torture, the reports that we’ve paid people smugglers to turn back boats have not been resolved, and — just today — a report from The Guardian has revealed that guards at Nauru detention centre may have been “[paying] for sex with refugees in the community and circulating sex tapes of their encounters”. A former Save the Children case manager claims it is common knowledge that security guards abuse their power and have even traded “sexual favours” for showers. Worse still: this information isn’t even new.

It’s amidst all this that street artist Peter Drew has been continuing his Real Australians Say Welcome project. After plastering his now-iconic posters all over Australia’s capital cities for the past few months, Drew has purposefully spent Refugee Week in Canberra. When talking to us about it last month he said, “I’m hoping to spend that week being as obnoxious as possible to politicians, showing them how much support we’ve got”. Now it seems as though he’s stayed true to his word.

First, he met up with the Greens leadership including Richard Di Natale, and co-deputy leaders Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters; the latter of whom is currently speaking at a World Refugee Day rally in Brisbane.

But despite their own terrible history on the issue, Drew also found considerable support from within the Labor Party. Senator for the ACT Katy Gallagher, Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters, WA Senator Sue Lines, Tasmania Senator Lisa Singh, ACT MP Yvette Berry, and Fremantle MP Melissa Parke all enthusiastically got behind the cause.

In fact, the sheer number of supporters Drew found could be seen as evidence of the mounting internal pressure Labor are reportedly facing to change their policies on the issue. The party are being extensively lobbied to stand against offshore processing and mandatory detention, and the matter is expected to be brought up at the upcoming ALP conference.

“It’s taken almost three months to get this far, a fraction of the time that asylum seekers spend in Australian detention centres,” Drew said on Facebook yesterday. “Thanks to all the politicians who made supportive gestures, we’ll be watching for supportive actions … there’s more work to be done.”

Then, adding a final flourish to the project which has taken off as a viral phenomenon and continued a persisting nation-wide conversation about refugee rights, Drew posted his final 1,000th poster on ol’ man Dutton’s front wall.

Peter Drew will be speaking at this Refugee Week celebration in Dandenong tonight if you’d like to give him a high-five.

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Peter’s since responded to our request for comment saying the Department of Immigration and Border Protection haven’t yet reached out to him/tried to arrest him for vandalism. “The project has at least made asylum seekers who already live here feel a little less alienated, but I really want a change in policy and that’s why this project will continue,” he said.