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Keywords: Sri Lanka

  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia ends decades-long uncertainty for thousands of refugees

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 16 February 2023
    1 Comment

    A Valentine’s Day present from the Minister for Immigration for those on temporary protection visas is a much-anticipated relief for approximately 19,000 refugees in Australia. And while a solution is welcome for these refugees, there remains around a further 10,000 whose status and future is uncertain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Albanese reset: Stopping boats while treating onshore asylum seekers decently

    • Frank Brennan
    • 28 October 2022
    6 Comments

    In recent years, Australian policies in relation to asylum seekers and refugees have been unnecessarily mean, cruel and disorganised. The election of the Albanese government provides the opportunity for a reset, putting behind us the past mistakes of both Coalition and Labor Governments in the last 20 years.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Back to Bilo: The Murugappan family and Australian refugee policy

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 09 June 2022
    9 Comments

    In Australia’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, notably those arriving by boat, compassion and fairness have rarely threatened a policy deemed cruel, costly and ineffective. The fate of the Muragappan family has been a continuous, scandalising flashpoint about the nature of Australia’s border protection policies. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Shane Warne’s limelight

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 07 March 2022
    8 Comments

    It was once said of T. E. Lawrence that he had a tendency to back into the limelight. With the late Shane Warne, arguably the finest slow bowler cricket has ever produced, it edged towards him. His debut appearance against India in the 1991-2 home series in Australia was not auspicious. Paunchy, exuding a vernacular Australian coarseness, and initially wayward, he received an object lesson from India’s Ravi Shastri and the youthful Sachin Tendulkar at the Sydney Cricket Ground. But there were already those incipient signs: the slovenly look, the ear piercings, the peroxide hair.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What is a just outcome for the Biloela family?

    • Paul Cutler
    • 24 August 2021
    21 Comments

    I believe in the rule of law and I appreciate that the proper application of the law does not always produce a fair or popular result. I also believe that Australia's refugee policy is too harsh and deeply flawed. However, that policy is bipartisan and appears to be inexplicably popular. The same 'fortress Australia' mentality is evident in our efforts to contain Covid-19.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Murugappan family and the cynicism of refugee politics

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 24 June 2021
    27 Comments

    The Murugappan family have found themselves in the middle of this nasty tangle, their fates politicised and manipulated.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    New Home Affairs Minister has opportunities for compassion

    • Claire Victory
    • 08 April 2021
    8 Comments

    The treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum calls for a determined response on the back of years of poor public policy that has led to the misery of thousands and cost Australian taxpayers billions. I stand to support the Minister in the early days of her new role to make compassionate and sensible decisions, to find a different path for the resolution of the challenges she faces.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The lives of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees are still at risk

    • Peter Coghlan
    • 26 November 2020
    11 Comments

    The continued persecution of Tamils has led to many fleeing Sri Lanka over the past ten years, with some landing on Australia’s shores — they have literally fled for their lives. The Australian government’s response to the inhumane treatment of refugees returned to Sri Lanka has been to praise the Sri Lankan government’s efforts to thwart any asylum seeker attempt to leave Sri Lanka.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Significant Federal Court win for Biloela Tamil family

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 24 April 2020
    7 Comments

    On 17 April 2020, the Federal Court ordered that Immigration had failed to comply with procedural fairness for the family. The case is known by the pseudonym XAD. The XAD case relied on significant legal principles going back to the M61 High Court decision of 2011.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Sri Lanka limps on from bloody Easter Sunday

    • Devana Senanayake
    • 24 June 2019
    1 Comment

    During Poson, a celebration of the entrance of Buddhism into Sri Lanka, I passed three tents presenting free sago, tea and jaggery. Though the fanfare of past years did not exist, it appears the country, though still damaged, is limping through to recovery. But can this recovery be sustained if the emotional pain is still to be unpacked?

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    A new narrative after Christchurch & Colombo

    • Justin Glyn
    • 26 April 2019
    10 Comments

    No security measures will ever be able to suppress inclinations to hatred or violence which grow in the depths of the human heart. And yet there is a difference between Colombo and Christchurch which might be worth exploring. Paradoxically, the most useful things that governments can do are those which are least often tried.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Our government is not family-friendly

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 July 2018
    20 Comments

    These changes make political claims to be family-friendly purely rhetorical. Family values do not shape government policies. Often, governments act not to nurture families and protect the traditions of western civilisation but to devastate families and trample on inherited traditions.

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