Advocates

Ron Merkel was a Federal Court Justice from 1996 until 2006. Merkel first became involved in asylum seeker issues in 1985 after working as Senior Counsel on an immigration case which, to him, exposed the extreme procedural unfairness of Australian law. As a QC and Federal judge, Merkel saw from ...
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Jessie Taylor is a barrister who worked with detainees as a refugee advocate in Maribyrnong, Baxter and Villawood detention centres. Taylor first became involved with asylum seeker issues in 2002 when she was invited to visit a detention centre by a friend. She was initially motivated by her faith to ...
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Ida Kaplan is a psychologist and Directive Services Manager for the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture (VFST).  She works with torture and trauma survivors who are refugees, asylum seekers or people holding Temporary Protection Visas.  Kaplan first became involved in asylum seeker issues because of her interest in the psychological impact ...
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Juliet Flesch is a professional historian and librarian. She first became involved with asylum seeker issues in 2001, when she began visiting Maribyrnong Detention Centre. She was one of the first to begin visiting detention centres regularly. She continued to visit detention centres all over Australia and maintained correspondence with ...
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Pamela Curr is the campaign coordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and has worked with detainees from Woomera, Christmas Island, Maribrynong, Baxter, Curtin and Port Hedland detention centres.  Curr first became involved with asylum seeker issues in the early 2000s because of her concern about the changes that were ...
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Michael Gordon is the National Editor at The Age. He first became involved in asylum seeker issues while covering the political debate on refugees for The Age. Gordon wrote extensively on the Tampa incident in 2001 and subsequently began to interview detainees who had recently arrived to Melbourne, in an attempt to put ...
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