23 Results

An imperfect, two-pronged border protection policy that passed the House of Reps last night will ease human tragedy and lay the groundwork for better law. But will Greens obstinancy scupper the solution, asks Rob Burgess?

A year on from Australia’s deadliest shipwreck since 1890, we revisited our editorial from December 2010, written, as our opening line states, as they were “still pulling bodies from the water”, as pieces of SIEV221 splintered across the rocks of Christmas Island.

To follow is the three page memo sent to staff by the secretary of the Department of Immigration, Andrew Metcalfe, the day after the High Court decision…

Ironically, a government whose members have in the past described the Pacific Solution as inhumane relied on and failed using the same legislation because it could not guarantee basic human rights protections, says freelance writer Luke Williams.

Keane has crunched the numbers across budget and ANAO documents and calculated that our politicians’ fixation with asylum seekers arriving by boat has cost taxpayers nearly $2.4 billion since 2000.

Welcome to the parallel universe of Australian politics on asylum seekers — or more correctly a real world and a fantasy world.

With the federal government having announced a new asylum seekers deal with Malaysia, now is a good time to ditch tired rhetoric and acknowledge that terms like ‘queue jumpers’ are misleading and insensitive, writes Erdem Koc.

On Wednesday morning a large group of asylum seekers walked out of the Darwin detention centre and stood quietly by the Stuart Highway holding up bed sheets so that passing cars could read such messages as “Give us mercy.” Pamela Curr reports.

The view within Dili on Gillard’s border protection proposal, and East Timor’s role, was one of surprise — no one seems to have been forewarned, much less consulted about this proposal.

Making people smuggling legal and properly regulated would be a winner for the Australian economy and save billions on silly games such as Christmas Island.

The Onion’s take on border security — Mexicans building a wall to keep Americans out.

An email exchange about former Philip Ruddock chief of staff Ann Duffield, who is now working for Shadow Immigration minister Sharman Stone, makes for revealing reading.

The Government used the Budget to push through a significant increase in spending on counter-terrorism, national security and border protection.

This year, with a GFC-affected Budget, leaks are being used to help people — especially higher income earners — adjust to the idea that it won’t just be bonuses and handouts.

The sound bites may have shifted, but the policy around interception of asylum seekers in Indonesia never changed.

In the old days, maps of the southern seas used to warn off the unwary with the legend: Here Be Dragons. In modern times we have a new legend to frighten the gullible: Here Be Boat People.

A timeline of events in the Ashmore explosion.

The most alarming thing about our border protection arrangements in north-western Australia is not that they are insufficient, it’s that they are far in excess of what is justified.

In today’s letters section, journalist Brian Toohey questions Crikey’s use of an anonymous source and his (her!) “unsubstantiated surmise about the ‘religious nutter’ Frank Costigan.”