Keywords: Temporary Protection Visas
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 10 December 2013
11 Comments
Last week asylum seekers had a small win only to have it snatched away, and then were confronted by a more serious attack. Those working with asylum seekers have learned to expect abuse and derision from governments directed against asylum seekers and those helping them. Labor is only moderately better than the Coalition, but at least they occasionally made positive decisions. However these recent events have reached a new nadir.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 22 October 2013
22 Comments
The new TPV is harsher than the version introduced by the Howard Government, mainly because it has no pathway to a permanent visa — once granted, it is likely that the best you will ever get in Australia is a TPV. The TPV is a punishment, not a deterrent; a cruel visa that reflects the cruelty of the politicians introducing it.
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AUSTRALIA
- Marg Hutton
- 21 October 2013
13 Comments
In 2001 Prime Minister Howard tried to distance Australia from the SIEVX tragedy, in which 353 asylum seekers drowned, by repeatedly referring to the sinking as having occurred in 'Indonesian waters'. If there was any doubt then that SIEVX was an Australian tragedy, in 2013 there is none. There are now young kids growing up in Australia, who were born here and speak with Australian accents, who had brothers and sisters who drowned on SIEVX.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 26 August 2013
5 Comments
Martin Luther King’s 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech is remembered for its vision for a future in which his children would ‘not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’. If King arrived by boat seeking asylum in Australia today, he would hope that his children would be judged not by how they got here but by the content of their character.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 20 August 2013
9 Comments
Labor is subcontracting our international obligations to poor neighbours who do not have the resources to resettle refugees who may well have trauma issues. Not to be outdone in the cruelty stakes, the Coalition has four proposals, each of which has serious flaws. Neither party has a policy that respects relevant human rights issues, or an administrative system designed to ensure the correct decisions are reached.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 13 August 2013
1 Comment
'Like many Australians, I had hoped that the dastardly plan announced on 19 July would stop the boats in the short term, as a stop-gap measure. It is dismaying to learn that appropriate consultations had not occurred with Indonesia with the result that the very people who were to receive the shock and awe message are yet to receive it. There’s only one thing worse than shock and awe; that’s shock and awe that doesn’t work because you haven’t done your homework.' 43rd Barry Marshall Memorial Lecture, Trinity College Theological School, 14 August 2013.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 20 July 2013
15 Comments
PNG is not a resettlement country, has few if any resettlement services for a refugee population and is struggling with its own serious law and order and basic services issues. Australia has subcontracted its international obligations to a former colony. Once again the poorer countries of the world are used to warehouse refugees while the richer countries cherry-pick those they deem suitable for resettlement.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 11 February 2013
16 Comments
The ad hoc nature of arrangements for asylum seekers in Nauru and PNG reveal that priorities are being determined by election dates rather than respect for human dignity and international human rights laws. The latest Coalition idea to interdict boats from Sri Lanka outside our territorial waters and send them back is particularly ill-considered.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 14 September 2012
4 Comments
In the lead up to the election, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison are sure to continue insisting that the Gillard Government's Pacific Solution Mark II will not work. In all probability this will undermine the efficacy of the Gillard Solution in stopping the boats. Read the full text of Fr Frank Brennan's address to the Migration Institute of Australia, Menzies Hotel, Sydney, 14 September 2012
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 23 August 2012
11 Comments
Behind all the legal technicalities and political argument about boat people, there is room for deeper ethical reflection and a more principled proposal. But first, to clear away some of the debris.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 26 June 2012
18 Comments
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.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 June 2012
11 Comments
The readiness of developed nations to help and receive refugees and asylum seekers has come under greater strain. Xenophobia has intensified in Europe, where Greece's Golden Dawn party threatened to expel migrants from schools and hospitals if elected.
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