The #Game Over, movement which has been lead by former Socceroo Craig Foster, looks to help refugees stuck in Port Moresby and Nauru and to resettle elsewhere.
Foster has used the power of sport to create a humanitarian campaign which looks to uphold the human rights of refugees who’ve been waiting years for their freedom.
Foster experienced the hardship and powerful stories of the refugees stuck at Port Moresby and Papua New Guinea when he travelled there in October 2019.
What struck Foster was the desperate help that many of them needed. “They’ve lost friends , family, and are tied from hanging on. They desperately need our help,” with many left without hope and left destitute physically and emotionally.
The Australian Government’s lack of compassion in regards to refugees seeking asylum has been highlighted through Australia’s refugee policy emerging not in response to the number of asylum seeker arrivals but rather as a political appeal to fear and segregation in order to scapegoat the other.
Former prime minister John Howard’s famous quote during his 2001 election campaign launch speech in regards to refugees and migration, “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come,” has been similarly echoed by the latest Scott Morrison government which has looked to crack down on who comes into Australia and capping refugee migrants to 18,750 per year.
Craig Foster and the late Les Murray (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Australia’s government regularly claims Australia is one of the most generous worldwide in regards to refugee intake with in fact Australia sitting 50th per capita in terms of hosting refugees and 88th relative to national Gross Domestic Product.
This is what Foster is attempting to change in creating a groundswell of support through the, ‘Game Over,’ campaign which has already collected 30,000 signatures and has encouraged community clubs everywhere to get on board.
One of these clubs is Albion Park FC who on the 14th of March will play in the FFA Cup for all those without freedom and under the #GameOver banner by having a name of a refugee on each of the 11 playing shirts.
Foster has reiterated the importance of sport and the major factor it can play in providing support and changing the situation for refugees in Port Moresby and Nauru. Many of the individuals that Foster has been in contact with and met have highlighted the importance sport plays in their lives.
Football is one of these sports which has helped many of the refugees survive with a group of guys organising their own competition within the detention centre to help them escape their inhuman situation. “Football is built on the back of migrants and refugees and we can’t turn our back on those who are part of our family, however difficult it might be.”
Samad was one of the many individuals that Foster met. Samad is a passionate Pakistani cricketer who used to bowl at his friend at 2 or 3am when the guards were asleep. Samad though has been affected deeply by his surroundings and sadly like many in detention has tried to take his life twice with the scars on his arm serving as a reminder.
This sense of hopelessness is reinforced through the incidents of self-harm and suicide approaching 100 since the Morrison government was elected in the Nauru detention centre, with many examples kept hidden because people not wanting to bring shame to their families.
Craig Foster in his playing days. (Photo by Matthew Ashton/EMPICS via Getty Images)
Foster has used his public profile and privileged position to try and turn the situation around for these refugees which have been left to fight for their own lives while governments use them to benefit their own political careers.
Foster has been able to harness his profile to bring on board other high profile members of the Australian community including Jimmy Barnes, Sally McManus and Craig Moore.
This though is only the beginning with 231 refugees still in PNG and 237 in Nauru who need help to find resettlement.
The #GameOver campaign has created the conversation which was needed using sport to breakdown the political jargon which many politicians use when faced with this issue.
Foster may be the face of #GameOver but he has stated it is important for all Australians to get involved to push for real change and to highlight the shameful treatment the Australian government has displayed to people who are in desperate need.
“We’re all responsible for shaping the Australia we wish to live in, and the way we treat others.”
John C Hughes
Guest
Good tactics to get Craig involved, plus the sports angle. The refugees are real people!
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
You seem to be trying to hone your trolling and I'm not interested, so I'm over and out.
Redondo
Roar Rookie
Fair enough - I guess you are one of those 'quiet Australians'. Although...that didn't stop you dumping hundreds of inflammatory words here.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
I already made my comment.
Redondo
Roar Rookie
I'd rather you told us. Go on - get it off your chest.
chris
Guest
Yeah its amazing what a few tax cuts will do. The greedy society that we are and all.
stu
Guest
Anyone in our community can push whatever cause they want to fight, and typically a 'cause' is loud and constant, normally from the minority. The contrary fact to some of the comments in this article is that boarder control has been an election issue in the past and the majority have backed the 'government' on the stance taken, a point in the last quote from CF at the end of the article in a sense confirms what the majority have decided. Good luck to CF on the cause he has taken up, democracy will reflect his level of success.
chris
Guest
Kafka good comments. This country is rife with right wing "thinking" (oxymoron?) liberals who couldn't care less about others plights. How else can you explain this heartless govt. being returned for another term? With guys like Dutton at the steering wheel, Fosters attempts are admirable but will ultimately fail.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
Read more widely, you'll pick it up.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
Interesting you comment about asdumptions and assertions, but them about me. Many you're railing about human nature as you ahree on the points I made. I acknowledged the human cost, but won't pay anymore heed to Boochani as he was one of those Iranian queue jumpers who has used the suffering of others to further his career with his Victorian Arts and Literary award and accompanying tens of thousands dollars, his book proceeds and his CNN opinion pieces all fostered by civil libertarians who encouraged him amd others to remain in the closed Manus camp and refuse passage and financial assistance on its closure. I would say don't judge a book by it's cover, nor assume people you don't know know nothing of the subject.
Redondo
Roar Rookie
Insult - can you tell me a little about 'social engineering and climate blame'? I'm unsure what that means.
Kanggas2
Roar Rookie
A very intelligent article Thank you
Kafka
Guest
It’s interesting how we cherry pick our arguments to justify what we have become with the ‘great I KNOW’ and impose as ‘you know’ on the other . Adding ‘injury to insult’ what do you know? Where is your thinking coming from and the litany of retributions you put forward around displaced peoples? From where we sit in a privileged democracy they seem fine as long as it is not us or any of our relatives ... conveniently forgetting our non- Indigenous migrant roots. We now are willing to too easily take on expedient government mantras and ethical & economic wastage of tax funds on $22million Bomana Prison detention annex where asylum seekers are being indefinitely detained. These facts are not to engage in binary oppositional discourse just to raise awareness that the stakes are human beings just like us ... more than we at present might like to accept. I get the population pout you put forward . It does not negate the humanitarian crisis ... one that is global and requires humane solutions. The solution is not linear but it certainly needs us as individuals and as a nation to step out of our self - serving bell chambers and advocate for better solutions. The present is well documented in a work such as ‘ No Friends but the Mountains’ by Behrouz Boochani . You may begin widening your lens by reading this account and engaging with something deeper than the conflict of reason and desire ... something the Greeks call ‘ thymos’. The present is untenable on so many levels and has lingered as an abhorrent inhumanity on the soul of this nation ... from both sides of politics. Take care with your easy arguments . Their ignorance does add insult to injury. Let’s start by listening more deeply to each other so that we can sleep more easily with ourselves as a nation ... Foster sits in this open space.
Insult_2_Injury
Roar Rookie
Sebastian, you know as well as Foster and every thinking Australian that genuine refugees bypassed a number of countries which could accept them to pay smugglers to get to Australia. Exactly the same thing has been happening in Europe where refugees bought and discarded rubber dinghies on the Greek coast on their way to Calais to attempt to sneak into Britian. You also know that the genuine refugees were pushed backwards in the people smuggling queue by Iranian economic migrants taking advantage of the smugglers flow in an attempt to jump immigration - not refugee - queues. Sebastian, you also know that refugees in the camps of Manus & Nauru were offered upwards of $25,000 to relocate or return to their country. Many accepted those offers. Civil libertarians have dissuaded a large number of others not to accept, as THEY use them as political pawns to force a change to Immigration - not refugee - policy. Sebastian, you and Foster both know that the stopping of boats has stopped the drownings which was a direct result of Rudd / Gillard and their inept policy. Sebastian, you and Foster know that while Australia, as a rich country country, has navel gazed with social engineering and climate blame in the last decade, infrastructure has deteriorated to such an extent that it is struggling to cope with current population numbers. For example, Melbourne's population has doubled since the last water storage facility was produced, but the arrogant Labor Premier of Melbourne stated only days ago, that building dams doesn't make it rain. This despite floodwater in Victoria 3 to 4 times in the last decade being flushed out to sea. If that infrastructure isn't produced then the cities can't cope with in an influx of primarily unskilled labour, all whom eventually gravitate back to the major cities. So you can blame Howard, Abbott and Morrison, but successive governments of both persuasions of all tiers have been at fault for actions, inactions and over reactions seen in this whole issue. There is an individual face to every issue, but government is there to ensure they govern for the whole country and respond to the majority who elect them. The country's citizens were appalled as innocent people drowned through desperation, many are appalled at civil libertarians using them for their agendas. The solutions have been provided, hard choices need to be taken, just as Australia has made the decision that we can't take more than 160,000 people a year for ever.
Redondo
Roar Rookie
Good article. Australia's treatment of these refugees is disgraceful. Sign the petition here: https://gameover.org.au/
Midfielder
Roar Guru
The hhhhmmmmm hard Conservative right in Australia to me seem lost in fear of change... climate science, migration, ..... the fear of what might happen is taken to extreme levels and absolute certainty is assumed of the extreme will not only happen but is happening and the constant need to attack anything and everything that event hints of a change in direction. With arguably the ABC, News, & Ch9 / Fairfax / talkback controlling over 95% of our news the extremes are well supported by the click driven media... When you see doctors reviewed by panels of doctors recommending a transfer which is over ruled by a clerk then you understand how powerful the let them rot folk are...
Kanggas2
Roar Rookie
Good comment
Kafka
Guest
Seb- the breadth and range of your sport journalism is rare. Craig Foster is also a rare bird as a sport’s journalist... someone who is impatient with living with cliches that so often frame such journalism. Sport does not happen in isolation, so let’s free ourselves from the shackles of it being apolitical. Well done for highlighting the connection between sport and human rights. It has a power that goes beyond the cliched mantras of politics such as ‘ a fair go , to those who have a go’ , the glossolia and obfuscating spread of the current Morrison government. This is the same inhumanity that fuelled Robocop to the Sport Funding deceits and the ongoing off- shore detention hell that we as a nation justify with the mantra ‘stop the boats’ without any point of exit solutions - just endless destructive stasis in detention so profoundly documented in ‘No Friendsbut the Mountains’. Sport has the power to move mountains because it does not politically discriminate . The Australian Government is on notice from people like Craig Foster: the Game is Over on such inhumanity no matter what side of politics one sits on. What is at stake is our spiritual wellbeing... sick national narratives make people sick. K