With the arrival of 39 foreign nationals in Western Australia, debate around boat arrivals has been re-ignited. What happens if you come by plane instead?
Brett Sonter, Commander of the Joint Agency Task Force Operation Sovereign Borders has had a thinly-veiled slap at the opposition as the the political debate is reactivated over border security.
Does a journalist’s gender matter if their job is to speak truth to power? It shouldn’t but until recently did. A new book, Through Her Eyes, tells the stories of our women foreign correspondents.
Nauru is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Australia annually to house 109 asylum seekers. The real purpose, though, is to ‘stand ready to receive new arrivals’.
That no Australian government in almost a decade has successfully brought this policy to a formal close is astonishing. In fact, Australia ceased transferring new arrivals offshore in 2014.
If history is any guide, the new US president’s forward-thinking approach toward refugee resettlement could help drive Australia’s commitments to refugee protection, too.
The government claims the bill is needed to make detention centres safer. But it would strip away a vital lifeline for people already 200 times more likely to self-harm than the Australian community.
A Senate report details the high need for refugees on Manus Island and Nauru to be able to seek medical care in Australia. The fate of the medevac law now rests in Jacqui Lambie’s hands.
The government would be willing to put a feast on the table to get a win on the medevac repeal, but this is a piece of legislation on which Lambie should not contemplate any deals.
With parliament sitting next week, the home affairs minister is pressuring Labor to support a repeal of the medevac law. But the law has worked just as it was intended.