Keywords: Manus Island
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Samuel Dariol
- 23 June 2016
15 Comments
It is one thing to sit at a desk and make policies that will impact on individuals across the sea whom you do not know. It is another thing to cross the sea, to look into the eyes of people abandoned there, to meet the children and see the pictures they have drawn, and to see in their eyes terror, despair, depression and contempt. For a prime minister to go to Manus Island would require him to throw off the shroud and stare affrighted at the maggots in the flesh of the body politic.
READ MORE 
-
AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 20 June 2016
2 Comments
Mustafa speaks very good English, and his professional skills are going to help him get work in Australia. He is not going to take an 'Australian's job' - he will work and contribute to the economy, as we all try to do. Ali's situation is far less certain. He came on a boat after being approved as a refugee by the UNHCR in Indonesia. He saw no movement in resettlement from Indonesia so he came to Australia. He is one of the thousands who, if they can prove their refugee case, only get a temporary visa.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 10 June 2016
46 Comments
Sadly, the major political parties have forfeited any claim to govern in their own right because they have caused such disillusionment among so many voters about other policy issues with strong moral overtones. Any voter impressed with Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si' or inspired by his visits to asylum seekers on the islands of Lampedusa and Lesbos could not blithely vote for either of the major parties, without first determining how to place some continuing political and moral pressure on them.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Ellena Savage
- 10 June 2016
13 Comments
When my friend and I get to the payment station of the car park, it says we owe 70 bucks, which can't be right because we got the early bird special which was a quarter of that, so, nah. We call the parking lot people and they say look at the fine print, it clearly states that the early bird deal only applies if you leave the car park after 3pm. Wilson Parking is a subsidiary of a subcontractor of Transfield Services, which runs security at Nauru and Manus Island. I grow petulant and say I'll wait til 3pm.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 30 May 2016
5 Comments
'Being in the middle of an election campaign, I will not be making any partisan party political points. However being here in the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, I will conclude with a critique of both major political parties, and with one piece of political advice for citizens of goodwill seeking a national asylum policy more in harmony with the ideals set out by our bishops in their social justice statement.' Yass Catholic Parish Potluck Dinner, 28 May 2016
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Somayra Ismailjee
- 20 May 2016
33 Comments
The irony of trying to negate these stereotypes is that in doing so, we are still cheapening asylum seekers to political tools, stripping them of their humanity and multiplicity. Aiming to counter such rhetoric as Dutton's with stories of high-achieving refugees plays into a toxic game that legitimises the same negative stereotypes by engaging with them. Just as invisibility dehumanises asylum seekers, so does the hypervisibility we attribute to a select few stories.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
With PNG's Supreme Court finding last month that the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island was unconstitutional, the shamefulness of Australia's border protection policies was once again laid bare. Advocates will be familiar with the facts and arguments that Chasing Asylum articulates. What sets it apart is its wealth of hidden camera footage caught within the grim confines of the centre on Nauru, and Orner's conversations with detainees and social workers who bore witness to the dire daily reality there.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
'We have now got a world wide refugee problem. We don't have one here but we do have one world wide. It is now time to start having a rational debate about what we do with these people as opposed to playing the race card.' Interview with Anna Burke, who has represented the seat of Chisholm in the House of Representatives for the ALP since 1998. Burke is the former Speaker of the House (2012–2013), and has been a consistent advocate for asylum seekers. She will retire at the next election.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
I talk to those on Manus at all times of the day and night and make sure they are okay. Of course, they are not okay, but so far all of my friends are still alive We keep their spirits up by sending them clothes, games and keeping their phones paid-for so they can talk to their families. We keep them informed about what is going on in Australia. We do not encourage them to hurt themselves in order to put pressure on the government. We do everything possible to stop them from hurting themselves.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Kate Galloway
- 02 May 2016
23 Comments
I have often wondered at the likely success of entreaties to compassion for asylum seekers. This is not because I do not personally feel compassion for these people. And it is not because I do not believe that it is morally correct to show compassion, including through government policy. Rather my response is partly a factor of my training as a lawyer. Through my legal eyes, I can see little hope for appeals to politicians to show compassion. My conditioned response instead is to appeal to law.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Kerry Murphy
- 29 April 2016
9 Comments
This week we learnt that the human rights protection for asylum seekers in our former colony Papua New Guinea are more protected by the PNG constitution than they would be in Australia. The PNG government has quickly moved not to change the law and constitution, but to make arrangements to close the centre and ask Australia to take back the asylum seekers. Already PNG lawyers are talking about claims for compensation for the unlawful detention, and rightly so.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Frank Brennan
- 28 April 2016
33 Comments
A bench of five justices of the Supreme Court of Justice, the highest court in Papua New Guinea, has unanimously ruled that the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island is unconstitutional. Yet again, Australia has been complicit in its Pacific neighbours (PNG and Nauru) prostituting their Constitutions and undermining the rule of law in exchange for a fistful of dollars, with hapless asylum seekers, most of whom are ultimately proved to be refugees, being left to languish.
READ MORE