Writer

Peter Hughes
Peter Hughes is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development. He had a long career in the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and Citizenship, retiring as Deputy Secretary in 2011. He was awarded the Public Service Medal in 2005 for outstanding public service in the development of policies and programs to increase citizenship, multicultural harmony and the settlement of refugees.
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi, John Menadue. Part 3: Settlement Policy and Services.
This is a repost from 27/5/2015. 3.1 Overview The migration process starts in earnest after a visa is given to a migrant. Its success or otherwise is determined after the person arrives in Australia and becomes part of the workforce and community. Australia, along with the other great traditional migration countries, has sought to smoothly Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi and John Menadue. Part 2. Refugee Policy
A repost from 26/05/15 Part 2: Refugee Policy 2.1 Overview The current and future global environment for irregular migration is extremely challenging. Many more people are on the move globally to gain protection from persecution, security from conflict or greater economic opportunity – or a mixture of these things. The movement of people is being Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi and John Menadue. Part 1: Immigration Policy and Administration.
This article and the two following articles were part of a policy series that was posted in May/June last year and subsequently published in book form ‘Fairness, Opportunity and Security’. This is a repost from 25/5/2015. Overview This paper sets out a broad design for Australia’s immigration, refugee and settlement policies for the coming decades. Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes. Designing a more generous Australian response to the Syrian crisis
The Australian government announcement of 12,000 additional permanent places for Syrian refugees is a reasonable scale of response, if implemented the right way. Taken together with the existing program of 13,750 refugees, the new program constitutes a manageable 13% of the planned 2015–16 migration intake of 193,485 permanent visas. It is only 4% of the Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes. Subsidising foreign investment with visas.
Current Affairs Visas which give wealthy business people and investors a pathway to permanent residence and Australian citizenship through various forms of investment have been around for many years. The new twist, under the Government’s recently announced ‘complying investments‘ for the Significant Investor Visa, is to channel some money out of safe investments and into Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes. The War on Australian Citizenship
Current Affairs It’s hard to be sure when the “War on Terror” became the war on Australian citizenship. I think it started in March 2014 when the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor was persuaded to recommend in his report[1] that the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection be given the power to revoke the Australian Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes. Citizenship Revocation: a very limited tool in the fight against Jihadists
This is a repost of an article by Peter Hughes which appeared on 20 February 2015. This repost is relevant in light of recent discussion on revocation of citizenship. Liberal Federal MP, Andrew Nikolic, has put back on the agenda the question of changing the law on Australian Citizenship revocation as part of the Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi, John Menadue. Part 3: Settlement Policy and Services.
Fairness, Opportunity and Security. Policy series edited by Michael Keating and JohnMenadue. 3.1 Overview The migration process starts in earnest after a visa is given to a migrant. Its success or otherwise is determined after the person arrives in Australia and becomes part of the workforce and community. Australia, along with the other great traditional Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi and John Menadue. Part 2. Refugee Policy.
Policy Series Part 2: Refugee Policy 2.1 Overview The current and future global environment for irregular migration is extremely challenging. Many more people are on the move globally to gain protection from persecution, security from conflict or greater economic opportunity – or a mixture of these things. The movement of people is being accelerated Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi and John Menadue. Part 1. Immigration Policy and Administration.
Fairness, Opportunity and Security Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue. Overview This paper sets out a broad design for Australia’s immigration, refugee and settlement policies for the coming decades. The issues are covered in three parts: Immigration Policy and Administration Refugee Policy Migrant Settlement and Citizenship Policy Part 1: Immigration Policy and Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes. Reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas -Time to Negotiate
In the last few days of the 2014 Parliament, the controversial Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 remains to be considered. The Bill contains a wide range of proposed changes to the asylum system reflecting, amongst other things, concern by the government that the current system is too Continue reading »
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Repost: Nation building or border policing? Guest blogger: Peter Hughes
This was posted on November 15, 2013. Increasingly refugee policy is portrayed in terms of border protection and stopping the boats. We are losing sight of the enormous nation-building benefits that we have received from immigrants and refugees. John Menadue The repositioning of the Immigration and Citizenship portfolio as “Immigration and Border Protection” was a Continue reading »
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Are current maritime asylum seeker policies working? Guest blogger: Peter Hughes
So what if current maritime asylum seeker policies are working? I mean that question in the narrow sense of reducing irregular maritime arrivals to a trickle. The arrival figure of some 339 persons for October 2013 announced by the government represents only 16 per cent of October 2012 arrivals. Although it is only the figure Continue reading »