Welcome to Eureka Street
Looking for thought provoking articles?Subscribe to Eureka Street and join the conversation.
Passwords must be at least 8 characters, contain upper and lower case letters, and a numeric value.
Eureka Street uses the Stripe payment gateway to process payments. The terms and conditions upon which Stripe processes payments and their privacy policy are available here.
Please note: The 40-day free-trial subscription is a limited time offer and expires 31/3/24. Subscribers will have 40 days of free access to Eureka Street content from the date they subscribe. You can cancel your subscription within that 40-day period without charge. After the 40-day free trial subscription period is over, you will be debited the $90 annual subscription amount. Our terms and conditions of membership still apply.
Comparison of these two cases is illuminating. One is the recruit to the Australia A cricket team, Pakistani born Fawad Ahmed. The other is, in Tony Abbott's words, the 'convicted Jihadist terrorist', Egyptian born Sayed Ahmed Abullatif. Ahmed will be the second Pakistani born cricketer in an Australian side that desperately needs a good leg-spinner. Abdullatif has possibly a more difficult road ahead.
Ranjini turned up for a routine catch-up with her caseworker only to be told she was deemed a security risk and that she and her young sons would be detained indefinitely. Days later she found out she was pregnant. Last night, she gave birth to that child, a son who will be an Australian citizen.
On Saturday Scott Morrison's border asylum meter registered the arrival of the 150th boat since Julia Gillard's announcement of the Pacific Solution Mark II in August. If the 'no advantage' principle is coherent and workable, the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers and Gillard have very different understandings of its operation.
In her tweed skirt and sensible shoes, 60-something church elder, Sigrid, doesn’t look like a revolutionary. She carries neither iPhone nor gun. But revolutionary she is, having been at the heart of a movement that toppled an oppressive regime, thawed the Cold War and brought down the Berlin Wall.
Last week’s tragedy of another mass loss of life at sea between Indonesia and Christmas Island focuses our minds yet again on an intractable public policy problem for Australia – our search for a coherent, workable and moral asylum policy.
Hayder and Mariam were found to be refugees in mid 2009. This year they had their second child. They have patiently awaited their security clearance, but when they make inquiries they are merely told that Immigration is awaiting the security checks from 'outside agencies'. The long process is affecting them mentally.
East Timor is living far too dangerously by dumping its incumbent president Jose Ramos-Horta in last weekend's election. It remains to be seen whether Ramos-Horta will continue in public life or retire, but there's no doubt the nation would do well to use his vast experience as an elder statesman.
Last week there were three significant events affecting refugees including, tragically, more deaths. The use of language in the debate about asylum seekers is always striking, and has evolved and adapted over the years. It does not always reflect reality.
It is only because we are an island nation continent that we can entertain the absurd notion of sealing our borders from refugee flows. We must remain committed to resettling bona fide refugees who reach our shores regardless of any regional solutions we put in place to deter them.
I received the documents in a battered brown suitcase. They were from a time of high drama within the Movement and the Labor Party concerning the Labor Split. In the course of my research, I wrote to several international sources. This brought me to the attention of the CIA and ASIO.
An old legal maxim is 'hard cases make bad law'. Maybe complex cases compromise policy. Refugee law and policy is complex and the Malaysian agreement signed this week is another example of a compromise on human rights principles for political expedience.
This is not a regional solution to a regional problem, but a bilateral attempt at solving an Australian problem. To stop the boats, one needs to engage in measures contrary to the Refugee Convention. Church groups can not endorse something they know to be either unworkable or immoral.
25-36 out of 69 results.