Take the politics out, says professor

AUSTRALIAN of the Year Patrick McGorry has called for the asylum seeker issue to be taken out of the coming federal election and replaced by a return to a bipartisan approach.

Professor McGorry, a psychiatrist, said he was one of a group in the late 1980s that established the first system of care for refugees who were victims of trauma and torture.

''Both sides of politics were very supportive of this welcoming approach and Australia was one of the countries that was leading the way on this issues back in the 1980s,'' he said.

It now had a situation of bipartisan bullying, he said.

He told about 2000 supporters at a World Refugee Day rally in Melbourne: ''This election, it won't be won or lost on the issue of asylum seekers.''

He said people should vote on economic issues, the health system and mental health.

''Mental health is really a huge issue that needs support and obviously refugees and asylum seekers need to be part of that whole process.''

Sri Lankan Aran Mylvaganam, 26, told refugee supporters who marched to Fitzroy Town Hall that he was 11 when in 1995, he saw the bombing of his school in Jaffna by the Sir Lankan Army and the killing of 72 Tamil school children and the wounding of more than 200.

''On that day my 14-year-old brother was cut into half and murdered in cold blood by the Sri Lankan Army,'' he said.

That same day, he came upon his close friend, ''hanging from the tamarind tree by his intestines''.

In 1997, aged 13, he came to Australian on his own and spent three months in detention.

He was treated for depression. For three years the Immigration Department refused to admit his parents until, under pressure from doctors and welfare bodies, it relented.

Mr Mylvaganam, a finance officer, told The Age, his parents arrived in 2000 but he continued to be depressed until 2006.

''The effects of war don't go away even when you have your parents,'' he said.

He said the situation facing Tamils in Sri Lanka today was much worse today than when he was there in 1996. More than 2000 youths being held as suspected Tamil Tiger supporters, faced torture.

Every day, young girls and boys disappeared at the hands of government-supported paramilitaries, he said.

''How can Australia say it is safe for refugees to return?'' he said.