Keywords: Mandatory Detention
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RELIGION
- 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.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Menadue
- 26 July 2012
9 Comments
There is a lot of political point-scoring over whether particular countries have signed the Refugee Convention. But there is no signatory country on the route used by almost all asylum seekers fleeing to Australia. A regional framework must be built on what's available — such as the Malaysian agreement.
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AUSTRALIA
- Susan Metcalfe
- 27 June 2012
22 Comments
It should be mandatory for anyone writing on asylum seekers to spend time visiting detention centres. Many commentators ignore the hard work of those who have. Moreover the politicians are too poll driven to even explain the human desperation that leads to boat journeys.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 26 March 2012
16 Comments
Julian Burnside taunted his audience at La Trobe University in 2010 with the suggestion that we take a couple of children out of detention and publicly execute them. His point was that we are not bothered by the mental torture of children in immigration detention because it is out of sight.
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AUSTRALIA
- Lyn Bender
- 10 January 2012
9 Comments
Employed at the centre as a psychologist, I witnessed riots, hunger strikes, attempted suicides and severe depression. I realised I had a profound ethical dilemma: in being compliant to the administration, I was unable to ensure my duty of care towards these people. So I became a mole. Published 27 September 2011
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 08 November 2011
17 Comments
Last week there were three significant events affecting refugees including, tragically, more deaths. The use of language in the debate about asylum seekers is always striking, and has evolved and adapted over the years. It does not always reflect reality.
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AUSTRALIA
- Lyn Bender
- 28 September 2011
12 Comments
Employed at the centre as a psychologist, I witnessed riots, hunger strikes, attempted suicides and severe depression. I realised I had a profound ethical dilemma: in being compliant to the administration, I was unable to ensure my duty of care towards these people. So I became a mole.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 13 September 2011
19 Comments
Yesterday the Government announced it will change the Migration Act to enable the Malaysia solution to go ahead. This latest action reinforces rhetoric about queues and people smugglers that obscures the real effects and motivations of current asylum seeker policy.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 24 August 2011
4 Comments
This week as we mark the 10th anniversary of Tampa, the High Court is hearing a legal challenge to the Malaysian solution and an inquiry into suicide and self-harm in detention is underway. Meanwhile a new report hopes to change the direction of the debate on refugees.
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 27 July 2011
3 Comments
An old legal maxim is 'hard cases make bad law'. Maybe complex cases compromise policy. Refugee law and policy is complex and the Malaysian agreement signed this week is another example of a compromise on human rights principles for political expedience.
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MEDIA
Officially, the ban on journalists interviewing or filming asylum seekers in detention is for the detainees' protection. But it also stops them from sharing their stories with the public. Surely asylum seekers are capable of determining who is and is not acting in their best interests.
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AUSTRALIA
- 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'.
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