October 26, 2009 – 12:50 am
The future direction of a major aspect of Australia’s asylum seeker policy is in the balance right now, with potentially very significant future impacts for many refugees, as well as for regional relations and the treatment of people moving through the region.
The Labor government made some significant changes on coming to office. Most important was [...]
October 23, 2009 – 3:28 pm
There is plenty more, including some that is more toxic, but the fact one has to search harder for it suggests it is not as widespread at government level as might be assumed.
However, seeing what happens as a result of the policies of turning back refugee claimants is very easy to find and is much [...]
October 19, 2009 – 12:07 am
While the halting of a boatload of Tamil asylum seekers in Indonesia continues to get plenty of coverage, here is a small sample of other experiences asylum seekers are going through elsewhere on the globe:
In Greece – 200 unaccompanied children in detention:
More than 850 people – including 200 unaccompanied children – are being held [...]
October 16, 2009 – 11:44 am
The frenzied debate about asylum seekers shows no signs of abating, although this time around there does appear to be more people trying to inject some basic facts and balance into the debate, rather than just pure panic or unthinking emotion.
But it is still very unfortunate that the migration debate in this country continually gets [...]
October 16, 2009 – 1:08 am
I’ve heard it said before that the facts around climate change have the capacity to make people go straight from being concerned to being despondent – skipping over the rather useful stage that usually sits in between, where people do all they can to try to ensure the thing they are concerned about doesn’t come [...]
October 13, 2009 – 12:51 pm
Asylum seekers in boats are all over the news again, this time for a boat that was stopped rather than one which arrived. Philip Ruddock has provided a bit of nostalgia, talking about ten thousand people heading for Australia – exactly the same figure he was using ten years ago.
This latest boat, reportedly stopped by [...]
October 10, 2009 – 12:11 pm
I have been an Obama booster from the earliest days of the US Democrat’s primaries contest. Without being too starry eyed, I continue to hold out a lot of hope for what he might be able to achieve as President, and have sometimes found myself chiding other people for being too cynical about Obama and [...]
October 7, 2009 – 6:16 pm
Last Democrat MP resigns from the party
News reports http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26177470-5013871,00.html today http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/07/2707000.htm indicate that the sole remaining Australian Democrat Member of Parliament, David Winderlich, has resigned from the party. However, he is staying in the Parliament and will recontest the next state election in March next year as a ‘community independent’.
As he noted in http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26177316-2682,00.html explaining [...]
October 5, 2009 – 12:07 am
The failure of current Liberal frontbencher Peter Dutton to win Liberal National Party (LNP) pre-selection for the seat of McPherson has reportedly led to calls from Malcolm Turnbull for the party in Queensland to do “whatever it takes” or “everything it can” to ensure Mr Dutton is not lost to federal parliament.
Queensland has caused grief [...]
October 3, 2009 – 11:26 pm
News has come through that Jack Evans, a pivotal person in the founding and development of the Australian Democrats, has died at the age of 80.
It is always dangerous to single individuals out, but Jack Evans and Sid Spindler, alongside Don Chipp, were amongst the most crucial people in getting the Democrats established and functional. Sadly all three have [...]
