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Keywords: Bridging Visas

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Pope takes refugee concerns on the road

    • Robin Osborne
    • 05 September 2024

    Pope Francis has frequently voiced sympathy for refugee concerns and before leaving on this trip, he reaffirmed his call for safe migration pathways for people fleeing their own countries for fear of persecution, describing any refusal to harbour asylum seekers as a ‘grave sin’.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Seeking refuge, finding red tape

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 05 July 2024

    There is no doubt that laws for determining refugee status and onshore protection are complex. The cases of NZYQ and ASF17 demonstrate that when laws regarding asylum and protection intersect with laws regarding character and protection of the community, the results can be extremely messy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2023: How Australia's asylum seeker policy has evolved over thirty years

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 04 January 2024

    Throughout recent decades of Australian history, the stance every government has taken on asylum seekers has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How a High Court verdict upended indefinite detention

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 08 December 2023
    4 Comments

    On 8 November, the High Court ordered a stateless Rohingya refugee known only as NZYQ to be released from detention. He could not be granted a visa because he was found gulity of sexually assaulting a minor, and he could not be sent anywhere because he is stateless. Until 8 November, he was stuck in indefinite mandatory detention.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The High Court and the detention of asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 04 December 2023
    8 Comments

    Last month, the High Court overturned a controversial 2004 decision, reaffirming the principle that asylum seekers cannot be detained indefinitely without prospects of deportation. This ruling not only corrects a historical misstep but also reasserts the High Court's commitment to limiting executive overreach.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hardened criminals and hardened hearts

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 September 2023

    In a better world, people who seek protection in Australia and people removed from prison would not be detained in the same detention centres. But the grounds for differential treatment are not based on the difference between guilty and innocent people; between asylum seekers and 'hardened criminals'. Both groups are worthy of respect and compassion. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Three steps back and one step forward: Three decades of asylum seekers in Australia

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 28 July 2023

    How has Australia's asylum seeker policy changed over the past thirty years? The approach of every government has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    And so this is Christmas Island

    • Farhad Bandesh
    • 14 December 2022
    3 Comments

    My name is Farhad Bandesh. For seven-and-a-half years I was not called by my name. The Australian Federal Government took it away and changed my identity to a number. I was COA 060. I am Kurdish and we are a persecuted people.

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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

    The grace of courtesy

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 June 2022
    7 Comments

    Since the Federal Election one of the most refreshing features has been the new Prime Minister’s connection with people. Whether it is shown by riding a bamboo bicycle with the Indonesian President, expressing sympathy for the Nadesilingam family for their prolonged ordeal before returning to Biloela or agreeing with Jacinda Ardern, herself a model of public empathy, about the unreasonableness of expelling to New Zealand people who had never lived there, his actions displayed a readiness to listen and to enter the experience of other people.

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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

    Back to Bilo for a Tamil family

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 02 June 2022
    7 Comments

    The case of the Murugappan family illustrates the punitive and puritanical approach of the previous government towards human beings arriving in Australia by boat and then seeking asylum. The tone of each message clearly reflects totally different attitudes towards the people affected, with special note of the fact that Minister Chalmers rang the family to tell them, and then rang people in Biloela to pass on the news.

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