Peter Mares is a long time follower of refugee issues and critic of the problems inherent in the former government’s approach to asylum seekers in boats. He wrote a piece in The Age which emphasised a point about the Howard’s government asylum policies which does not get highlighted enough. former treasurer Peter Costello wrote in these pages that the only way to prevent asylum seekers coming to Australia by ...
Given all the speculation and commentary about the two boats with Tamil asylum seekers aboard currently in Indonesia, I thought it would be helpful to publish some basic facts about the people. This information comes from Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne, a person I've found to very reliable on these sorts of things - certainly far more so than anonymous, speculative or presumptive ...
I had the following piece published this week at New Matilda and at Online Opinion. One interesting aspect (at least for me) of publishing a piece on a few different websites is seeing how different the comment threads can be responding to the same piece.
Having explored and debated the issue of asylum seekers arriving in boats for well over a decade, there are really only two solutions which I can see that are likely to work in the longer term - and they will inevitably be only partial solutions. The first is to resolve the issues which cause people to flee in the first place. This is usually hard to do, because (a) ...
Refugees in Rocky In amongst the antagonism and angst that can surround debates about refugees, whether here or overseas, it is good to see a good news story about the positives for a family that has settled here in Queensland, and their keenness to start contributing to the community and economy in their new home. http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2009/10/06/families-safe-from-congo-war-horror/ This piece from the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin tells the story of 13 refugees originally ...
Wednesday night politics in Brisbane Two forums are being held in Brisbane tomorrow night which may be of interest to some. One is a forum to debate Integrity & Accountability in Queensland. It is being held at the Irish Club, 175 Elizabeth St from 6pm. Speakers include former state Attorney-General, Linda Lavarch, journalist Tony Koch, Brian Stewart from the Urban Development Institute. The other forum is examining some of the current issues ...
A couple more pieces about asylum seekers & Malaysia The Taiwan News http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1009086〈=eng_news reports that “Malaysian authorities have arrested five immigration officers suspected of selling ‘illegal’ immigrants from Myanmar to human traffickers” – reportedly the “first time Malaysia has found evidence that government officials were involved in forced labour exploitation” Meanwhile, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25797512-7583,00.html Mike Steketee from The Australian lays out some basic facts that must be taken into account with the current ...
The political responses to asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat is starting to focus more and more on other countries in our region. Until recently this has mostly involved Indonesia, but Malaysia is now being mentioned more frequently. I recently wrote a piece for Crikey and also had a letter published in The Australian detailing some of the serious human rights abuses inflicted on asylum seekers and ...
I had an article published in the main Crikey e-newsletter today, outlining some of the trends, facts and government responses to the well over 40 million refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless people around the world. It seems likely the issue of asylum seeker boat arrivals will once again be moving closer to the political centre stage in Australia, even though these currently number less than 1000 out of ...
The Sydney Leadership Program is a leadership development program run by the Benevolent Society for the last ten years. A Queensland based version is being run for the first time later this year. Last week I got the chance to speak for an hour with a group of people undertaking a two day session they were spending in Canberra as part of the program. You can find out ...
A post by Nayano at a Possie in Aussie drew my attention to a story in The Agedetailing a visit by a Federal Government's security adviser “to Malaysia and Sri Lanka to negotiate ways to stop the flow of asylum seekers to Australia.” Many asylum seekers go via Malaysia to Indonesia where they try to apply with the UNHCR for recognition as a refugee and/or try to get on a ...
It is disturbing to see that the Liberal Party is giving consideration to supporting the reintroduction of on Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) for refugees. The TPV was one of the most punishing, least effective and most counter-productive measures of the former government's aimed at reducing the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat. It had the opposite effect. Bringing them back would not help anybody - here or ...
The tragic explosion on a boatload filled with refugees from Afghanistan has generated another war of words over asylum seeker policies in Australia. Ive written a piece on this over at Crikey, which you can read by clicking here. We've had enough debate on this site about asylum seeker issues lately, so I'll leave comments off here. Comments can be made over at that site.
I’m speaking at a workshop being held at the University of Queensland tonight (Wednesday) on the history of Australia’s treatment of refugees and the involvement of the UN in that. Australia has an interesting and very mixed history in the way we have treated refugees and asylum seekers, from the extremely good to the atrociously bad. It is one of a number of workshops being organised by local members of ...
I wrote in June about a screening of a film called Hope - the story of Amal Basry, an Iraqi woman who was one of the few survivors of the sinking of the SIEV-X refugee boat. The film is being shown again in Brisbane at 6.30pm on Saturday 6th December – Human Rights Day – at the Metro Arts cinema, 109 Edward St in the city. I’ll be speaking before ...
The latest figures show that in 2007-08, Burma became the single greatest source country of refugees brought into Australia under our humanitarian program - 2 961 out of a total of 10 799. Regionally, the intake split fairly evenly between people from Middle-East and south west Asia, people from the rest of Asia and people from Africa. The media release from Minister Chris Evans states that the first ...
After many years and hundreds of millions of dollars, the new immigration jail detention centre on Christmas Island has finally been completed – and of course stands empty. A range of community based human rights organisations were recently able to inspect the detention centre. This report on the Amnesty International website gives a good idea of how wasteful and inappropriate the facility is. I have always been baffled by ...
Michelle Grattan reports on a poll which asserts that the “majority of Australians think the country is taking too many refugees” and also found Australians still retain a hardline attitude towards asylum seekers, with less than a quarter of respondents (24%) saying past policy on asylum seekers had been too tough, while 62% said it had been right or not tough enough.
A couple of good articles in Brisbane’s News Limited papers over the weekend about the challenges facing newly arrived refugees in the Brisbane region (although no doubt the issues are similar elsewhere).
It is wonderful to see the news that the federal government plans to finally scrap mandatory indefinite immigration detention and adopt the common sense (and much cheaper) approach that people should not be locked up for extended periods just because they are without a valid visa, unless there are compelling reasons to do so. Immigration Minister Chris Evans’ speech outlining the changes is available here. It is worth reading ...
Next,
This line from David Marr is one of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of the farcical sound and fury which is Question Time in the House of Representatives:
It’s a bit like an RSPCA pound: never free of the spectre of being put down, the dogs bark and howl to attract attention.(0)
For those interested in basic facts about temperature trends in Australia and globally over recent decades, there is a great post over at Lavartus Prodeo by Brian Banisch, who has been following the data and the various scientific reports on this issue for a long time. Very much worth having a read of for those who are just wanting some facts.
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Many not for profit and charity groups have got a lot smarter over the years in tapping into some of the large amounts of money that get spent over Christmas. Christmas catalogues full of gifts for good cause groups have become widespread. In recent times, that has extended to bypassing a present all together, and giving someone a donation which actually goes direct to the good cause. This form of fundraising is now also tapping into social media, so much so that even my humble blog gets occasional requests to promote a cause from people who specifically target the avenues of social media to widen their reach. Here’s one example I recently received on behalf of World Vision.
More... (4)I’ve posted a piece over at The Stump about the links between global hunger and climate change, and the unfortunate parallels between the less than successful climate change summit in Copenhagen and an even more dismal outcome at the recent Hunger Summit in Rome, which received far less attention.
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Following are links to some items I’ve had published on other sites
More... (0)Disclaimer: The inclusion of a blog or website in this list should not be taken as an endorsement of its contents by me.
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