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Keywords: Stop The Boats

  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia playing catch-up with latest refugee reforms

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 26 March 2012
    9 Comments

    Australia's refugee processing regime saw two major reforms take effect on Saturday. They bring Australia into line with the EU, Canada and New Zealand. The changes are welcome but do not go far enough. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The truth about airborne asylum seekers

    • John Menadue
    • 07 March 2012
    9 Comments

    The High Commissioner for Refugees has warned Australians about 'populist explanations ... and fears that are overblown'. He clearly had the Coalition in mind. One-liners and slogans don't make for credible refugee policy. Neither does recycling failed policies of the past.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Don't stoop to stupid policy over boat tragedy

    • Aloysious Mowe
    • 20 December 2011
    10 Comments

    Of course we want people to stop making the hazardous boat journey to Christmas Island, but tow-backs and off-shore processing are immoral and stupid. Australia must engage with others in the region to find ways to ensure people are not driven to make desperate journeys.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Asylum seeker Scrabble

    • 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

    The twin terrors of 2001

    • Michael Mullins
    • 05 September 2011
    8 Comments

    Before Tampa, refugees were regarded as a positive for Australia's economy and lifestyle. After Tampa they were a threat to our sovereignty that was somehow grafted on to the sense of public malaise prompted by the 9/11 attacks on the sovereignty of the United States.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Improving the refugee debate

    • 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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  • EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

    Migrant myths and memories

    • Julie McNeill
    • 24 August 2011
    4 Comments

    Sociologist Eva Cox heard all the vitriol about boat people when, as a five-year-old Jewish girl, she fled Nazi Germany and headed to Australia. My nine-year-old mother was a different kind of boat arrival: one of 135,000 'child migrants' imported under the 'Populate or Perish' policy.

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  • RELIGION

    Malaysia solution pros and cons

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 July 2011
    30 Comments

    The Malaysian solution is unprincipled, but it might just work — stopping the boats. If other countries try to replicate it, we will have to tear up the Refugee Convention and start again. And the plight of unaccompanied minors transported from our shores to Malaysia will be on our conscience. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Refugee lotto

    • 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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  • RELIGION

    Churches and the Malaysian Solution

    • Frank Brennan
    • 19 July 2011
    12 Comments

    This is not a regional solution to a regional problem, but a bilateral attempt at solving an Australian problem. To stop the boats, one needs to engage in measures contrary to the Refugee Convention. Church groups can not endorse something they know to be either unworkable or immoral.

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  • RELIGION

    Human rights and Christian lawyers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 July 2011
    5 Comments

    When I appeared on Q&A with Christopher Hitchens, a young man asked whether we can 'ever hope to live in a truly secular society' while the religious continue to 'affect political discourse and decision making' on euthanasia, same-sex unions and abortion. Hitchens was simpaticao. I was dumbstruck.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Peace in Syria will stop the boats

    • Michael Mullins
    • 27 June 2011
    3 Comments

    The international community tends to back 'democratic' revolutions, rather than national unity, in countries of the Middle East. This is good for majority populations, but Christians and other minorities can be the losers. If they're forced to flee, they become part of the 'refugee problem'.

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