To justify its harsh refugee policies, the government has been telling us that its policies are designed to save lives at sea. The ALP also joins in this shabby chorus (more…)
Category: Immigration
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JOHN MENADUE. Failure of regional leadership on refugees
An estimated 270,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar in the last two weeks. More will follow. Their position is precarious. We should not be surprised as the persecution of Rohingya goes back centuries. Yet ASEAN and Australian leaders have failed again to anticipate and respond to this human disaster. Ethnic cleansing is under way. (more…)
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PAUL GREGOIRE AND UGUR NEDIM. Asylum seekers left destitute at hands of Dutton
Stooping to a new low, the Turnbull government has begun cutting off the welfare payment to vulnerable asylum seekers and given these people three weeks to vacate their government-supported accommodation. (more…)
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ACT Government provides much needed leadership on refugees
Last Thursday, the ACT Government passed a strongly worded motion calling on the Federal Government to end its “damaging, cruel and inhumane policy” on refugees. It requested that the Federal Government immediately remove all refugees and asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru and resettle them in Australia. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. Debating the Burqa
Brandis was wrong to harangue Hanson. A debate on banning the burqa in Australia is required and should address three questions: its origins in religious edicts and cultural practices; the current practice in Western liberal democracies; and the practice in Islamic countries. (more…)
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John Menadue. The burqa and hijab – public space must be neutral and secular.-a repost
The burqa and the hijab are stale news in France.
There has been an important debate and discussion on Muslim head and body covering in France for many years. The simple head dress or hijab, turbans and kippas have been banned in French schools since 2004. The burqa has been banned in public spaces since 2010. The French approach has a wide consensus across the political spectrum. (more…)
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JOSEPH A. CAMILLERI. Australia’s engagement with Asia and the world has fallen on hard times.
In the vain hope of minimising the catastrophic consequences of America’s 16-year long military intervention, Donald Trump has just announced yet another surge in its military presence in Afghanistan. Australia, like other allies, will also be asked to do more, and will almost certainly agree to the request. This is part of the now familiar pattern that has seen Australia despatch military forces to Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. It is a reminder of the same reflexive mindset that has prompted Malcolm Turnbull’s recent comments linking ANZUS to the Korean crisis. In this case, the response is so ill-informed as to be comical, and so bereft of common sense as to be tragic. Australia’s foreign and security policies, it seems, have now descended into pure farce. (more…)
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TONY SMITH. In Defence of the Yarra Council
Local government leading the way on an important political issue? Who would have thought it? Well, anyone with an eye to federal ossification on Indigenous policy will welcome the move to stop calling 26 January ‘Australia Day’ as a potential circuit breaker. (more…)
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‘It’s time to act’: Liberal MP calls for Australia to take refugees from Manus and Nauru
The Victorian Liberal moderate Russell Broadbent has called in Federal Parliament for “genuine refugees” in offshore detention to be settled permanently on the Australian mainland once the US resettlement deal has run its course. (more…)
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Australia’s Desperate Refugee Obstinacy
[An article by Roger Cohen reposted from the New York Times]
BYRON BAY, Australia — Now we know how desperate Australia is to close the shameful chapter in its history that has seen about 2,000 asylum-seekers and refugees — some now dead, most suffering from depressive disorders — dumped on two remote Pacific islands for four years. (more…)
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LYNDSAY CONNORS. The Coalition applauds most queue jumpers.
The sound of transactional businessmen – Trump and Turnbull-brokering a Faustian bargain was never going to be edifying. The question is how Australians want to deal and to be seen to deal with the world as it is, while working out how we would like it to be. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Australian business in Asia – ‘pale, male and stale’. (Repost from 8 August 2016)
A recent report on ‘Australia’s Diaspora Advantage: Realising the potential for building transnational business networks with Asia’ reveals that social class and racism, either conscious or unconscious, still excludes many Australians of Asian origin from many Australian institutions and particularly business institutions. The bamboo ceiling is still in place. It limits opportunities for people in Australia with Asian ‘talent’. It also limits the effectiveness of Australian business in Asia. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. The bi-partisanship shame of refugee policy
What possessed Filippo Grandi, the relatively new United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to go public last week, having a go at Australia for our government’s treatment of unvisaed asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat? He repeated UNHCR’s demand that Australia terminate offshore processing of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island and that we not outsource our responsibilities to others. (more…)
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GREG LOCKHART. What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front? (Part 5 of 5)
Part 5: Narrative Overview and Conclusion
The emphasis in our military history and remembrance on asking how we fought does not inherently preclude an interest in what we were fighting for. The two narratives could co-exist and interact. But not effectively in our culture – yet. We still lose sight of what our remembrance confirms: the interconnectedness of what we were and still are fighting for. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN, TIM COSTELLO, ROBERT MANNE and JOHN MENADUE. Stopping Boats and Saving Lives Four Years On …
How much longer will we continue to punish proven refugees who are our responsibility while they await interminable, uncertain futures in Nauru and Manus Island? Everyone knows that not all the proven refugees will be resettled in the USA even once the USA resumes taking refugees in October 2017. Kevin Rudd first announced the most recent plan for removing unvisaed asylum seekers offshore on 19 July 2013, seven weeks out from the 2013 election. Richard Marles helped with the negotiation of the deal. (more…)
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The parliamentary eligibility law is an ass – but it is the law.
Australia’s restrictive eligibility criterion for entering Parliament is out of touch with modern reality but, as long as it is the law of the land, it has to be enforced and be seen to be impartially enforced. (more…)
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GREG LOCKHART. What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front? (Part 2 of 5)
Part 2. Empire against Asia
The ‘imperial’ nature of Australia’s involvement in the Great War was distinctively Australian and, it should be said, a sign of the doubt white settler society had about its survival as a remote outpost of the British Empire in Austral-Asia.
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What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front? Part 1 of 5-part series.
To find out what we were fighting for in the Great War we must get past the usual fig-leaf explanation, which is as remarkably effective as it is short on cover in Australian culture. (more…)
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LOUIS COOPER. A Canadian’s mistreatment at Guantanamo Bay leads to a no-win for the Trudeau Government
Public debate over federal government’s $CA10.5 million payout to former “child terrorist” has tarnished Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. (more…)
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TIM COLEBATCH. One census, three stories
In the broad picture, the 2016 census has confirmed things we already knew about ourselves. But burrow down into the detail, and you’ll find much that will surprise you. (more…)
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PETER HUGHES. Citizenship changes: poisonous and pointless
The government’s proposed changes to the requirements for Australian citizenship are both poisonous and pointless. They are bad public policy and should be rejected by Parliament. (more…)
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TONY SMITH. The political ugliness we cannot hide
Half a century ago in The Australian Ugliness Robin Boyd reminded us what happens when architectural planners embrace utilitarianism and abandon aesthetics. During the days of the Howard Coalition Government, examining the invasion of Iraq and policy on asylum seekers, moral philosopher Raimond Gaita reminded us what happens when decision-makers abandon ethical considerations. Under the Turnbull Government, mendacity, hypocrisy and arrogance are producing an observable ugliness in its spokespersons. The great fear is that this ugliness is reflecting our own grotesque faces back to us. (more…)
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ROBYN SAMPSON. Ending child immigration detention is just a matter of time.
Momentum is growing around the world to end child immigration detention. All major human rights experts now agree that immigration detention is a child rights violation. Meanwhile, more and more countries are passing laws that prohibit child immigration detention. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. Seeking Clarity on Boat Turnbacks and the Utility of Offshore Refugee Warehousing
Erika Feller (former Assistant High Commissioner UNHCR) and Michael Pezzullo (Secretary, Dept of Immigration and Border Protection) spoke at this year’s ANU Crawford Australian Leadership Forum on borders and the movement of people. The convenor of the forum is ANU Chancellor Gareth Evans. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. The origins and incoherence of Australia’s asylum seeker policy
During Refugee Week 2017, I would like to offer a historical perspective on how we got to where we are in the hope that we might be able to convince one or both of our major political parties to reset their policy, which is needlessly destroying lives, including the lives of children who are proven refugees still living in the no man’s land of Nauru. (more…)
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SPENCER ZIFCAK. The Black Hearts Behind Australia’s Offshore Detention Policy
So, the Australian Government has settled a class action brought by asylum seekers detained on Manus Island for $70,000,000. Apparently, the settlement was reached because the Government was fearful of the evidence and stories of official abuse that would have emerged over some six months should the action have been litigated in court. Lawyers in the case estimated that more than 70 witnesses would have been called and 200,000 documents examined. Afraid of the findings, the Government caved in at the door of the Court. (more…)
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Manchester and terrorism. Part 2 of 3.
In this three-part article, Ramesh Thakur argues that the scale of the terrorist threat to Western societies must be kept in perspective, that Western actions in the Middle East may have fomented more terrorism than they have defeated, and that an attitude of denial regarding the potential for problems of large-scale Muslim immigration feeds mutual paranoia and hostility and is not conducive to social cohesion. (more…)
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Manchester and terrorism, Part 1 of 3.
The swamp fights back
In this three-part article, Ramesh Thakur argues that the scale of the terrorist threat to Western societies must be kept in perspective, that Western actions in the Middle East may have fomented more terrorism than they have defeated, and that an attitude of denial regarding the potential for problems of large-scale Muslim immigration feeds mutual paranoia and hostility and is not conducive to social cohesion. (more…)
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EMILY FISCHER et al. Playing God: The Immigration Minister’s Unrestrained Power .
The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection holds numerous discretionary powers that allow him or her to make substantial and lifelong decisions about the lives of vulnerable people. These powers lack transparency, accountability and are not amenable to review by the courts. (more…)