Locals packed into the pews at Armadale Baptist Church on Tuesday evening to hear three Kooyong candidates take questions on one of the more emotionally charged — and politically fraught — issues in Australian politics: the treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum.

Notably absent was Amelia Hamer, the Liberal Party’s candidate for the seat. Organisers said she’d been invited, but never confirmed. Her absence left a conspicuous empty chair again.

Hamer also skipped a climate-focused candidates’ forum earlier this month.

While the forum was largely calm and refugee policy-focused, there was one moment of tension when an audience member — whom The Age has identified as anti-lockdown campaigner Harrison McLean — stood to ask independent MP Monique Ryan about the incident from last month where her husband was caught on camera removing a Hamer campaign sign.

“We’ve talked a lot tonight about refugees but my question is actually about political integrity. How can the voters of Kooyong trust your campaign, when your husband was caught stealing a corflute of a rival campaign opponent?” asked McLean who was filming on his phone and later posted it to his Telegram channel, Melbourne Freedom Rally.

There was uproar in the audience.

Ryan did not respond, and Kon Karapanagiotidis, CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, stepped in with a firm and widely applauded rebuke.

“Excuse me. Sorry... this is an event on refugees, and we don’t appreciate being hijacked for issues that are not regarding refugees,” he said.

“Please respect the purpose of tonight and the voices of refugees. This is not your platform tonight. Pick another one. Please sit down and please disregard that question … You are welcome to get your gotcha moment somewhere else. It’s not here.”

I tried to approach McLean afterwards for comment but he made a beeline past me for the exit without answering. McLean was revealed last week as one of two far-right agitators who confronted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a similar incident in a hotel lobby.

I reached out to McLean again today for comment and he said he “entered the event with the intention of asking a tough but fair question to Monique Ryan.”

“It is disappointing that she did not address the question, and that genuine critical inquiry into the candidates was shut down by the organisers of the event.”

If you are interested in watching the full forum back, you can watch it here. But here is a summary of what the candidates had to say on the issue of asylum seekers and refugees.

Ryan: “Our politics has become meaner and smaller”

Ryan, seeking a second term in Kooyong, didn’t hold back in her critique of Australia’s asylum-seeker policies, describing them as increasingly punitive and lacking in transparency.

“Our politics has become meaner and smaller in the last two or three decades,” she said.

“I remember when I was a child, Australia taking refugees and asylum seekers was a source of pride for the country. It wasn’t something politicians fought over.”

She praised former prime ministers from both major parties – Bob Hawke, Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating – for leading with compassion on refugee issues, and paid tribute to one of her predecessors, the late Liberal MP Petro Georgiou, who died two weeks ago.

“He was a man who demonstrated great personal integrity in the way that he fought for the rights of refugees,” Ryan said.

Ryan called for an end to indefinite detention, greater access to services for people on bridging visas, and a clear pathway to permanent residency for those caught in the fast-track system.

Crosby defends Labor’s record, calls out rising extremism

Labor’s candidate, Clive Crosby, highlighted changes made under the Albanese government — including increasing the humanitarian intake to 20,000, abolishing temporary protection visas, and speeding up visa processing.

He also expressed concern about the rise of far-right sentiment in Australia, referencing extremist groups with Donald Trump-style rhetoric calling for mass deportations.

“If I was elected, I would call it out and would not behave in that way and engage in the sort of dog whistling that we’ve seen in the vilification of refugees and migrants from people in the previous government and just generally in the community in these dangerous fringe groups,” he said.

When asked what Labor would do for people still in limbo, such as those medically evacuated from Nauru and PNG, Crosby said the government was working through them.

“Unfortunately, we can’t simultaneously review 7000 cases,” he said. “It is being done on a case-by-case basis because these are rather complex cases.”

Greens: “Seeking asylum is a human right”

Greens candidate Jackie Carter called for a complete end to offshore detention and for Australia’s humanitarian intake to rise to 50,000.

“Seeking asylum is a human right, but right now, our government is treating it like a crime,” she said.

Carter said that people granted refugee status should have full access to work, education, and social services — and delays and legal uncertainty were causing real harm.

“I think sometimes that is lost in the bureaucracy … we’re talking about real lives and people and families.”

The Greens’ policies aligned closely with many of the positions supported by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which hosted the forum.