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The High Commissioner for Refugees has warned Australians about 'populist explanations ... and fears that are overblown'. He clearly had the Coalition in mind. One-liners and slogans don't make for credible refugee policy. Neither does recycling failed policies of the past.
Monsignor John Murphy, the recently deceased former Director of Catholic Immigration, always responded to problems as people in need. After the suspension of ordinary process following the retirement of Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby, Catholics there may feel themselves seen as problems rather than as people.
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.
Yesterday the Government announced it will change the Migration Act to enable the Malaysia solution to go ahead. This latest action reinforces rhetoric about queues and people smugglers that obscures the real effects and motivations of current asylum seeker policy.
The faith of the Irish in politics, economics and religion is at a low ebb, and for the most understandable of reasons. It is not a famine, but it is mighty grim. There are tens of thousands coming here under the 457 visa and the Irish Working Holiday Visa.
This week as we mark the 10th anniversary of Tampa, the High Court is hearing a legal challenge to the Malaysian solution and an inquiry into suicide and self-harm in detention is underway. Meanwhile a new report hopes to change the direction of the debate on refugees.
Sociologist Eva Cox heard all the vitriol about boat people when, as a five-year-old Jewish girl, she fled Nazi Germany and headed to Australia. My nine-year-old mother was a different kind of boat arrival: one of 135,000 'child migrants' imported under the 'Populate or Perish' policy.
In this debate, moral passion is common, especially among those who cast themselves as refugee advocates. But moral passion should not be confused with moral superiority. Any claim to occupy the moral high ground in this complex area of public policy is at best brave and at worst self-serving.
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.
Voters who'd otherwise position themselves between the conservative Liberals and radical Greens are stranded. They are looking for leaders who would rather lose big on matters of principle than win by a margin on compromised policy. History has shown Labor to be the natural home for such leaders.
Everything Western nations do is analysed by the Muslim world in the light of 'conspiracy theories'. Fanatics present the French burqa ban as a reflection of anti Islamic sentiment. In fact millions of Muslim women in France and elsewhere do not cover their faces.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship say they can't tell me anything. The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security tells me to contact DIAC. As an immigration lawyer I find this frustrating. How much worse must it be for asylum seekers kept in detention with no end in sight?
169-180 out of 200 results.