A group of more than 30 high-profile Australians, including actors Bryan Brown, Claudia Karvan and Deborah Mailman, businesswoman Ita Buttrose, author Thomas Keneally and former Wallabies captain George Gregan, have come together to record a song that highlights the plight of child asylum seekers in detention.
The recording brings together noted figures from a diverse range of fields, including business, the arts, academia, sport, religion and media, who together condemn the conditions in which children are being detained, particularly on the islands of Nauru and Christmas Island, highlighting an unsafe environment and lack of schooling.
Brown, who has been instrumental in the project, told Guardian Australia he had no difficulty finding participants. “We’ve all read a lot [about this issue] over these last few years and been very troubled by it and not really known what to do,” he said.
The actor decided that recording a song might help attract attention to the issue. We’re Better Than This Australia was recorded in a Sydney studio, with musical direction by Darren Percival from The Voice.
In a video recorded on the day, Buttrose says: “I think when you lock a child up, you lock up their imagination, and when you do that, you destroy their childhood.”
Professor Gillian Triggs, president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, also took part in the recording and said: “No other country in the world holds children in the way we do, and the United Nations is very, very concerned about Australia’s policies.”
"A movement for ordinary Australians who want both sides of politics to hear us when we say we believe we can do better than we are currently doing when it comes to managing kids seeking refuge." Bryan Brown. Please share this video and go to WBTTAUS.org — three easy ways to be part of the movement. #WBTTAUS on Twitter
