The ‘party discipline’ that has its roots in the Labor Party’s precursor of the 1890s has stifled real political debate, making even the smartest politicians sound like hacks and act like sheep.
No progress will be made on asylum policy until the major parties move to a positive bipartisanship.
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Australia’s history of dealing with asylum seekers has been a long and chequered one, paving the way for the hardline bipartisanship we see today.
There is an unwavering, untested, bipartisan assertion on asylum seekers: no-one will be resettled in Australia, as that will encourage people smugglers.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
History suggests that resettling refugees on Nauru and Manus Island in Australia and New Zealand will not enliven people smuggling between Indonesia and Christmas Island.
Who took the points in the first leaders’ debate of the 2016 campaign?
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
The Conversation’s experts respond to the first Turnbull-Shorten debate with an eye across key policy areas and the leaders’ performances.
Diplomats and officials from 17 countries met in Bangkok in May 2015 to discuss how to deal with the thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshi refugees.
AAP/Diego Azubel
The region is showing signs it is determined to ensure similar mass displacement crises such as that which took place in the Andaman Sea in 2015 are avoided.
There is little evidence that support for multiculturalism is directly tied to support for particular levels of immigration.
AAP/Dean Lewins
The Labor Party has been driving a campaign bus from Cairns to Canberra. On Sunday night Sam Dastyari told supporters they had raised enough money to extend its journey through to Melbourne.
Malcolm Turnbull’s Howard-not-so-lite approach will upset many in the migrant community, and in the so-called ‘doctors’ wives’ areas.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Anticipation is core business for political strategists. Last year Bill Shorten and those around him correctly judged Labor was electorally exposed on border protection.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s incendiary remarks about refugees may resonate electorally. But, as Michelle Grattan explains, they will also come at a cost.
A review of studies examining the economic impact of refugees in Australia found no evidence they impose a net cost in the long term.
EPA/Dedi Sinuhaji
If Malcolm Turnbull is returned he should tip Peter Dutton out of the immigration portfolio when he chooses his new ministry. Dutton’s Tuesday comments, when targeting the Greens proposal for a big increase…
Refugees try to warm themselves with a fire at a refugee camp at the border between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
EPA/Yannis Kolesidis
What a Nobel prize-winning physicist can teach us about about trying to deal with the current global crisis over asylum seekers and refugees.
Australia’s arrangements with Papua New Guinea and Nauru have not secured sustainable, durable solutions for those asylum seekers found to be refugees.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
Both major parties support offshore processing and boat turnbacks. But public opinion on asylum seekers is not so clear-cut. And nor are the policy alternatives.