Good policy should be evidence-based. But this is not the case with the Liberals energy policy and seems unlikely with their migration policy. (more…)
Category: Immigration
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The shadow of the Tampa
Nearly 25 years on from the Tampa crisis, Australia needs a parliamentary inquiry to lift the lid on offshore detention.
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Migration myths
Migrants aren’t to blame for expensive houses or stress on infrastructure: in fact they’re making more contribution to our shared assets than Australians. (more…)
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As Australia welcomes its millionth refugee, its hardline border policies endure. We can lead by example again
Any day now, Australia will welcome its millionth refugee since World War II. (more…)
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Australia’s fragile multicultural consensus under threat
Anti-immigration rallies around Australia in late August and mid-October exposed public divides over migration, social cohesion and national identity. (more…)
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When will immigration return to ‘normal’?
Despite assurances from Immigration Minister Tony Burke that immigration is “trending back towards historically normal levels”, all indicators suggest it is once again overshooting Treasury’s projection. Indeed, it looks like the descent may have stalled and might rebound. (more…)
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The pearling past and the multicultural present: A story of connection and contribution
In the late 1990s, during a field study in Wyndham, a remote town in Western Australia, I met a small tourism operator whose story has stayed with me ever since. (more…)
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The morality we need, the asylum they seek
Like many grumpy hacks from an age of lost standards, I’ve belittled colleagues’ usage of the perpendicular pronoun. We’re not the Mums needing attention – only the midwives bringing the stories of others into the world. We report and depart. (more…)
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Why the Coalition can’t win without losing itself
The Coalition faces not a messaging challenge but a structural impossibility. Voters abandoning them won’t be satisfied by marginally tougher rhetoric. (more…)
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On No Kings day, a new America came to life
This is who we are. And this is what our country must be: people with a soul-deep love for Planet Earth and all who inhabit it. (more…)
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The migration debate in Australia
Australia’s population growth rate is returning to normal. Instead, of cutting migration, the solution to Australia’s housing crisis is to increase the rate of new dwelling approvals and completions. (more…)
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Paper walls at Thailand’s border
Myanmar’s current emergency is not a sudden rupture but a long arc of military rule that has criminalised dissent, dismantled civil society and pushed millions into precarity. (more…)
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Reuniting families: reforming Australia’s approach
Saffron Williams is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project. (more…)
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The perfect storm: Why immigration has become the scapegoat for our age of crisis
Economic shocks, social strains and rising inequality have unsettled democracies everywhere. In this atmosphere of fear and anger, immigration has been cast as the culprit, offering populists a simple story for a complex age. (more…)
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‘Release the tapes’: Lawmakers demand answers over alleged US$50,000 bribe of Trump border czar Tom Homan
“Seriously though, has anyone ever been handed US$50,000 cash in a paper bag for something legit?” (more…)
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The retreat of social democracy and the rise of the hard right
From Warsaw to Melbourne, from Berlin to Texas, the streets of many OECD countries are witnessing anti-immigration rallies and the surge of far-right populism. (more…)
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A good captain can stop this Senator’s social cohesion ‘Titanic’
After the largest public rally with racist associations for migrants we have witnessed since the demise of the White Australia policy, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments really hurt. (more…)
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Courts brace for next wave of ‘sovereign citizens’
When I wrote about the “Cavalcade of the Cretinous” in February 2022, I thought the anti-vaccination early incarnations of “sovereign citizens” were just a hopeless joke (“Summernats without the sophistication”) that would quietly go away. (more…)
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‘Like us’: Australia’s uneasy dance with immigration
Over dinner on a recent group tour in Australia, conversation turned to the wave of anti-immigration demonstrations and political statements that have flared across the country. (more…)
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The speech we are still waiting for Anthony Albanese to deliver
Last week, rallies were held under the banner of “March for Australia.” (more…)
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The good, the bad and the stupid
When Sergio Leone made The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he showed how flawed characters chasing the same prize could blunder their way into folly and missed opportunities. (more…)
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People dumping in the Pacific
Australian governments of all stripes have long maintained a commitment to secure borders and an orderly migration program. (more…)
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Neo-Nazis and racist rallies: why it’s important the Australian media call them for what they are
If there was any doubt about neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell’s racist and anti-democratic attitudes, they were dispelled on the morning of 2 September when he gatecrashed a press conference by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and Treasurer Jaclyn Symes. (more…)
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Australia should halt plan to deport refugees, migrants to Nauru
Last week, the Australian Government struck a A$400 million (US$260 million) deal with Nauru to deport 280 people to the small Pacific island nation. It is also proposing new legislation to strip those facing deportation of their basic procedural rights. (more…)
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Cancelling the ethnic cleansers: Australia revokes Simcha Rothman’s visa
It is a curious feeling to see a government, let alone any politician, suddenly find their banished backbones and retired principles. (more…)
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The new Commonwealth office of Multicultural Affairs unveiled
A new Commonwealth Office of Multicultural Affairs has been established within the Department of Home Affairs. (more…)
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The penalty for being late is to be doomed forever
Infected by wars and climate change is the other intractable issue: how to help 43 million refugees? More than 3,451 pledges to change the mountain-size misery have been made worldwide by governments, NGOs, and individuals, including Australians. The issue is less about gathering signatures, more about turning words into action. (more…)
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12 years on, are we not yet tired of cruel policies towards asylum-seekers?
In Australia, 2025, Progressive Patriotism is now, apparently, our political modus operandi and, as Anthony Albanese ambitiously explained, it can be “a symbol for the globe in how humanity can move forward”. (more…)
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Lawsuit aims to end ‘systematic’ snatching of brown-skinned people by Trump agents
“These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end,” one attorney in the case said of Department of Homeland Security agents. (more…)
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Australia must turn promising refugee pilots into bold policy to meet the moment
Today, on World Refugee Day 2025, close to one in ten Australians is a refugee or descendant of someone displaced. (more…)