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A GROUP of Bendigo residents has voiced concerns over the detention of refugee children.
About a dozen members of the Bendigo chapter of the Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children protested outside Bendigo Trades Hall Council on Monday.
As the protest went on outside the View Street building, former Prime Minister Julia Gillard was inside having afternoon tea with a group of Australian Labor Party members.
It was the latest in a series of protests across Australia by the rapidly growing Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children movement.
Founded last year by Dr Gwenda Davey, the movement now boasts a membership of more than 1300 people.
The Bendigo chapter was formed in February this year.
Organiser Jan Govett said the group was demanding the immediate freeing of refugee children and their families into the community.
"We are very passionate and concerned about the children who are in detention under our very strange immigration laws, which make seeking asylum - which is very legal - look like something illegal," she said.
"We are really concerned about the welfare of the children - and the women and men - but especially those children.
"We need to change the conversations and takes words like 'illegal' out of the conversation and separate the idea of victims being called terrorists."
Ms Govett said the Bendigo group met once a week and would take its campaign to the streets whenever possible.
She said membership was not restricted to grandmothers.
"We have a lot of friends of grandmothers, or what we call FROGS," she said.
Ms Govett said the response to the protest had been positive and well received.
We need to change the conversations and takes words like 'illegal' out of the conversation and separate the idea of victims being called terrorists.
- Jan Govett
"We started off with a group of three (people) today (Monday) and people have just joined us," she said.
"There's faces here I have not seen before.
"We've picked up three new members in the time we've been standing here."
The protest followed the Victorian group's first annual meeting last Saturday at a packed out Melbourne Town Hall.
Plans were announced for a "freedom ride" involving hundreds of cyclists from Melbourne to Canberra early next year.