From the Courier Mail:

Refugees tell a tale of two cities
By Amanda Gearing
January 16, 2007

TWO rural cities in Queensland and New South Wales have provided very different receptions for refugees from war-torn countries.

While Toowoomba residents have welcomed thousands of refugees, the country music capital of Tamworth has been labelled racist after the council on December 12 voted against a one-year trial resettlement of five Sudanese families.

Tamworth last night rescinded the decision, with the council voting 8-1 to become a refugee resettlement centre with services to be delivered by local organisations.

Further north in Toowoomba, refugees from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and other war-torn countries have been accepted, despite the city’s reputation as a stronghold of conservatism.

After 18 years as one of the Immigration Department’s re-settlement centres, Toowoomba people still show a willingness to help new families to adjust to their new lives in the rural city.

Toowoomba refugee program founder Esme Horan said local residents had been supporting refugee families since 1990 and had successfully integrated families into work and social networks.

“I am astonished at what is going on in Tamworth,” she said. “We never had any real opposition here.”

Sudanese widow Apiou Kuol arrived in Toowoomba last year with four children after her husband was shot dead in a refugee camp in 2000.

Mrs Kuol spent 14 years in a refugee camp in Kenya after fleeing her home.

She arrived in Toowoomba last year as one of 50 refugee families from refugee camps or conflict zones.

“I expected I would be accepted in Australia because people who came before me told me it was a nice place,” she said.

Mrs Kuol said she had never experienced any discrimination and her children had been accepted into their schools and were making friends.

“I thought before I came that I would be put to hard labour to do heavy work and then I would be given food for my children.”

Although she is learning to speak English, Mrs Kuol spoke through an interpreter yesterday to express her heart-felt thanks to the city: “Thank you for accepting me and my family into your community. If I could speak English better I would write to the council and the state and federal governments and say thank you for bringing my children to where there is no fear.”

“Thank you to the people of Toowoomba and Australia.”