NAOMI LEVIN

FEDERAL MP Michael Danby has called on Australia to lead the way in a review of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Danby, the MP for Melbourne Ports and chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, spoke to a reunion of Dunera boys at the weekend.

He told the Dunera passengers -– German and Austrian refugees in Britain who were classed as enemy aliens and sent to Australia on a ship and then interned under adverse conditions in 1942 –- and their descendants, that lessons from the Holocaust and afterwards should be applied today.

Danby said that at the time, the Refugee Convention had helped to resettle people displaced after World War II, but its usefulness had expired.

“My view is that the 1951 Refugee Convention is seriously out-of-date, and that we need a new international treaty covering the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees,” Danby said.

“I would like to see Australia take an initiative in starting a new international conversation about how international refugee law might be clarified and brought up-to-date.”

He added that no-one in 1951 could have predicted a time when millions would be displaced due to civil wars, dictatorships, terrorism, ethnic cleansing and natural disasters.

“The circumstances the world is facing today are not the same as those of the 1930s, but there are enough parallels to make us aware of the moral imperatives that we face, and of the possible consequences of a failure to act with courage and compassion,” he said.

Danby said he had “great confidence” in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, but called on the Jewish community -– particularly those with experience as refugees -– “to make our voices heard on the side of reason and justice, and against xenophobia and political opportunism”.