Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Boat People

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Boat people poems

    • Michael Sharkey and Barry Gittins
    • 19 July 2011

    Bought after the wreckage of a shoaled first marriage, the becalmed, calming painting survived a bachelor's anchorage, flotsam and jetsam, to find love. Peace. Safe, prized harbour under muted tiles and a stultifying light orb.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Back to basics on asylum seeker policy

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 23 June 2011
    2 Comments

    The Rudd Government promised positive reforms after a decade of 'boat people'-bashing from the previous government. Three years later, we are back where we were. To understand how this happened it is helpful to overview the changes under Labor and the gradual decline in 'key immigration values'.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Rednecks, bogans and bad boat people

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 23 June 2011
    13 Comments

    The participants on SBS's Go Back Where You Came From seem like rejects from a bad reality TV show and are stereotypical in their views. Some reflect on the difference between 'good' and 'bad' refugees: this false dichotomy is a sticking point for many refugee advocates too.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor worse than Howard on asylum seekers

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 May 2011
    43 Comments

    Labor has gone beyond the worst features of the Howard Government by betraying the central principle underlying any ethical refugee policy. One can only imagine what the Coalition Government that will most likely follow the next election will build on this abrogation of principle.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    In defence of people-smuggling

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 February 2011
    33 Comments

    Asylum seekers have also always needed help to make their journey to safety. Our people smugglers may be seen as distinctive in that they charge high prices for their troubles. But asylum seekers have always relied on people who exploited them.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    A tale of two funerals

    • Arnold Zable
    • 22 February 2011
    6 Comments

    SIEV X survivor Amal Basry died of cancer in 2006. By then she had received her permanent visa and was able to return to see her children, grandchildren and father in the Middle East one more time. When she returned, she expressed a wish to be buried in Australian soil.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    My refugeeness

    • Kim Huynh
    • 17 November 2010
    7 Comments

    My father would harbour a modern sense of can-do-ism and irreverence for tradition throughout his life. It was his vision of a new and better world along with the conviction that his sons had no future in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, that drove us on to that horribly overcrowded boat in 1979.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    On keeping a distance from governments

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 27 September 2010
    7 Comments

    Groups concerned for asylum seekers are now faced with bad Australian policies on asylum seekers like the regional processing centre and a harsher regime of detention. They should reject the policies but cooperate with governments to minimise the harm caused to asylum seekers by them. 

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Time for detention reform

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 24 September 2010
    9 Comments

    The recent tragic death of a man in Villawood Detention Centre has again raised questions about the need for Australia's harmful detention policy. Strong leadership is required to reform the process and abandon the 'race to the bottom' we saw during the election. 

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    Tony's boat-phone

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 18 August 2010

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Tales from the kingdom of force

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 16 August 2010
    2 Comments

    Flicking the frisbee with a well practised arm, Jimmy told me about his former home in Sri Lanka. 'Last time I was there, I was carrying bodies to their graves in my arms, even the bodies of friends.' Homer's Iliad is a poem of force in which, at all times, the human spirit is shown modified by its relations with force.

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    Campaign of caricatures

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 21 July 2010
    1 Comment

    READ MORE