There is a Tamil man from the north of Sri Lanka, sitting in an Immigration detention facility in Victoria. He has been assessed as a refugee but is not allowed to be released.
Asylum seekers
How our detention centres are run: the government’s contract with Serco
Serco is the company that runs detention centres in Australia. New Matilda uncovers for the official contract between Serco and the Department of Immigration, outlining the experience required of Serco staff and how it deals with issues of detainee depression.
The consequences of turning boats back: SIEV towback cases
Twenty-seven people are feared dead after an boat packed with asylum seekers bound for Australia sank off the coast of Indonesia last week.
People smugglers, Indonesian fishermen and our ‘extreme green’ policy
People smugglers arrested for delivering people to Australian shores are predominantly Indonesian fishermen, who had their fishing grounds taken from them by Australia in 1989, writes Crikey naturalist Lionel Elmore.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Delegitimising unions
Crikey reads have their say.
Who wins when it comes to mandatory detention?
The idea that the indefinite detention of people in privately run prison-style facilities could ever be any other than antithetical good mental heath outcomes is highly problematic, writes Robin Cameron.
Asylum seekers: the sinking of SIEV X and the boats that never make it here
Australians have a right to know the true causes of these very occasional tragic failures, in our usually very safe national intelligence-based detection and interception system, writes former diplomat Tony Kevin.
UNHCR data reveals the shifting burden of asylum seekers
It’s easy to be misled by asylum claim figures. The global numbers don’t matter as much as where asylum seekers are coming from.
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Misinformation and onshore processing
Onshore processing: Sandi Logan, Immigration spokesman writes: Re. “Crikey clarifier: what’s a bridging visa?” (14 October, item 3) & Marion Le (Monday, comments). There has plenty of misinformation circulating since last week’s announcement of a move towards onshore processing and Crikey, Marion Le and Jennifer Burn have got some of it wrong too. 1) Those […]
Mandatory detention is not the problem, the label is
As soon as we interpret mandatory detention as a model that removes freedom of movement and must be in place for the entire length of time of the processing of a protection application that could take years, then we run into trouble, writes Caz Coleman, of the Council for Immigration Services and Status Resolution.
Gillard lectures over leaks
Crikey media wrap: The latest government criticisms come from the prime minister herself, with Julia Gillard publicly reprimimanding her colleagues for breaching cabinet confidentiality last week on a debate about asylum seekers.
Political snippets: An opportunity missed.
If the Labor Government really does believe that using Nauru to process boat people would not work as a deterrent to people smugglers then why the hell didn’t it agree with Tony Abbott’s proposed legislative amendment?
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: A new era of onshore processing
Crikey readers have their say.
Crikey Clarifier: What’s a bridging visa?
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced an increase in the amount of bridging visas given to asylum seekers to clear out the crowded detention centres. But how do they work?
Govt flips and supports onshore
processing
Crikey media wrap: Australia will now process all asylum seekers onshore, despite both the government and Opposition supporting offshore processing for those that come by boat.
Crook sinks House of Reps vote on Malaysia deal
The Labor Party appears to be stringing out debate on a number of relatively non-consequential bills in the House of Representatives this morning to avoid a vote on its controversial Malaysia refugee swap legislation.
Calling for onshore processing is not enough
How will we build an onshore system that does not permanently damage asylum seekers who will become future citizens? asks Caz Coleman, of the Council for Immigration Services and Status Resolution.
Tony Nahal deserves to stay — whatever the tabloids say
Antoun (Tony) Nahal, his wife, mother-in-law and six-year-old daughter face deportation to Egypt as early as this week — despite the fact that daughter Rita was born here and the others have lived in Australia since 2004.
Dancing in detention: an asylum seeker’s story
An asylum seeker’s story reveals the human side of the boat debate, an intimate account of how mental illness is fomented in detention centres, writes freelance journalist Jacob Moss.
Media debate on boats doesn’t hold water
One of the most curious arguments over the past decade of refugee madness has been the idea that treating refugees humanely and according to our international treaty obligations is to encourage people smugglers.
Media briefs: UK Labour to tighten media … Rupert sells home …
Why the media debate doesn’t hold water, a dash of class war in today’s Front Page of the Day and other media news from around the globe.
podcast Canberra Calling: The stopping the boats podcast
Crikey’s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane and Crikey editor Sophie Black discuss the Opposition’s refusal to support the government’s offshore processing amendments.
Politics is a Sisyphean ordeal, and Gillard’s ideal for it
A decided ennui has overtaken Canberra, or at least the Press Gallery. There’s a general sense that politics at the moment is truly wretched, a Sisyphean ordeal.
Deadlock over Malaysia policy
Crikey media wrap: After a day of arguments over amendments to the Migration Act, the Gillard government remain at a political standstill on asylum seeker processing, with onshore processing currently the only viable refugee policy.
More sloppy thinking on asylum seekers
It is possible to deter asylum seeker boat arrivals while meeting and exceeding our humanitarian obligations. But no one has put the policy together yet.
