Dear Editor

• Hannah Cinerari, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2013

Dear Editor,
I agree that the current government policy of sending asylum seekers to Manus Island is a good one, though the living conditions we are sending them to are inhumane and to be frank I am ashamed to be Australian when I think of where our government sending these people who have come to Australia to seek refuge.
My grandparents were immigrants who came to Australia by boat from Italy; to think that what’s happening to the refugees could’ve happened to my grandparents is sickening. The prime minister of PNG said that the refugees were free to roam around Manus Island whilst their being processed therefore all the blame falls on Australia.
The conditions that they are coming from must be terrible if they are willing to spend years sleeping under a piece of canvas with danger lurking on the other side of every corner and around every bend. To be willing to risk going through years of abuse: both physical and sexual, if their home country is worse than that I wouldn’t want to stay there either.
Sincerely, Hannah Cinerari