Immigration, refugees
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John Menadue. A dismal humanitarian response to the Syrian tragedy: political inertia, bureaucratic failure and security obsession.
In earlier blogs I have highlighted the contrast between Canada and Australia’s programs to settle Syrian refugees. Australia continues to be a laggard. In Parliament last week, the Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, said that a total of 29 refugees had been settled as part of a 12,000 intake that Tony Abbott had announced in September Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Asian refugees, the Rohingya and a regional refugee framework.
Despite hopes for a change of refugee policy in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull is faithfully following Tony Abbott’s path in almost every respect. As in so many issues Malcolm Turnbull is not there when we need him. The exaggeration of our refugee ‘problems’ by Malcolm Turnbull and others shows up in UNHCR figures. As I mentioned Continue reading »
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Terry Laidler. To Michael Pezzullo, Secretary, Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
Dear Mr Pezzullo, Starting to get through to you, is it? Great! Forget your law of the land, let alone your direction of the government of the day drivel — neither of these is some sort of absolute that lets you suspend all moral judgment! For, make no mistake about it: the actions of you Continue reading »
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David Isaacs. As bad as Guantanamo
If I liken the immigration detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island to the US facility on Guantanamo Bay, even passionate advocates for those seeking asylum such as human rights lawyer Julian Burnside dismiss my concerns: “Oh we’re not as bad as that.” I will argue that we are indeed as bad as that, possibly Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Springtime – the season of alarm and disharmony in Europe.
United in diversity. EU’s motto. If ever there were a line in a report to alarm European leaders, it might have been one buried in a 204-page document on the EU economy last November. It predicted that up to three million additional asylum seekers could enter the 28-nation bloc by the end of Continue reading »
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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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John Menadue. Canada’s response puts us to shame.
In this blog on 4 February, I mentioned the failure of the Australian government to adequately respond to the Syrian refugee crisis. I pointed out that at that time only ten refugees had arrived from Syria out of a promised intake of 12,000. I mentioned three factors for this delay. The first was political will. 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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Stephen Duckett. Blood money: pathology cuts can reduce spending without compromising health
The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) set the cat among the pathology pigeons late last year. One of the government’s flagged changes, estimated to save around A$100 million a year, was to abolish the bulk-billing incentive Labor introduced in 2009. The industry mobilised, threatening to charge consumers significant out-of-pocket co-payments for pathology tests for Continue reading »
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The benefits of migration.
In this article in fivebooks.com, Ian Goldin speaks about the benefits of migration although those economic benefits are often widely and differently dispersed. He points to the disconnect between the benefits of immigration and often the political downsides where some communities feel disadvantaged. He notes that the business community often calls for more migrants and Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Our humanitarian program.
Some issues have no place in partisan politics, they may be topics that are politically charged, but they are not ideological battlegrounds – they are about the personal and the human. Our stance on refugees and on protection is such an issue. It is an area that has been supported by the left and the Continue reading »
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Measuring the misery of those forced to flee.
Robert Shiller, a 2013 Nobel Laureate in Economics says ‘Under today’s haphazard and archaic asylum rules, refugees must take enormous risks to reach safety and the costs and benefits of helping them are distributed capriciously . It does not have to be this way. Economists can help by testing which international rules and institutions are Continue reading »
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Business can take lead on refugees to end ‘execution by indifference’.
In this article, Tony Shepherd, former President of the Business Council of Australia, urges Australia to be more generous in helping asylum seekers from Syria. He says: ‘As I stare out the window on the plane ride home (from the refugee camps in the Middle East) I think that if history has taught us nothing Continue reading »
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Spencer Zifcak. Special Envoy on Human Rights. Ruddock. What?
In 2003, I wrote a short book entitled Mr Ruddock Goes to Geneva. The book was not as superficial as its title might have suggested. It was in fact a serious study of Australia’s vexed relationship with the UN Human Rights Treaty System. My argument was that the Howard Government should have given the recommendations Continue reading »
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John Nieuwenhuysen. Multiculturalism Today and the Little Evil
According to the ABS, the proportion of Australians born overseas has reached its highest point in 120 years. At about 6.6 million people, the overseas born represent 28 per cent of the country’s total, and, since 2005, migration has contributed half of total population growth. Some 47 per cent of Australians in 2015 were either Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Regional cooperation on refugees, Bali and a Track II Dialogue.
I attended a Track II Dialogue in Bangkok recently to try to help develop a framework of shared responsibility to manage in a humane and efficient manner, displaced people movements in the region. There is concern that the Track I Regional Dialogue at government level has not been particularly fruitful. So much of the response Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Privatising Medicare’s payments system and the erosion of Commonwealth Public Service capability.
The government has apparently accepted the advice of the Commission of Audit that Medicare’s payments system should be reviewed with the possibility of privatisation. The payments system includes Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Aged Care Services and Veterans’ Affairs. It sounds like another expression of neo liberalism, that only the private sector can be efficient Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. The Taxpayer’s Liability for Long Term Detention on Nauru (and Manus Island)
As the Commonwealth Government contemplates what to do with the Bangladeshi woman in the recent High Court asylum case and her baby born in Australia, it will be relevant to consider the possible civil liability of the Commonwealth for its participation in her detention on Nauru for six months at a time when the Commonwealth Continue reading »
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David Isaacs. Secrets and lies and bad morality: Australia’s policy on people seeking asylum
The latest episode in the long, sorry saga of how badly we can treat people seeking asylum was played out in the High Court in February 2016. Long because the story started in 1992 when the Paul Keating Labor government introduced mandatory detention ‘as a temporary measure’ in reaction to a handful of people arriving Continue reading »
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Ravi. Poems from detention.
My pen and paper I walk a deep sadness path with my loneliness. This emptiness makes me slow. I fall to my knees and cry out loudly. Tears knock silently at my eyes. I can’t find anyone to share my pain with so I make friends with my pen and paper. I share with Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The collapse of the Malaysian Arrangement has led to the depravity of Manus and Nauru.
Having done its best in Opposition to wreck the Malaysian Arrangement in 2011, the Turnbull government is now seeking the help of Malaysia over detainees in Manus and Nauru. For political cynicism, this is hard to beat. In May 2011, the Australian and Malaysian governments announced an ‘in principle’ arrangement that up to 800 boat Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Australia’s moral crisis: shipping babies and families off to Nauru
How has it come to this, that the Australian government is poised to send back 37 babies, 54 children and their families – 267 in all – into the traumatic conditions of Nauru? Only a few years ago many Australians would have considered it inconceivable that our governments should have imposed such shocking treatment on Continue reading »
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How long can we keep lying to ourselves.
In the SMH on February 5, 2016, columnist Waleed Aly says ‘The history of asylum seeker policy in Australia will be remembered as a story of how successive governments legislated their lies to justify a world of make-believe borders and imaginary compliance.’ See link to article below: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/nauru-how-long-can-we-keep-lying-to-ourselves-20160204-gml6or.html Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. High Court not the answer to Nauru depravity
The moral depravity of Australian funded and orchestrated holding of asylum seekers, including children, on Nauru and Manus Island is to continue. On Wednesday the High Court made clear that it is in no position to question the retrospective law passed by the Commonwealth Parliament on 30 June 2015 authorising the Australian Government to do Continue reading »
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John Menadue. What has happened to the 11,990 Syrian refugees?
After telling us for months that Australia would not take additional Syrian refugees, Tony Abbott announced on September 9 last year that the government had ‘agreed to settle 12,000 Syrian refugees … one of the world’s largest (intakes) to date’. We were told that the first refugees would arrive by Christmas and the 12,000 by Continue reading »
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Another face of the refugee crisis.
What beautiful photos of refugees – our sisters and brothers, our children and grandchildren! http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/frederic-seguin-refugee-photos_us_56a1439ce4b0d8cc10993c79?ir=World§ion=australia Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. Turnbull Government buries the FTA bad news
The Turnbull government has proved just as determined as the Abbott government to hide from the Australian community the truth about what their FTA deals mean for the 457 visa and other temporary work visa programs. Under the Turnbull administration, the conclusion of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations was announced on 6 October 2015 and the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Australia Day doing well, but could do better.
The following repost is from Australia Day 2014. I wonder what indigenous people thought when they saw Captain Phillip with his ships come uninvited and sail up Sydney Harbour in January 1788. There does not seem any doubt that despite their concerns they were less hostile than we are to boat people 226 years later. Continue reading »
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What do we owe each other?
In this opinion piece from the New York Times, Aaron James Wendland draws on work by Emmanuel Levinas in response to the surge of refugees around the world and particularly into Europe. Levinas describes the allergic reaction to refugees. In response he suggests three things. First, an appeal to the ‘infinity’ in human beings, that Continue reading »