Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Christmas Island

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • AUSTRALIA

    Controlling information about child abuse

    • Michael Mullins
    • 25 August 2014
    8 Comments

    Child abuse is occurring within the Federal Government's immigration detention regime at the same time as the government sponsored Child Abuse Royal Commission is seeking to achieve justice for victims of past abuses in churches and institutions. After visiting Christmas Island, paediatrician Elizabeth Elliott said that 'when it comes to children in need, most Australians feel compassion' but compassion had 'gone missing'. What is behind our selective compassion?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Scott Morrison's conflict of interest

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 August 2014
    13 Comments

    The majority of Australians voted for a government strong on border protection. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is delivering in spades, so it seems they're prepared to turn a blind eye to disputed claims of child neglect, even if he is their legal guardian. Their only hope is that accounts of their suffering will gain the kind of exposure and momentum that led to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Catholics face Good Samaritan dilemma on Christmas Island

    • Mike Bowden
    • 24 July 2014
    23 Comments

    The implications of the Good Samaritan story are clear on Christmas Island. The evil of child imprisonment is of the Government's own doing, and it must be shamed into remedying it. Is the Catholic Education Office in Western Australia right then to provide education to these children? Catholic agencies that alleviate the harm done to those imprisoned should also make clear their condemnation of the evil of that imprisonment.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Tamils facing new atrocities in Sri Lanka

    • Paul White
    • 04 July 2014
    39 Comments

    On Monday we learned that two boats of Tamil asylum seekers had been intercepted off Christmas Island. Now there are unconfirmed reports that Australia is handing them over to the Sri Lankan navy without assessing their claims for protection. Amnesty warns Tamils face the risk of sexual violence, torture, murder, imprisonment, and enforced disappearance. Since March this year there have been scores of arrests and several deaths.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    High Court backs ministerial power over asylum seekers

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 20 June 2014
    6 Comments

    Over the last few years the High Court has made several decisions which found the Government wanting when making decisions regarding asylum seekers. Inevitably the cases are decided on the basis of whether a power was correctly applied or interpreted. Sometimes the results favoured asylum seekers, sometimes they upheld the position of the Government. A case this week in which the applicant lost may have significant consequences.

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    How to tell fibs and influence people

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 18 June 2014

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

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Refugee family suffers Cambodian curse

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 30 May 2014
    4 Comments

    It had been a long journey for the family gathered in the Cambodian office of Jesuit Refugee Service, but their search for a safe environment amidst people who would treat them kindly was not yet over. Genuine refugees set their compass for Australia expecting to find the democratic, resourceful and accountable country of which they have heard. The Coalition's reprehensible 'Cambodia solution' shows just how wrong they are.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Is our morality at sea with the refugees?

    • Frank Brennan
    • 11 April 2014
    8 Comments

    'We should abandon talk of taking Australia off the table. We should also abandon talk of taking the sugar off the table. The collateral damage of that is too great. The best we can do ethically and practically is to put the sugar out of reach while leaving it on the table for those who make it here with a visa or in direct flight from persecution.' Frank Brennan contributes to a Palm Sunday panel at St Michael's Uniting Church, Melbourne.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Bleeding hearts alone won't save asylum seekers

    • Fatima Measham
    • 28 January 2014
    21 Comments

    Those who campaign for more humane treatment of asylum seekers cannot keep assuming that the elements of the debate that matter to them most are the most persuasive. The hardest thing to accept may be that the socioeconomic anxieties for which immigration serves as proxy, as well as the insecurity and resentment generated by state impotence and political opportunism, do not necessarily make for 'bad' people.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott pays a heavy price to stop the boats

    • Tony Kevin
    • 28 January 2014
    34 Comments

    It is now weeks since any asylum seekers arrived in Australia, and under the Abbott Government there have been no reported deaths at sea involving Australian border protection interception action or failure to act. This is a striking improvement on the high death rate under the Rudd and Gillard governments. Tony Abbott has kept his pre-election promise to stop the boats, but at what huge cost!

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2013: Invisible Icarus and asylum seekers

    • Maureen O'Brien
    • 06 January 2014
    4 Comments

    With his back to the sea, the ploughman negotiates the wooden plough drawn by his horse. If he heard Icarus falling from the heavens it didn't interrupt his routine. The crew of a ship close enough to rescue the drowning boy instead takes advantage of a favourable breeze and sails away. The shepherd daydreams, the angler continues fishing. To all intents and purposes Icarus is invisible to those in his immediate vicinity.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Mishandling Indonesia

    • Tony Kevin
    • 13 November 2013
    6 Comments

    Labor has made a political meal of last week's mishandled asylum seeker rescue. But neither Bill Shorten nor Richard Marles has shown any sympathy for the asylum seekers themselves. Meanwhile the Coalition's stubbornness has set back relations with Indonesia, has it pressed ahead with its turn-back policy to the point where Indonesia had to say very publicly 'We will not tolerate this any longer.'

    READ MORE