Keywords: Refugee Convention
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AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 05 July 2024
There is no doubt that laws for determining refugee status and onshore protection are complex. The cases of NZYQ and ASF17 demonstrate that when laws regarding asylum and protection intersect with laws regarding character and protection of the community, the results can be extremely messy.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 24 June 2021
11 Comments
Who’d have thought that during Refugee Week, Australia’s highest court would endorse the Parliament’s view that our non-refoulement obligations under the Refugee Convention and the Convention Against Torture were now an irrelevance.
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INTERNATIONAL
- 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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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 20 November 2017
9 Comments
These sprinklings of poison through the press, with occasional mentions in New Zealand, serve two purposes: to show Australian refugee policy as sound, and offshore detention and resettlement in an unsuitable third country as appropriate; and to deflect attention from the discharge of obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 01 October 2013
35 Comments
Last Tuesday, seven West Papuan asylum seekers reached Boigu Island in the Torres Strait. Without any determination of their refugee claims, they were removed to PNG. They were not engaged in secondary movement, they were in direct flight from persecution. The Abbott Government should recommit to our obligation under the Refugees Convention to grant asylum to refugees who have entered Australia in direct flight from persecution.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 26 August 2013
5 Comments
Martin Luther King’s 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech is remembered for its vision for a future in which his children would ‘not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’. If King arrived by boat seeking asylum in Australia today, he would hope that his children would be judged not by how they got here but by the content of their character.
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AUSTRALIA
The PNG solution includes permanent exclusion from Australia in a small, poor and violent country already unable to accommodate the refugees from West Papua whom it hosts. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus claims it complies with international law. A quick glance at the much put-upon Refugee Convention suggests this is may be a rather optimistic assessment.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 31 October 2012
12 Comments
In politics, hypocrisy is a natural condition. On Tuesday, it became evident that refugee policy is the last thing that should be made by the Australian government. Gillard has now achieved something Howard could only dream of, and shown Labor can play the game of hypocrisy as well as any.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 23 August 2012
11 Comments
Behind all the legal technicalities and political argument about boat people, there is room for deeper ethical reflection and a more principled proposal. But first, to clear away some of the debris.
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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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RELIGION
- 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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