Open Letter from Australian Church Leaders
This open letter is currently open to sign by Church leaders at the national, state and local level. It is welcome to clergy, church staff, para-church organisation, religious orders and similar. If this is you, we encourage you to add your name below. If not, please send this on. Closing signatories for public release September 8th.
To:
Hon. Tony Burke MP — Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
Hon. Matt Thistlethwaite MP — Assistant Minister for Immigration
Hon. Julian Hill MP — Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs
Dear Ministers,
We are writing as leaders across the breadth of the Australian Church. Together, we speak with a unified voice from both the pews and the pulpits, across denominations and traditions, and from every corner of the nation. Our churches and communities are walking alongside people who have spent over a decade in limbo—many failed by the Fast Track system, still without a pathway to permanency, often unable to work, study, or reunite with family.
We see the toll this takes. Every week, our churches and community services: support families who are homeless because visas have not been processed in time and have lapsed and so they have lost employment; feed people who want to work but are not allowed to, and comfort those losing hope after over a decade of uncertainty. Their exclusion is not theoretical—it is a lived painful reality.
Australia is a country that values a fair go. The asylum seeker system is broken and is deeply unfair—punishing people for policy failures not of their making, and denying them the dignity of rebuilding their lives. To fix it no new laws are needed. The government already has the tools to act. It is a question of will. That’s why we, the undersigned, are joining the call from the National Council of Churches’ #EndTheWaiting campaign, and asking you to urgently provide:
A pathway to permanency for all asylum seekers failed by Australia's flawed asylum processes, including those subjected to the Fast Track system;
Work rights for all asylum seekers while claims are processed;
One visa that extends until claims are processed—ending the bureaucratic nightmare of applying for a new visa every three to six months.
These policy changes are within your power to make. At the current rate of ministerial processing, it will take decades to resolve the existing backlog. This piecemeal approach is not fit for purpose. We urge you to adopt a cohort-based solution, allowing for streamlined decisions that match the scale of the problem and reflect the moral urgency of the moment. These proposed changes are not only compassionate—they are pragmatic. They would reduce pressure on overstretched community services and transform dependency into contribution. These are people who want to give back to society and the economy. The only thing stopping them is policy.
Yours faithfully,