There is not much bipartisanship in Australian federal politics these days, but the ALP and the Coalition are in agreement on one matter: the boats must be stopped. They just don’t agree on how to do it…
If we want to address the Sri Lankan asylum seeker in Australia, we need to invest in addressing problems at the source.
AAP Image/Ron D'Raine
Sri Lanka is at a crossroads. After the end of a long civil war, the country has an historic opportunity to draw on its strengths and riches to create a unified, prosperous and just society. But it is…
Their civil war may have ended, but the number of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka are on the increase.
EPA/Wisnu Adi
In the debate about Sri Lankan asylum seekers in Australia, one question seems to come up again and again. Why, when the bloody twenty-six-year conflict that caused so many to leave their homes has ended…
Another High Court challenge to the Gillard government’s indefinite detention of ‘legal black hole’ refugees has experts calling for alternatives.
AAP/Jeremy Piper
The Gillard government is facing another High Court challenge to its indefinite detention of the 55 refugees to have received adverse security assessments from ASIO. These continuing legal troubles, along…
Excising mainland Australia from the migration zone will drastically alter the legal landscape for asylum seekers.
AAP/Made Nagi
The twists and turns of Australian immigration policy grew even more complicated yesterday with the passage of legislation in parliament to excise the mainland of Australia from the “migration zone”. The…
Unauthorised boat arrivals from Sri Lanka continue. Recent reports into widespread human rights abuses in Sri Lanka suggest the arrivals might be genuine refugees.
EPA/Stringer
It is all pretty confusing. Are Sri Lankan boat arrivals – like the 66 who showed up in the port of Geraldton last month – actually refugees? Are they fleeing from a country where the police and the army…
Cameras were secretly taken in to detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru by the ABC to film the living conditions there.
ABCTV
The federal government does not say how it chooses those it sends for offshore processing. It does not explain how it chooses children to go to Manus Island. Australian doctors have told the Department…
Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor says no decision has been made on sending families to the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, pictured above, but local councillors say they have recently been told to expect families at the centre.
AAP Image/Amnesty International
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation and Francisca Gallardo, The Conversation
Child and refugee psychiatry experts have raised concerns over reports the government is considering sending refugee families with children to the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, a remote ex-army…
Asylum seeker detainees at an immigration facility in Broadmeadows have staged a hunger strike this week.
AAP Image
27 men detained in Broadmeadows’ Melbourne Immigration Transit Centre (MITA) ended their hunger strike on Wednesday evening. This group of 25 Tamils and two Burmese Rohingyas had gone ten days without…
The arrival of 66 asylum seekers by boat on the mainland coast of Australia at Geraldton has prompted the opposition to promise tough new border security measures, including the use of drones to detect boats at sea.
AAP/Mark Cairn
After relying on immigration policies taken from the copy book of John Howard, the Liberal party has turned to defence technology for its latest policy innovation involving drones detecting boats carrying…
For women and children the risks when crossing borders are far greater than men.
EPA/Yuri Kochetkov
Crossing borders is far more dangerous for some. The facts are that women and children are more likely to die crossing borders in environmentally hazardous conditions than men. When boats sink or encounter…
Yesterday’s fatalities highlight the importance of ensuring Australian authorities continue to respond to asylum seekers caught at sea.
AAP/Sharon Tisdale
We received news yesterday of the latest fatal capsize of a boat carrying asylum seekers towards Australia – the 20th reported sinking event in four years. The two deaths yesterday brought the confirmed…
Tent accommodation at Australia’s detention centre in Nauru.
AAP/Department of Immigration
Not many people get to see what goes on behind the barbed wired fences of immigration detention centres. Marianne Evers was one of the few who decided to speak out about her work in Nauru. Unsurprisingly…
Passengers were delighted when Alain Delord was plucked from the sea. Why don’t we feel the same way about asylum seekers?
AAP/Orion Expedition Cruises
Passengers aboard the cruise ship Orion, which recently rescued French sailor Alain Delord in the seas southwest of Hobart, were at first upset that they had to detour from their planned route. They were…
Accommodation on Manus Island, part of a system created by economic mythology around asylum seekers.
PNG
ABC’s Life Matters recently treated its listeners to something quite rare: a discussion of the economic assumptions implicit in the discourse surrounding boat people. Sociologist Andrew Jakubowicz, who…
Mental health experts say uncertainty is a major factor that contributes to the mental deterioration of asylum seekers in detention.
AAP
The “prison-like” immigration detention facilities on Christmas Island are not appropriate for asylum seekers, and there has been a rise in the demand for mental health services at the facility, according…
Asylum seekers are at high risk of mental disorder.
Timo Kirkkala
Watching the second version of “offshore processing” on Nauru and Manus Island has been frustrating and painful – not least for those of us involved in immigration detention issues for the past decade…
Governments should be careful to protect human rights when contracting with businesses, such as health services in immigration detention.
Department of Immigration & Citizenship
Last week, the UN held its first-ever business and human rights forum in Geneva. It’s part of a growing awareness that multinationals have a big impact on human rights. Opening the forum, the UN’s human…
Federal member for Fremantle Melissa Parke has attracted a national profile with her left wing views in recent years.
Office of Melissa Parke MP
Labor’s Melissa Parke probably won’t be too popular with rightwing powerbrokers like Paul Howes with her view that the Greens are a fellow progressive party rather than an insidious enemy to be confronted…
By the time asylum seekers get on boats, it’s often too late.
EPA/Tubagus
With its revamped Pacific Solution, the Australian government has decided to make the choice to take a boat to Australia more horrendous in its implications, by increasing the likelihood of disasters at…