We can pursue our own happiness to the exclusion of the real world, but how meaningful can that be? Far better to engage with life and both the happiness and sadness it brings along the way.
Shadow Immigration Minister Richard Marles has said that the world is now going through its greatest period of humanitarian need since WWII. Is that right?
The Australia Border Force Act further entrenches the culture of secrecy around our asylum seeker policy at the cost of open and transparent government. That is something we should be worried about.
It is estimated that there are 175 million LGBTI persons living in persecutory environments worldwide. Only around 2500 asylum claims founded on sexual orientation or gender identity are successful annually.
Syrians are the single largest group of displaced people in the world. How to make sure that the plight of these refugees doesn’t fuel future conflicts?
Seeking asylum from persecution is a right and people who do so are not “illegals” under the law. Yet refugees are portrayed in negative and threatening terms in Australia, while positive stories are ignored.
Allegations that people smugglers were paid by Australian officials to return to Indonesia should not distract from the search to find a workable solution to the region’s asylum seeker problem.
The Refugee Tales is a modern reconstruction of Chaucer’s classic pilgrimage – this time, telling the largely unspoken realities of immigration detention.
ASEAN stood on the sidelines as thousands of refugees were stranded at sea, but it should apply its policy of constructive engagement to ending the persecution that drives Rohingya people out of Myanmar.
A summit in Bangkok is discussing the fate of thousands of people who were stranded at sea. Australia is represented but refuses to resettle any refugees, casting doubt on its commitment to a regional solution.
The political rhetoric would suggest that asylum seekers are deserving and economic migrants are undeserving. Yet their motivations overlap and are complex – forced migrants do not fit easily into one category.
Under enormous pressure, countries in south east Asia are at last offering help to thousands of stranded migrants – but their gesture is far less meaningful than it seems.
Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham