The meeting, which coincided with World Refugee Day, included Delfina Manor who heads up the Benalla RAR branch.
She said the group had a close working relationship with former Federal Member for Indi Cathy McGowan and hoped that would continue with Dr Haines.
‘‘We have a lot to be proud of in Indi, particularly our support for people seeking our protection,’’ Ms Manor said.
‘‘Right now there are some important things on the table that parliament needs to resolve.
‘‘One is the Medivac legislation, which RAR supports.
‘‘We are also asking government to find a safe solution for the people on Manus and Nauru.
‘‘More importantly we’ve been told there are no children in on-shore detention, however, we know that there are.
‘‘There are five children in on shore detention in Broadmeadows.
‘‘In particular we are worried about two little children, one of whom is about to face surgery.
‘‘We say that solutions have to be found for this, and children have no place in detention in Australia.’’
Dr Haines spent several hours with the RAR members before holding a media conference outside of her office in Wangaratta.
She said World Refugee Day was the ideal occasion to meet with RAR to discuss how Indi could play a role in helping refugees and asylum seekers.
‘‘Today was a very good day to meet, for the very first time, with representatives of RAR,’’ Dr Haines said.
‘‘We are just about to have eight RAR groups in Indi, which is a significant number of local people across the electorate who are very concerned about the plight many refugees and asylum seekers face when they come to Australia.
‘‘Today’s very important because refugees and asylum seekers are looking for support and looking for refuge all over the world, and Australia is no different.
‘‘People can find themselves in situations where they need to flee their homeland because of political persecution, because of war, and increasingly because of climate change.
‘‘This type of thing could affect any person wherever they may be in the world.
‘‘We live in an extremely lucky country in Australia and organisations like RAR highlight this to all of us.
‘‘They highlight the role that we can play in supporting people seeking asylum and refuge.
‘‘(They highlight the way) we can alert our government and our parliamentarians to the very crucial areas that they can provide legislative support and can change things to make it a better experience for people seeking asylum or refuge.
‘‘There’s many issues that face the Australian parliament at the moment when it comes to the support of refugees and asylum seekers.
‘‘And we know that in the forthcoming weeks, when the 46th parliament opens, that issues such as the Medivac bill will most likely be debated again on the floor of parliament, so that’s one pressing issue straight away.’’
With World Refugee Day coming only days after employees of WIN News were told that several newsrooms, including Albury, would be closed, the gathered crowd also asked Dr Haines opinion on the loss of another regional news outlet.
‘‘It is a sad day for WIN. I’m a great supporter, as are many, many people across rural and regional Australia, of our regional media,’’ Dr Haines said.
‘‘When we lose regional media in our towns, villages and rural cities we lose yet another opportunity to tell our stories.
‘‘We lose an opportunity for our young people to find careers in journalism. And we know many of our young people have begun careers that become national careers by starting off in a regional news agency such as WIN.
‘‘So it’s a loss of opportunity and a loss of jobs in our region and that is really sad.
‘‘I send my very best wishes to the employees of WIN. I’ve enjoyed working with those people in the short time I’ve been in this role and when I was a candidate throughout the election.
‘‘And again I say that the stories of regional Australia are extremely important and the diversity of our media is extremely important.
‘‘So it is a sad day. It’s a real loss for the community.’’
