Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Deterrence

  • AUSTRALIA

    'No advantage' policy more harmful than leaky boats

    • Michael Mullins
    • 26 November 2012
    20 Comments

    The Federal Government is treating asylum seekers harshly as a deterrent. If you treat people harshly, you will diminish them as human beings, and they will cease to value their own lives, and possibly even self-harm. This undermines the justification for the initial harsh treatment, which is to protect them from risky sea voyages.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    The Church is not beyond reproach

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 November 2012
    1 Comment

    'Might not the chief problem with Church language in the public square be that we tend to come from a position of moral superiority, approaching those dreadfully compromised politicians who will do anything to be elected? The abuse crisis reminds us that the Church is not irreproachable.' Text from Fr Frank Brennan's presentation at the Anglican Church of Australia's Public Affairs Commission Conference, November 2012.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Church needs state help to deal with abuse

    • Frank Brennan
    • 02 November 2012
    36 Comments

    What is to be done in the name of law and justice for the victims of abuse? Clearly the Church cannot be left alone to get its house in order. The State may have a role to play, but our elected politicians need assistance from lawyers committed to justice, not lawyers acting primarily to protect or condemn the Church.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Law and justice for abuse victims, Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 November 2012

    'Even without the political static which is drowning us all out down there in Canberra, there is real doubt whether the Gillard bluff 'Don't get on a boat because you might end up in Nauru' can do what the Howard bluff could not deliver.' Full text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's Law and Justice Oration at the Law and Justice Foundation 2012 Justice Awards Dinner, Parliament House, Sydney.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Australia takes the low road on asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 17 August 2012
    26 Comments

    All major political parties now hope they can confine people in Nauru for years on end without any prospect of court supervision and without any need for Parliament to revisit the matter. We have reached a fork in the road between decency and deterrence. As a nation we have taken the low road, inviting the newest signatory to the Refugees Convention to emulate our indecent behaviour.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Houston report's high cost of deterrence

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 August 2012
    27 Comments

    Amending the Migration Act to make the old style Pacific solution less susceptible to judicial review errs on the wrong side of decency. The Coalition and the Greens should unite in the Senate to oppose it. In the protection of the human rights of asylum seekers, deterrence must come second to decency and accountability, even when we are trying to beat people smugglers.

    READ MORE
  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Studying the health needs of refugees

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 10 August 2012
    2 Comments

    READ MORE
  • EUREKA STREET TV

    Studying the health needs of refugees

    • Peter Kirkwood
    • 10 August 2012

    'We act as if we are historically as well as geographically isolated, with no responsibilities for those who seek our assistance.' For 20 years Deborah Zion has researched ethical issues concerning vulnerable populations. Her interest began with her own family, Jews from Poland who sought refuge in Australia before World War II.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Trading fears for tears in complex asylum seeker debate

    • Fatima Measham
    • 11 July 2012
    16 Comments

    The tear-shedding in parliament over people drowning near our northwest coast was astonishing. In a decade that has seen asylum seekers demonised by policymakers, the reversal was nearly comical: asylum seekers, it turns out, are human beings. It illustrates how poorly the question of asylum has been discussed since 2001.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    More asylum seeker blood on Australia's hands

    • Susan Metcalfe
    • 13 March 2012
    16 Comments

    Reports into the death of a 28-year-old Afghan asylum seeker inside an Indonesian detention centre reveal he was bound, burned with cigarettes and beaten to death with a blunt object. The Australian Government and the Coalition must accept some responsibility for the death.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Ethical demands of a regional solution

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 June 2011
    21 Comments

    Even if the Malaysian government guaranteed the security, sustenance and education of the asylum seekers, the human dignity of those found to be refugees would still be significantly infringed. They would be unable to enter Malaysian society equally, and they have no possibility of prompt acceptance into another society.

    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