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Keywords: Borders

  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor's Operation Sovereign Borders dilemma

    • Tony Kevin
    • 25 May 2015
    19 Comments

    The week’s dreadful Rohingya asylum seeker tragedy prompted an eventual softened response from our neighbours, but not Australia. The current government’s record of stopping boat arrivals and deaths at sea stands in stark contrast to that of Labor during its period of office, when at least 1100 asylum seekers died at sea.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australia's friendship with Indonesia is bruised but should not break

    • Emily Mitchell
    • 01 May 2015
    13 Comments

    Today, the relationship between Indonesia and Australia — the 'most important relationship' espoused by our Prime Minister — is aching. People are saying we must boycott Bali, that we must not go to Indonesia. While I understand these sentiments, I do not think this is the answer. To stay within our borders would only maintain the status quo. Instead we must embrace our neighbours and rekindle our friendship.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Europe's more humane approach to on-water matters

    • Ellena Savage
    • 24 April 2015
    13 Comments

    Australian references to 'boat people' is simplistic and offensive. 'Queue jumper' inaccurate and moralising. Even the term 'asylum seeker' has become politically complicit. European coverage of this week's Mediterranean boat tragedy describes the victims and survivors simply as 'migrants', which is an open description of a person on a boat crossing borders.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The Kurds: fighting the good fight?

    • William Gourlay
    • 23 September 2014
    6 Comments

    Turkey and Iran, the two major regional powers against whose borders ISIS jostles, have, each for their own reasons, declined to participate militarily in President Obama's action against ISIS. The likelihood or benefits of working in concert with Iran can be debated long and hard, but in the meantime the Kurds clearly emerge as the immediate go-to allies. Positioning them as such, and arming them, will change the dynamics of the region.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Fatal cost of shutting borders

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 September 2014
    28 Comments

    From the perspective of Australian policy, both Hamid Kehazaei's death and the loss of the Red Cross contract to support asylum seekers give value for money. When we are dealing with people, however, values other than economic efficiency may come to mind.

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  • CARTOON

    Just what the spin doctor ordered

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 27 August 2014

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Toxic politics endure as Morrison gets nosy with the Navy

    • Ray Cassin
    • 19 February 2014
    22 Comments

    Scott Morrison is the first Immigration Minister to inspect ADF facilities. There has always been cooperation between the Defence Force and other government agencies, but Operation Sovereign Borders has radically changed the playing field. Indonesia's politicians might relish the irony of seeing in Australia an increasing interpenetration of military and civilian hierarchies — something that Australians used to see as a fault in Indonesia.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Border protection silence is deadly

    • Tony Kevin
    • 25 September 2013
    9 Comments

    During the election campaign, both major parties made much of their humanitarian concern to stop drownings by stopping the boats. Scott Morrison offered no words on this during the first Operation Sovereign Borders briefing on Monday. Nor did Labor's official commentators. Deaths at sea have apparently dropped off the radar — at least until the next maritime tragedy, which both parties will no doubt exploit to score points.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Border protection transparency under Abbott

    • Tony Kevin
    • 11 September 2013
    13 Comments

    Labor's humanitarian achievements included routinely distributing media releases announcing every boat interception and every incident of assistance to boats in difficulty at sea. It would be tragic if under Operation Sovereign Borders the Coalition abandoned the present degree of public transparency and accountability for deaths in border protection operations on the spurious pretext that these are matters of national security.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's nebulous borders

    • Brian Toohey
    • 04 September 2012
    3 Comments

    Looking at a map of the Australian coastline gives no clue about how far Australia's territorial claims extend. As a result, Australian policy makers aren't eager to embrace suggestions that Asian countries disputing possession of small islands and rocky outcrops should resolve their differences by assigning ownership to the closest country.

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  • RELIGION

    Principles for a coherent refugee policy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 04 November 2011
    13 Comments

    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. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Sudan's moment of hope and fear

    • Jack de Groot
    • 21 December 2010
    1 Comment

    Sudan's referendum on 9 January could bring much-needed change to a region plagued by instability. But it is just as likely to lead to violent turmoil that has the potential to reach far beyond the country's borders and involve many African nations in a bloody conflict. The world must prepare.

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