Immigration, refugees
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A women-led long fight against Malaysia’s discriminatory citizenship laws
Water broke in the wee hours on the day of Headry’s flight back to her homeland Malaysia. Continue reading »
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Will Labor restore immigration compliance activity?
One of the many appalling consequences of establishing the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), and transfer of immigration compliance functions to Australian Border Force (ABF), was an extraordinary cut back in immigration compliance activity. Continue reading »
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Parkinson immigration review: very good as far as it goes
The 190 page Parkinson Immigration Review provides a very good blueprint for the future, considering the limitations placed on it by its terms of reference and timeline. The government has circulated a “Migration Strategy” document for consultation picking up broad concepts in the review’s recommendations. There is much more work to be done to decide Continue reading »
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Direct access to Australian citizenship for New Zealanders is a good thing
The Albanese government decision to restore direct access to Australian citizenship for New Zealanders living here is a good thing. It defuses a social time bomb and removes an irritant in Australia-New Zealand relations. Continue reading »
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Why provide a faster pathway to Australian Citizenship for NZ Citizens?
Anthony Albanese has in essence reversed the Howard Government’s 2001 changes to rules around NZ citizens living in Australia and their access to Australian citizenship. Continue reading »
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Grotesque Dutton drums up another pedophilia crisis
Dutton is the right politician for the post-QAnon age: in fact the radical right zeitgeist caught up with him. His decision to drum up (another) pedophilia crisis to stain the referendum on the Voice to parliament is both grotesque and on trend. Continue reading »
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What to look for in a Migration Strategy
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil will shortly (possibly on 27 April) release a new migration strategy. This follows a review of the migration system led by former Secretary of PM&C Martin Parkinson and a review of visa integrity by former Police Commissioner Christine Nixon. Continue reading »
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The AAT: abolishing a system of indefinite torment
The abolition of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) is a crucial part of Attorney General Mark Dreyfus KC’s integrity platform. In the last decade of Coalition governments it had become overwhelmed by partisan appointments, creating a bedlam of incompetence and politically-motivated decisions. Continue reading »
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How to go about achieving better immigration policy and decision-making
It helps to apply all the lessons of the past correctly when considering learnings from a recent High Court decision about the use of personal Ministerial intervention powers under the Migration Act Continue reading »
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Why was there a blow out in net migration?
This front-page story in The Australian on the blow out in net migration has created a frenzy of finger pointing, most of it ill-informed. Continue reading »
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Asylum cases in Australia for first time exceed 100,000
In February 2023, the number of asylum cases in Australia for the first time exceeded 100,000. Continue reading »
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Independent occupational shortage body for employer sponsored visas would not work
This editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests an independent body should determine which occupations are in shortage for employer sponsored visas rather than using labour market testing. That would be a mistake. Continue reading »
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How will we know the migration system has been fixed?
The Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, has declared Australia’s migration system is “broken. It is unstrategic. It is complex, expensive and slow. It is not delivering for business, for migrants, or for our population”. Continue reading »
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No basis for temporary protection visa scare mongering
Opening up access to permanent residence for long stay refugees on temporary visas is right and inevitable. The decision will not set off a major new surge of maritime asylum seekers. The Coalition and their supporters have selective memories. Temporary protection visas were never a deterrent anyway. Continue reading »
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Asylum Seeker policy: compromise has finally led to decency
Six years ago, John Menadue, Robert Manne, Tim Costello and I agreed that Australia’s refugee and asylum seeker policy was in a complete mess. The trouble started with the 2013 election campaign when Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott tried to outdo each other, pledging that the boats would be stopped and that anyone headed for Continue reading »
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Overseas student policy: too important to get wrong
Overseas students are a key source of export income and a tool of Australia’s soft diplomacy. Whether for good or bad, they have also become a major funding source for university research. Continue reading »
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Syria under the American whip: sanctions that kill
The western sanctions weapon is not new to Syria, but since 2019 it has become a lethal one, destroying entire Syrian sectors and killing its people. Continue reading »
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Australia needs a royal commission into immigration detention
Australia needs a Royal Commission into its heinous, wasteful, privatised immigration detention policy. This is imperative in order to uncover immigration detention’s secrets, racism and appalling costs, to change public attitudes and to explore humane alternatives. Continue reading »
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Legacy boat arrivals: Is a decade of policy paralysis about to be addressed?
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says the Government will shortly announce a ‘humane resolution’ to the situation of 31,000 legacy boat arrivals who have been living in Australia for over a decade. Continue reading »
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Are allegations of bogus asylum claims valid?
Hannah Dickinson, an asylum lawyer from the Asylum Seeker Rights Centre, is reported in The Canberra Times to “have rubbished suggestions people are seizing on huge backlogs of asylum applications to lodge bogus claims for protection”. Continue reading »
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Interpreting Treasury’s latest population statement (Part 1)
Treasury’s December 2022 Population Statement has received more media attention than any of its previous statements. This is predominantly due to Treasurer Jim Chalmers promoting the statement extensively in contrast to his predecessor who largely treated these statements as business as usual. Continue reading »
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World gives cold shoulder to people from Gaza
The Netherlands appears to discriminate against Palestinians based on where they live. Continue reading »
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Australia excoriated over refusal to allow UN torture committee to visit places of detention
Australia is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Pursuant to the terms of the Convention, the UN has established a Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture (SPT). The Committee’s mandate is to prevent torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It pursues that mandate through visits to member states. Member states are obliged Continue reading »
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UK chaos: Hong Kong emigrants duped by false prospectus
In 1711, Alexander Pope, the English poet, wrote that “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. Continue reading »
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Overseas students visa criteria – a new approach needed
One of the most important issues the Migration System Review must address is the overseas student visa system and associated pathways to permanent residence. Continue reading »
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Denying trafficking not the way to protect the Asylum system
Hannah Dickinson from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has penned an article in this Journal that is full of distraction and denial of the massive labour trafficking scam that started in 2014-15. That approach does nothing to help genuine asylum seekers nor help the over 70,500 unsuccessful asylum seekers currently living in Australia with Continue reading »
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The Australian immigration system is broken. Who knew? Who cared?
Mainstream media organisations apparently had neither the expertise nor the desire to recognise that the system was broken. Continue reading »
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Abuse of Australia’s asylum system grinds on
While we await a government decision on the 31,000 legacy boat arrivals in Australia, asylum applications from people arriving by air continued an inexorable rise to 1,448 in October 2022. Continue reading »
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A migration system for Australia’s future
A three-member panel to review Australia’s migration system – former PM&C Secretary Martin Parkinson, academic Joanna Howe and businessman John Azarias – has been set the task of producing “a holistic strategy that articulates the purpose, structure and objectives of Australia’s migration system to ensure it meets the national interest in the coming decades”. Continue reading »
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Is the Pacific Engagement Visa Australia’s first climate change humanitarian visa?
The new Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) has more similarities to a humanitarian visa than a labour supplementation visa – at 3,000 permanent resident places per annum, it could be Australia’s first climate change humanitarian visa. Continue reading »