How do Australian institutions and political leaders draw on history to tell us who we are? How do they make sense of Australia’s past as a country of immigration and a nation that has accommodated hundreds…
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Asylum seekers – Analysis and Comment
Accompanying the reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) in Australia last week was a new type of immigration visa, the Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV). What is significant about the SHEV…
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Australia and Cambodia raises important questions about Australia’s international legal obligations, the nature of regional refugee protection and resettlement…
Whenever an immigration minister states that new laws will “restore integrity” to the immigration program it is clear what they mean is we have new ways of refusing cases and punishing the bad refugees…
The news that Hamid Kehazaei, a 24-year-old Iranian asylum seeker detained on Manus Island, has been diagnosed as brain dead following his transfer to the Mater Hospital in Brisbane is a tragedy. That…
Calais might be in France, but it is the front line of Britain’s battle to control immigration. Yet the governments of both countries continue to pass the buck between each other and very little progress…
In opposition, Tony Abbott and his alternative government set itself a three-word performance indicator for success in its refugee policy if and when it took office: stop the boats. With one recent exception…
As the government secretly flew 157 asylum seekers seized at sea to Nauru overnight on Friday, 50 men recognised as refugees and given “temporary protection” to settle on Nauru have issued a statement…
If a visit to Christmas Island sounds like fun, think again. A remote tropical island in the Indian Ocean – billed as a birdwatcher’s paradise and a haven for snorkelling – has a dark side. It is “home…
Two characteristics of this government are that it regularly overreaches and that where possible it shies away from transparency and accountability. Very different issues in the news this week highlight…
My interview with Mr Syed did not get off to a great start. We’d arranged to meet at the Dandenong library – part of the city council building, a huge, bright orange edifice in the redeveloped heart of…
The full bench of the High Court will hear the case of 157 Sri Lankan asylum seekers currently on an Australian customs vessel over two days, starting on August 5. But when the High Court issued an injunction…
Following the shocking news of the destruction of flight MH17, foreign minister Julie Bishop wasted no time in boarding a plane for the United Nations in New York. Australian diplomats engaged in intense…
From the perspective of the global north, Australia has always been an oddity. Its policies often seem as strange and inexplicable as its fauna. “They are strange those Australians, strangers to the world…
Lawyers for 153 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on a boat intercepted by the Australian government applied for a full bench of the High Court to hear its case on August 5 at a directions hearing on Friday. Whereas…
The Australian government has become the great defender of Sri Lanka’s post-war human rights credentials, it seems. But Sri Lanka’s (and Australia’s) insistence that the end of the civil war means an end…
Australia’s courts serve us well, acting independently in their application of the law. However, that doesn’t protect them from attacks for performing their legal and constitutional duties. Similarly…
The Australian government gave an undertaking to the High Court on Wednesday that it would not surrender or deliver the asylum seekers detained on an Australian customs vessel on the high seas to Sri Lankan…
Later today, the High Court is due to hear a challenge to the screening and transfer of a boatload of Sri Lankan asylum seekers back to Sri Lankan authorities. Under international law, return of persons…
What is offensive about this government is not that it is pursuing tough policies, but that it is trashing accountability and is so lacking in empathy. The boats did need to be stopped; the budget does…
Australia appears to have reached a new all-time low in its violation of international obligations and its treatment of vulnerable people seeking Australia’s protection. If widespread media reports are…
Thirty lifeless bodies found in the bow of a fishing boat carrying 600 migrants off the coast of Sicily have reignited the debate on illegal crossings in the Mediterranean and how the EU should respond…
Earlier this week, immigration minister Scott Morrison introduced the Migration Amendment (Protection and Other Measures) Bill in response to a High Court decision that ruled invalid his move to cap the…
It’s been a busy Refugee Week so far. The High Court dismissed a constitutional challenge to offshore processing of asylum seekers, while the federal Labor caucus rejected an internal motion calling for…
Several years ago an asylum seeker wrote a letter about his experiences at the now-decommissioned Woomera Detention Centre. This is an extract: I have been in this cage for 13 months … Why should all these…