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2009 Annual General Meeting and Public Forum
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 – Melbourne

On Tuesday 17 November 2009, the Refugee Council of Australia held its Annual General Meeting at Melbourne's Multicultural Hub, with the nature of Australia's engagement with Indonesia on asylum seeker issues and the question of post-arrival cultural orientation for refugees explored at public forums held in conjunction with the AGM.

Five board positions were up for election, with existing board members returned to each position for another two years - John Gibson (president), Sky de Jersey (secretary), Dr Melika Sheikh-Eldin, Paris Aristotle and Jenny Semple. Motions moved at the AGM included a call for the Australian Government to make an immediate allocation of 500 additional resettlement places (see item above) and a call for the needs of people in protracted refugee situations in Africa and elsewhere not to be forgotten in discussions about Australia's resettlement priorities.

Speakers at the public forum on regional cooperation were Professor James Hathaway (Melbourne University Law School), Dr Savitri Taylor, (La Trobe University) and Dr Elizabeth Biok (RCOA Board), while those speaking on cultural orientation for refugees were Haileluel Gebre-Selassie (2008 Churchill Fellow), Annerose Reiner (Foundation House) and Margaret Neil (ACCES Services Inc). A synopsis of the forum can be downloaded here.

RCOA's 2010 AGM will be in Brisbane next November.