The gay and lesbian movement of the 1970s gives us plenty of ideas about how we might approach refugee activism. What did we do that worked, and how might these things be relevant to the most pressing moral question in Australia today – the shocking mistreatment of refugees and asylum-seekers?

When I applied to become a resident ahead of moving to New Zealand, in 1997, I did it under the ‘de-facto partner of a citizen’ category. Since my partner happened to be a woman, the requirement was for us to have been together for at least two years, which we had to scrupulously document. Had my partner been a man, it would have been four years.

We had demonstrations against the series of gay murders in and around Oxford Street, Bondi, Tamarama and other areas around Sydney, and the brutal attitude of the police relating to assaults and murders and their unwillingness to fully investigate and prosecute those guilty of the crimes.