Canberra memorial organisers slam ban

ORGANISERS of a memorial to 353 asylum seekers who drowned at the height of the 2001 federal election campaign say their efforts have been thwarted by a "mean-spirited" Canberra bureaucracy.

A coalition of church, community and school groups have, for three years, been planning an exhibition on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra to mark the fifth anniversary of the sinking of the SIEV X.

Organiser Steve Biddulph said a month ago, the National Capital Authority — the Federal Government agency responsible for the proposed site — rejected the proposal, saying in a letter that 10 years must pass after an event before a permanent national memorial could be established. He said it had only applied to stage a temporary exhibition. "It sounds like they haven't read our application," he said.

The proposed three-week exhibition was to consist of 353 wooden poles planted in the ground, stretching over a distance of more than 300 metres. Each of the poles would represent a victim of the disaster and has been decorated by church people and schoolchildren from across the country.

The asylum seekers, mostly women and children from Iraq and Afghanistan, died when the SIEV X sank on the way from Indonesia to Christmas Island on October 19, 2001.

About a week ago, the memorial organisers received a second letter from the National Capital Authority telling them they needed to first seek permission from the ACT Government, which owns Weston Park in Yarralumla, where the exhibition was to have been held.

"I think they started to think they were looking bad for having stopped it and wanted to put it onto somebody else," Mr Biddulph said.

The group will be forced to hold the poles up by hand for a short ceremony on Sunday, to be addressed by ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope. National Capital Authority spokeswoman Anna Jackson insisted that the group's application was for a permanent national memorial.

She denied the exhibition was being thwarted because of its politically sensitive nature.