AT 78, Jane Keough wonders how she could get to a stage of her life when “my country is not kind and not fair and not open”.

Sister Keough has spent the last 21 years advocating for the rights of refugees, with the help of her Catholic church group, the Brigidine Sisters. 

“We used to live off the sheep’s back, then we lived off the gold and minerals and now we’re living off volunteers,” she says. 

“I can’t help but feel like Australia has dumped it all on caring donors.

“So many of the refugee supporters are struggling, they’ve been doing it for a long time, and we all need to support each other. 

“Last year, I got very negative and I thought, this is not who I am. It doesn’t help anybody to be negative and so I got some counselling and some help.”

She works collaboratively with a group of Canadians, engaging with the Refugee Council of Australia and MOSAIC, an authorised resettlement, non-governmental organisation in Vancouver. 

“Canada offers to accept them under a community sponsorship,” she says.
“We have put through 150 applications and raised maybe $20,000 per person, that’s enough to keep them very minimally for the first year. 

“The Canadian groups have been doing this for 30 years, with refugees from all around the world, and they say they have never seen such broken and traumatised people as we send them as a result of our camps.” 

Jane says she is disheartened by the treatment of refugees by the Australian government, including the recent ex-detainee law changes. 

“I think it’s just a political game,” she says.

“Trying to prove that all these violent criminals are out in the community, when the fact is, about three-quarters of them have never been tried and found guilty. 

“Lots of them are there for traffic offences, if they were white and middle class someone would have gone in and gotten them out.

“Others are in for drugs, but it’s like your own nieces or nephews, they do something wrong for a while, they do their time and then they come out and often they make good in the community, they’re not put in detention indefinitely with no chance for rehabilitation.

“Both major parties make this issue of refugees as if they are different or sub-human, there’s a lot of racism. 

“You can see it very starkly in Australia’s response to Ukraine, to the Australian response to Lebanese Christians when they wanted to come, the Australian response to the Vietnamese, and look how wonderfully these people have integrated into the community, they were treated like human beings.

“Somewhere along the line, this thing of ‘boat people’ came along”

Jane has spent the last five years sending support packages to the refugees stuck in Papua New Guinea through her group Manus Lives Matter.

“I would just love for refugees to be treated as what they are, innocent vulnerable people looking for safety and not be used as political pawns,” she says.

Jane grew up in Canberra, then joined the convent and was away for many years.

“I lived here before the lake; you could walk across and almost not get your feet wet,” she says. 

“I was 16 when I decided to join the convent, and I didn’t know what I was doing, but it was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

“I think the innate sense of social justice that I got from my father was fostered within the church community that I belong to. 

“I’m very much a believer in the gospel message; the doing, the kindness, the reaching out to others, to look to the poor and the needy, that sort of thing. 

“When I was at school I didn’t have any of those reasons, I just liked some of the nuns there, they were young and interesting and I thought ‘I want to be like them’. 

“So I joined the convent.”

“I do tai-chi three times a week, and it’s wonderful. 

“I’ve done it for 20 years now, and I belong to GOLD, which is ‘Growing Old Disgracefully’ Canberra Dance Theatre’s elderly group. 

“I have lots of things in my life, and my dogs, Patch and Teddy, that help me provide a balance.”