October 30, 2009 – 2:28 pm
Comments about Tamil asylum seekers by the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia, Mr Senaka Walgampaya, provide a strong reason why the asylum seekers should not be returned to Sri Lanka. Is also makes it almost certain they will meet the criteria of Refugee Convention, even if they didn’t before.
Mr Walgampaya, who speaks of course [...]
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 14, 2009 – 12:50 pm
Two or three thousand boat arrivals a year is not an immigration crisis, given an intake of over 130,000. Amnesty figures show that the bulk (96%) of on shore asylum seekers arrive by plane. Australia could easily deal with the relatively small number of extra sea borne applicants, were they allowed to land in Australia [...]
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 2, 2009 – 12:50 pm
The slow increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australian waters is creating a slowly increasing number of antagonistic public comments and complaints. Immigration Minister Chris Evans understandably points to the deteriorating position in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a factor, as well as noting a “second supply chain” from [...]
September 8, 2009 – 9:47 am
In December last year, a report from the federal Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Migration unanimously recommended that “as a priority, the Australian Government introduce legislation to repeal the liability of immigration detention costs.” That is, the law which raises a debt against people in immigration detention to cover the cost of their detention. Legislation [...]
August 21, 2009 – 10:28 am
I’ve written recently about the Australian government recent efforts to enlist further support from countries to our north in stifling the activities of people smugglers.
Reports continue to appear of dreadful conditions and treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in those same countries, such as Malaysia and Thailand.
Another recent example, reported in the Bangkok-based newspaper, The [...]
The irrational obsession with pulling out all stops to prevent asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia is placing our country at risk of being party to human rights abuses on refugees much worse than those of the Howard era.
This week , the federal government is taking the unusual step of having the Prime Minister [...]
