Refugee Update
Child detainee mental trauma will last, immigration healthcare provider warns (GA, 18 January 2016)
The impact of refugee detention: a true story (Independent Australia, 12 June 2016)
'We are the forgotten people': the anguish of Australia's 'invisible' asylum seekers (GA, 13 April 2016) "Nearly 29,000 asylum seekers are in Australia on temporary 'bridging visas'. These people may be free from detention but - with many denied education, healthcare and the right to work - they remain locked in desperate poverty and with no idea what their futures hold." | Turnbull Government confirms over 28,000 asylum seeker cases unprocessed (ABC, 11 April 2016) | 'Deliberate ploy': Refugees waiting years for citizenship under Turnbull government (AMH, 7 April 2016) The Saturday Paper (5 September 2015) describes this thus: Secret freeze on refugee citizenship processes.
Some good news, at least, when it comes to refugees given permanent visas: Most refugees feel welcome in Australia but housing among greatest hurdles (GA, 1 February 2016). Lotsa stats.
More stats, from the Refugee Council of Australia: Economic Migrants or Refugees?
Paris Aristotle, an advisor who helped put the Pacific Solution in place, has called on the goverment not to use refugees as "human shields" against people smuggling. "...in establishing these arrangements they were meant to be interim and short term and they were precursors into building a wider regional protection framework. It was never envisaged that we would leave people there for long long periods of time... while we have to deal with people smuggling and the government has been doing that, we also then can't resort to strategies ultimately that enable refugee children, women, and men to be used as some form of a human shield against people smuggling..." Aristotle is executive director of the Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture, which has issued a statement urging the government to resettle the refugees in offshore detention.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten says Labor 'open' to resettling refugees in New Zealand (GA, 24 August 2016) Personally I believe it's Australia responsibility to accept them, but the main thing is getting them the hell off Manus and Nauru.
We can resettle refugees in Australia and it's not just wishful thinking. This is how (GA, 5 September 2015) "Australia is also the only country to have deleted all references to the refugee convention from its domestic law. Instead, it has replaced them with a 'self-contained statutory framework' setting out Australia's own interpretation of its protection obligations under the refugee convention. International law makes clear that states do not have the right to auto-interpret their treaty obligations."
The eyes of the world: Australians rally against refugee detention centres (Al Jazeera, 28 August 2016)
The Science Behind Why Most Australians Feel Okay About Tormenting Asylum Seekers (junkee.com, 1 February 2016). How "moral disengagement" cancels out our shame and guilt, and how politicians use it.
A different type of detention (junkee.com, 31 August 2016). What asylum seeker detention looks like in Sweden. "I was surprised to see that [the centre] had no fences and no security guards. The doors weren't padlocked and the surrounds weren't barb-wired. As a foreign freelance journalist it was easy to access the centre, I just had to explain my photo project to the manager and I was free to go ahead with it as I felt necessary - no questions asked. They trusted me." Journalists are barred from Australia's detention centres because this might in a way our government declines to specify, assist people smugglers. (I guess the horror of voters would be more damaging than the horror of potential people smugglees.)
The impact of refugee detention: a true story (Independent Australia, 12 June 2016)
'We are the forgotten people': the anguish of Australia's 'invisible' asylum seekers (GA, 13 April 2016) "Nearly 29,000 asylum seekers are in Australia on temporary 'bridging visas'. These people may be free from detention but - with many denied education, healthcare and the right to work - they remain locked in desperate poverty and with no idea what their futures hold." | Turnbull Government confirms over 28,000 asylum seeker cases unprocessed (ABC, 11 April 2016) | 'Deliberate ploy': Refugees waiting years for citizenship under Turnbull government (AMH, 7 April 2016) The Saturday Paper (5 September 2015) describes this thus: Secret freeze on refugee citizenship processes.
Some good news, at least, when it comes to refugees given permanent visas: Most refugees feel welcome in Australia but housing among greatest hurdles (GA, 1 February 2016). Lotsa stats.
More stats, from the Refugee Council of Australia: Economic Migrants or Refugees?
Paris Aristotle, an advisor who helped put the Pacific Solution in place, has called on the goverment not to use refugees as "human shields" against people smuggling. "...in establishing these arrangements they were meant to be interim and short term and they were precursors into building a wider regional protection framework. It was never envisaged that we would leave people there for long long periods of time... while we have to deal with people smuggling and the government has been doing that, we also then can't resort to strategies ultimately that enable refugee children, women, and men to be used as some form of a human shield against people smuggling..." Aristotle is executive director of the Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture, which has issued a statement urging the government to resettle the refugees in offshore detention.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten says Labor 'open' to resettling refugees in New Zealand (GA, 24 August 2016) Personally I believe it's Australia responsibility to accept them, but the main thing is getting them the hell off Manus and Nauru.
We can resettle refugees in Australia and it's not just wishful thinking. This is how (GA, 5 September 2015) "Australia is also the only country to have deleted all references to the refugee convention from its domestic law. Instead, it has replaced them with a 'self-contained statutory framework' setting out Australia's own interpretation of its protection obligations under the refugee convention. International law makes clear that states do not have the right to auto-interpret their treaty obligations."
The eyes of the world: Australians rally against refugee detention centres (Al Jazeera, 28 August 2016)
The Science Behind Why Most Australians Feel Okay About Tormenting Asylum Seekers (junkee.com, 1 February 2016). How "moral disengagement" cancels out our shame and guilt, and how politicians use it.
A different type of detention (junkee.com, 31 August 2016). What asylum seeker detention looks like in Sweden. "I was surprised to see that [the centre] had no fences and no security guards. The doors weren't padlocked and the surrounds weren't barb-wired. As a foreign freelance journalist it was easy to access the centre, I just had to explain my photo project to the manager and I was free to go ahead with it as I felt necessary - no questions asked. They trusted me." Journalists are barred from Australia's detention centres because this might in a way our government declines to specify, assist people smugglers. (I guess the horror of voters would be more damaging than the horror of potential people smugglees.)