Category: Immigration

On 29 March 2019, I received an email stating “Secretary Pezzullo has requested that a/g Deputy Secretary, Luke Mansfield and First Assistant Secretary, Richard Johnson provide you a personal briefing.” Thinking this was the dawn of a new era of transparency in Home Affairs, I asked if I could send a series of questions ahead of the meeting to guide the discussion. This was agreed to and below is the list of questions I sent four days ahead of the meeting. An hour before the scheduled time of the meeting, I received an email stating the meeting had been cancelled. No explanation given. (more…)

Events in Christchurch have prompted a long-overdue examination of our own tolerance of the dog whistling and hate speech our politicians and the right-wing media have engaged in for years now.  But research conducted by a colleague, Dr Mehal Krayem, and I after Dutton’s comments in 2016 found that it was not just the right-wing media who have a case to answer.  Our mainstream media have also failed to challenge politicians such as Dutton and right-wing commentators like Bolt, Devine and Henderson, over their inflammatory and misleading comments, in this case about Lebanese migration. (more…)

The appraisal of current political rhetoric on asylum seeker and refugee policies can be a challenging exercise. Think, for example, of the ideal of ‘strong borders’, which has come to act as a benchmark for the recognition of contemporary realities — so obvious that it seems unthinkable to call it into question; and so politically potent that the mere mention of ‘softness on border protection’ is enough to suggest unfitness to govern. Yet, in this context, it is by no means clear from what exactly our ‘strong borders’ are supposed to offer protection. Nor is it clear why the slightest change in current ‘policy settings’ would amount to a weakening of their presumptive strength.

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Are there no bounds to the Coalition government’s cynicism, mismanagement and disregard for fiscal responsibility and human dignity when it comes to refugees and people seeking asylum? (more…)

Australia’s refugee policies are rarely outside the political and public discourse. This is even more so now with a Federal election looming. Everyone has an opinion. The shades are many and the starting points for any discussion are wide apart.

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MAX COSTELLO. At his recent, expensive, tropical island media conference, the Prime Minister gave two reasons for reopening the Christmas Island detention centre. One: all the mainland centres are “full”.  Two: Christmas Island, a “hardened centre”, is needed to protect mainland Australians from 57 “adverse characters” offshore. Since the first reason is an outright lie and the second implied that mainland “hardened centres” are non-existent or insecure, all he really conveyed was shameless mendacity. Then there are the issues of massive cost, medical inadequacy, and executive government sabotage of the legislature’s law. It’s time to expose the real reasons for the reopening. (more…)

Although Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Christian Porter have said why Christmas Island’s immigration detention centre will be reopened, the PM’s words were uninformative, and A-G Porter’s ‘explanation’ was untrue. (more…)

This article originally appeared in The Saturday Paper.”

It is as certain as anything in politics can be that during the next three months, as the federal election looms, the Morrison government will claim time and again that if Australians want to prevent a new wave of asylum seekers on boats they have no choice but to vote for the Coalition. (more…)

Former PM Turnbull is a strong advocate of multiculturalism, but his successor PM Morrison appears to waver on his commitment to multiculturalism as shown by the inconsistency of his words on the subject.  We prefer a PM with a consistent view, whether it is supportive or not; at least we could learn how to have a meaningful dialogue with him or persuade him to our views.  The Multicultural Communities Council of NSW (MCCNSW) has examined the public reports on the subject in the media and determined that a rise in opposition to multiculturalism has increased and can be attributed to the rise of the right.  However, statistical facts from the Scanlon Foundation and ABS show that the vast majority of Australians still support multiculturalism.  Apparently, in the present political climate, the opposition to multiculturalism do not attract multicultural votes.  (more…)

 To divert attention from the politicking and cruel treatment of asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru, Scott Morrison tells us that  Coalition policy is designed  to stop drownings at sea. That is rank hypocrisy. It is nothing of the sort.  Its ‘boats policy’ is crass  and cruel party  politics. (more…)

The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government will go down as the worst Coalition Government in history in its handling of immigration. This is how an incoming Labor government might go about dealing with the shambles it will confront. (more…)

Last month, the Victorian prize for literature and the Victorian Premier’s prize for non-fiction work were awarded to an Iranian refugee, Behrouz Boochani, for his book, “No friend but the mountains: Writing from Manus prison.”   (more…)

Two new legal actions designed to put an end to Australia’s policy of offshore processing have just landed at the High Court of Australia. In a novel twist, the cases will not depend on the High Court’s interpretation of the Migration Act. Nor are they constitutionally founded. Instead, the National Justice Project, the law firm representing detainees, is arguing that the Commonwealth has acted negligently. The negligence, it is said,  is constituted by crimes against humanity committed by Australian authorities against refugees in the immigration detention camps on Manus Island and Nauru. (more…)

The Coalition Government is once more in its element screaming at Australians that only they can save us from hordes of maritime asylum seekers. But look at the record! (more…)

We are all gearing up for the third election in a row when boat turnbacks and the punitive treatment of refugees and asylum seekers feature.  It need not be so.  It’s time voters sent a message that it should not be so.  The overwhelming majority of our politicians and the overwhelming majority of voters are agreed that the boats from Indonesia carrying asylum seekers transiting Indonesia should be stopped, and the refugees and asylum seekers who have been languishing on Nauru and Manus Island should be treated decently and humanely. The disagreement is over whether after five and more years of aimless waiting and suspension, all those who are sick can be given appropriate medical attention either on site or in Australia.  A recent swathe of court cases demonstrates that when the decision whether to conduct a medical evacuation is left to Mr Dutton’s public servants, the decision cannot always be classed as decent and humane.  A narrow majority of our politicians thought it was time to insist that such medical decisions always be decent and humane.  They remain insistent that the boats remain stopped, with turnbacks in place. (more…)

This time the Coalition has over reached (more…)

Government has expressed concern that under the Medevac Amendments, serious criminals will enter Australia. Immigration Minister Coleman said at Question Time that a backpacker from Norway passes a stronger Character test than the people entering under the Medevac Amendments. While this is superficially correct, in practice the Government is being quite misleading. Let’s unpack the issues.   (more…)