Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Immigration

  • AUSTRALIA

    Comic from detention illustrates lives unseen

    • Danielle Terceiro
    • 18 June 2024

    In Still Alive: Notes from Australia’s Immigration Detention System (2021), artist Safdar Ahmed shares the harrowing stories of asylum seekers through comic art. He vividly depicts their plight by incorporating artwork from a drawing group he started at Villawood Detention Centre. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Under pressure from High Court and Dutton, government rushes immigration bill

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 May 2024

    The Albanese government’s refugee and asylum policy is in a mess. When Minister Giles introduced his Migration Amendment Bill, they bypassed typical parliamentary procedures, wanting to be seen as tougher than Peter Dutton in getting unvisaed non-citizens out of the country. It’s time for the government to return to due process in this whole field. 

    READ MORE
  • ECONOMICS

    The economy is in worse shape than you think

    • David James
    • 07 March 2024
    4 Comments

    The aggregate picture of the economy may seem healthy enough after two years of heavy immigration, over 800,000, and the return of students and tourists. But the elephant in the room remains. Australia is a two-tiered society sharply divided between people who own homes and people who do not. The generational divide is worsening.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2023: How Australia's asylum seeker policy has evolved over thirty years

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 04 January 2024

    Throughout recent decades of Australian history, the stance every government has taken on asylum seekers has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    How a High Court verdict upended indefinite detention

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 08 December 2023
    4 Comments

    On 8 November, the High Court ordered a stateless Rohingya refugee known only as NZYQ to be released from detention. He could not be granted a visa because he was found gulity of sexually assaulting a minor, and he could not be sent anywhere because he is stateless. Until 8 November, he was stuck in indefinite mandatory detention.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The High Court and the detention of asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 04 December 2023
    8 Comments

    Last month, the High Court overturned a controversial 2004 decision, reaffirming the principle that asylum seekers cannot be detained indefinitely without prospects of deportation. This ruling not only corrects a historical misstep but also reasserts the High Court's commitment to limiting executive overreach.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Three steps back and one step forward: Three decades of asylum seekers in Australia

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 28 July 2023

    How has Australia's asylum seeker policy changed over the past thirty years? The approach of every government has reflected the shifting political landscapes and challenging humanitarian issues that have continually shaped Australia's response to those seeking refuge. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia ends decades-long uncertainty for thousands of refugees

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 16 February 2023
    1 Comment

    A Valentine’s Day present from the Minister for Immigration for those on temporary protection visas is a much-anticipated relief for approximately 19,000 refugees in Australia. And while a solution is welcome for these refugees, there remains around a further 10,000 whose status and future is uncertain.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    This sporting life

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 10 August 2022
    6 Comments

    It is often said that it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes interested and supportive people to encourage athletic talent. A recent documentary on the world's most successful male distance runner Sir Mo Farah raises questions around how host countries know about waste of talent and opportunity when they routinely deport asylum seekers or lock them up? 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Former detainee seeks compensation for unlawful detention

    • Maeve Elrington
    • 02 August 2022
    3 Comments

    Former detainee, Kurdish-Iranian refugee Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitabar, seeks compensation from the Federal Government for what he alleges was unlawful detention. Detained offshore in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and in Australia for almost eight years, Moz is seeking compensation in the Federal Court of Australia for the physical and emotional toll of his detention, particularly from the final 14 months of detention in two Melbourne based hotels.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Back to Bilo for a Tamil family

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 02 June 2022
    7 Comments

    The case of the Murugappan family illustrates the punitive and puritanical approach of the previous government towards human beings arriving in Australia by boat and then seeking asylum. The tone of each message clearly reflects totally different attitudes towards the people affected, with special note of the fact that Minister Chalmers rang the family to tell them, and then rang people in Biloela to pass on the news.

    READ MORE
  • 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.

    READ MORE