The Love Makes A Way Christian movement has welcomed the Federal Government’s decision to release 150 children in detention into the community, but says there are no plans to slow the protest movement down while children remain locked up. In fact, says Jarrod McKenna, “we’re just getting started”.

Protestors outside Josh Frydenburg’s office today.

“The current tactics are still important and still having an effect and still changing the conversation about asylum seekers, especially in the church,” says Love Makes A Way spokesperson, Matt Anslow. “Until we see a compassionate approach to asylum seekers there will always be a need for robust advocacy on this issue”.

Launched in March this year, Love Makes A Way takes inspiration from Martin Luther King Jnr and the Civil Rights Movement in the US and is impacting Christian churches around the country.

Matt Anslow told Eternity the movement hopes to build pressure on the Government until it achieves “a compassionate asylum seeker policy that treats asylum seekers the way we would like to be treated if we were in the same position. Our primary focus is getting kids out of detention”.

The focus on getting children released is driven partly by the fact that this has been achieved before in 2005 under the Howard Government. “If we can achieve this small goal it will give people the vision of hope breaking in”, said McKenna.

This morning, the Federal Government announced their plan to issue bridging visas to 1,547 children under the age of 10 and their families who are currently living in residential detention, enabling them to live in the community and access health care and schooling.

This decision affects the 150 children currently living in onshore detention centres such as Villawood in Sydney. The commitment does not extend to children transferred onshore for medical reasons or those remaining in offshore detention on Christmas Island or Nauru.

Anslow said that the decision to release the children in onshore detention is a win for “the refugee movement, not just for Love Makes A Way”, while McKenna said that the decision should prompt us to “give thanks to God for a more humane treatment of asylum seekers”.

At 10am today another group of Love Makes A Way protesters entered the offices of Josh Frydenberg MP in Melbourne, calling on the Government to release all children from detention, not just those currently living in onshore centres.

It is the seventh Love Makes A Way prayer vigil, and Anslow says there’s no sign that media or public interest is waning. Their social media sites receive a consistently high level of traffic, and “this past week saw the most activity since the inception of the movement,” says Anslow.

“But media attention is not our measure of success”, McKenna says. “Success is seeing children free. Our goal is real concrete change amongst the community and policy makers”.

Image: @samarapitt via Twitter.