Michael Courts, The Conversation; Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation, and Amanda Dunn, The Conversation
What are the key policy issues on which the 2016 federal election will be fought?
Detainees on Manus Island are seeking an injunction to prevent their removal to Nauru or elsewhere until Australia’s High Court hears their case.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
If a new High Court claim against Australia’s offshore detention regime succeeds, it will entirely undermine Australia’s inhumane practices in relation to “those who come across the seas”.
In parliament on Wednesday, the Greens’ Adam Bandt challenged Peter Dutton with a highly provocative question.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
It is hard to credit that two asylum seekers in Nauru could set themselves alight on Australia’s watch and the stories receive, compared to much else, so little attention in our hyper media cycle. One…
Peter Dutton claims the self-immolations of two refugees on Nauru are ‘not a complaint about the living conditions’ in detention.
AAP/Lukas Coch
High rates of self-harm are endemic on Nauru. And yet, the Australian government persists in seeing suicide and self-harm as the fault of refugees and their supporters.
Geography matters. Whether countries are rich or poor or safe or vulnerable still has more to do with physical geography than we usually acknowledge. Even in age that is routinely described as “global…
The move by PNG’s Supreme Court to strike down the continued detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island carries danger for both the government and Labor.
Malcolm Turnbull says ‘we cannot be misty-eyed’ on border protection.
Rob Blakers/AAP
It is a shocking truth that, for the most part, the politicians are leaving their humanity at home as they debate the future of the men on Manus Island.
There are no real alternatives for resettling the refugees on Manus Island elsewhere in the region.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
The Australian government must face the uncomfortable truth that it is no longer possible to process or detain asylum seekers and refugees in other countries in our region.
Malcolm Turnbull greeting builders a site near Brisbane on Wednesday, where he launched a pilot scheme to get more women into construction.
Glenn Hunt/AAP
Malcolm Turnbull’s nose was out of joint when Tony Abbott said last month the Turnbull government would be running at the election on the Abbott government’s record. Turnbull insisted that while there…
The detention of people transferred from Australia has no valid basis in PNG law.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
Health professionals have long warned that conditions in offshore detention centres are inhumane, degrading and pose life-threatening risks to asylum seekers and refugees.
Peter Dutton said Australia was not a party to the case and the finding did not alter its border protection policies.
Lukas Coch/AAP
The Australian government says it will not allow any asylum seekers on Manus Island to come here, after PNG’s Supreme Court ruled it was illegal to detain them there.
The stakes around Australia’s defence appear higher and the urgency greater than at any time since the height of the Cold War.
Clashes over the building of a mosque in Bendigo are a reminder of how easily strong public feelings about immigration can be exploited.
AAP/Brendan McCarthy
Australians need to have a broad conversation about immigration. This must go beyond border security to discuss immigration’s broad functions, social impacts and the national interests it serves.
Home safe?
Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/Press Association Images
It is impossible to know for sure what a Trump presidency would be like. But there are sensible reasons to suspect it could be disastrous – not only for the US but also for Australia.