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Keywords: Refugee Policy

  • 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

    When ‘Good Refugees’ are admitted

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 21 March 2022
    12 Comments

    While Australia has developed into a multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan state based on immigration and humanitarian intakes, the country has never gotten away from the sense that some are simply more welcome than others. Be they migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers, preferential treatment abounds.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What is a just outcome for the Biloela family?

    • Paul Cutler
    • 24 August 2021
    21 Comments

    I believe in the rule of law and I appreciate that the proper application of the law does not always produce a fair or popular result. I also believe that Australia's refugee policy is too harsh and deeply flawed. However, that policy is bipartisan and appears to be inexplicably popular. The same 'fortress Australia' mentality is evident in our efforts to contain Covid-19.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The inhumane logic of Australia’s refugee deterrence policy

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 June 2021
    32 Comments

    Deterrence has an inner logic that we can see in Australian treatment of people who seek protection. In the first place it tends to become increasingly brutal. Each breach of policy must be met with a more effective deterrent.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    New Home Affairs Minister has opportunities for compassion

    • Claire Victory
    • 08 April 2021
    8 Comments

    The treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum calls for a determined response on the back of years of poor public policy that has led to the misery of thousands and cost Australian taxpayers billions. I stand to support the Minister in the early days of her new role to make compassionate and sensible decisions, to find a different path for the resolution of the challenges she faces.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Separating refugee policy from politics

    • Carolina Gottardo and Nishadh Rego
    • 06 June 2019
    17 Comments

    The recent federal election showed us that refugees and people seeking asylum do not need to be instrumentalised for votes. Perhaps refugee policymaking could be separated from politics. Perhaps it could be evidence-based and humane. Alas, the prevailing frames and politics of border protection quickly came to the fore post-election.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Policy, not paranoia, is the antidote to Trump

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 26 March 2019
    3 Comments

    The Mueller investigation was meant to be the confirmation of every parochial instance of anti-Trumpism. The mechanism was the supposed Russian connection. It provided a perfect distraction on domestic politics, taking attention away from debates on refugees and borders and discussions on poverty and social reform.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A new standard for asylum seeker policy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 February 2019
    26 Comments

    We are all gearing up for the third election in a row when boat turnbacks and the punitive treatment of refugees and asylum seekers feature. It need not be so. It’s time voters sent a message that it should not be so.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Two sides to Morrison's Rohingya tears

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 November 2018
    7 Comments

    Many who are appalled by the sufferings inflicted on people who seek protection in Australia under a policy for whose design and administration Morrison was responsible, saw his tears over the plight of Rohingya refugees as hypocritical. Both Morrison's tears and his critics' varying responses to them merit reflection.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    How we decide if asylum seekers lie

    • Douglas McDonald-Norman
    • 14 September 2018
    6 Comments

    In the five years I worked in refugee law, some of the most complicated challenges I encountered were questions regarding the 'truthfulness' or 'credibility' of an asylum seeker's claims. These subjective findings of credibility can make the difference between a person being granted asylum or being turned away.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A Migrant and Refugee Week stocktake

    • Carolina Gottardo and Nishadh Rego
    • 20 August 2018
    13 Comments

    This remarkable policy of what Dr Eve Lester calls 'planned destitution' combines the most extreme instincts of neoliberal, nationalist and authoritarian thinking. Fundamentally, it derives from the Minister for Home Affairs' far reaching powers to determine the rights and entitlements of non-citizens such as people seeking asylum.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Whatever happened to 'kindness to strangers'?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 July 2018
    14 Comments

    It has become clear that the brutal Australian treatment of people who seek protection is part of an international punitive policy. This is sometimes attributed to a failure of political leadership. But it may reflect a deeper cultural change in the Western attitude to strangers, seen in migrant and refugee policy, penal policy, international relations and the scope of the rule of law.

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