Last night, Lateline reported on a five-year-old refugee who faced the prospect of being separated from his father forever. His father had failed an ASIO security assessment, which under current policies…
Falun Gong protestors outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney in 2008.
AAP/Dean Lewins
UPDATE: The Chinese nationals have now elected to stay in Australia, where they will seek asylum. A group of ten Chinese people fleeing persecution in their home country has presented Australian authorities…
The government’s obligations to immigration detainees are very similar to those of prisoners.
AAP/Dean Lewins
A training manual instructing immigration detention centre guards to use force to incapacitate detainees was leaked this week. It included techniques to kick, punch and target pressure points on detainees…
The AFL is throwing everything is has at Greater Western Sydney.
AAP/Paul Millar
The 2012 AFL debut of the GWS Giants is the culmination of efforts by the powerful, cashed up body that administers Aussie Rules to make inroads into the rugby league-obsessed, poor and predominantly refugee…
How can we stop people putting themselves in peril?
AAP/Josh Jerga
Last weekend, an overcrowded fishing boat sank off the coast of Indonesia with more than 200 asylum seekers on board. In Australia, the political blame game started soon after with both sides trying to…
Increasing our refugee intake will remove the incentive to get on boats.
AAP/Josh Jerga
Another refugee boat has sunk. Several hundred people have drowned. Why do they keep trying to come? What should our response be? If you are an optimist with no sense of history, you would be forgiven…
Asylum seekers held in detention centres like Villawood have been protesting that the current system doesn’t work.
AAP/Dean Lewins
With the collapse of offshore processing, and the likely increase in boat arrivals into a politically charged environment, a cross-road may have been reached regarding asylum policy in Australia. Now would…
The asylum seeker who committed suicide in Villawood detention centre this week should have been interviewed by the Commonwealth Ombudsman to establish whether he should have been released into the community…
Symbolic minefield: the Australian Navy escorts intercepted asylum seekers to land. AAP/Josh Jerga.
The public’s openness to asylum seekers depends largely on the perceived threat that would-be immigrants pose to traditional Australian values, new research has found. Academics from Monash University…
Tuvaluans’ home and their human rights are threatened by climate change.
AAP
The Pacific Island State of Tuvalu recently reported that it had just days of water supply left for its population of 10,000. The Government has declared a state of emergency and rationed each household…
The Malaysia Solution isn’t quite dead, but its vital signs are certainly not good. With a steely look in her eye, and barely concealed anger, Julia Gillard blamed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott for “trashing…
Without reform of the Migration Act, the governments plan for processing refugees offshore would be in tatters.
AFP/Saeed Khan
Later today the Australian Government plans to put the Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2011 to a vote in the House of Representatives. Without it, the government’s…
The Australian Ambassador is doing everything he can for the Australian boy detained in Bali, but Indonesian children aren’t so lucky.
AFP/Sonny Tumbelaka
This week the nation has been in an uproar over the arrest of a 14 year old Australian boy in Indonesia, accused of buying drugs. TV news reports discussed the terrible conditions of the prison, where…
Migrants and refugees are not only riding much less than other Melburnians, they are riding much less than they used to in…
Medical professionals have a responsibility to speak on policy issues affecting health, including the health of refugees in detention, a top medical journal has said.
AAP
A top Australian medical journal has called for an end to prolonged mandatory detention of refugees, warning that time in detention is associated with poor mental and physical health. The Medical Journal…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants Tony Abbott to put up or shut up on offshore processing.
AAP
Prime Minister Julia Gillard today announced the Government would seek to legislate in order to revive the “Malaysian Solution” ruled illegal by the High Court earlier this month. The plan would see Australia…
We all think we know what a child soldier looks like, but we’d be wrong.
AFP/Georges Gobet
The commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda during the terrible conflict in the early 1990s has put forward legislation in Canada to help former child soldiers seek refuge there. During…
Julia Gillard inherited a failing government, and made it worse.
AAP/Lukas Coch
The American comedian WC Fields once joked that the best advice in business was “never give a sucker an even break”. Now the High Court has rejected the government’s deal with Malaysia to swap asylum seekers…
Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham