Australian National Imams Council said opposition leader’s comments were ‘designed to inflame tensions’
Australia’s peak body representing Muslims has labelled comments by Peter Dutton over pro-Palestine protests “dangerous, divisive, misleading and grossly irresponsible”.
The Australian National Imams Council spokesperson, Bilal Rauf, also rejected the opposition leader’s “broad, sweeping” call for the visas of antisemitic protesters to be cancelled.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Papua New Guinea official accuses Australia of abandoning 70 men but government maintains it has no responsibility for them
Refugees exiled to Papua New Guinea a decade ago will be sent back to Australia if the Australian government fails to continue funding PNG’s humanitarian program, Port Moresby’s most senior migration official has warned.
PNG’s chief migration officer, Stanis Hulahau, said the refugees had been abandoned by Australia and the PNG businesses that had been housing and caring for the men were owed tens of millions of dollars.
Continue reading...Commonwealth agrees to settle with more than 120 Indonesians wrongly detained as adult people smugglers, some when they were as young as 12
The Australian government has agreed to pay more than $27m to Indonesians who were wrongly detained or prosecuted as adult people smugglers while they were children using a deeply flawed wrist X-ray technique.
The commonwealth this week agreed to settle a class action brought by the Indonesians, some who were as young as 12 when they were locked up in adult prisons and prosecuted in adult courts as people smugglers between 2010 and 2012 during the highly charged political climate around border protection.
Continue reading...Shift to ‘last in, first out’ processing aims to break the business model of those making unmeritorious claims, immigration minister says
The Albanese government will attempt to turn the tables on people making unmeritorious asylum claims by shifting to a “last in, first out” application processing system.
The immigration minister, Andrew Giles, will announce a $160m package to tackle the backlog of asylum claims, including $54m to prioritise processing new claims, an attempt to break the business model of those suggesting junk claims as a means to remain in Australia.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Guardian Australia understands the group – believed to be 11 people – was intercepted in September and taken to the Pacific nation
A group of asylum seekers who attempted to arrive in Australia by boat has been sent to Nauru just months after the last people were removed from immigration detention on the Pacific nation.
Guardian Australia understands that a group of asylum seekers was intercepted in September and taken to Nauru. Staff of International Health and Medical Services have been asked to work on Nauru to provide health services to the cohort, believed to number 11.
Continue reading...Lawyers for stateless Rohingya refugee seek to overturn 20-year-old precedent that allows those who can’t be deported to be kept detained
Australia’s system of indefinite immigration detention is set to be challenged in a bid to overturn a 20-year-old high court precedent keeping hundreds of people who can’t be deported in detention.
Lawyers for NZYQ, the pseudonym of a stateless Rohingya refugee, have told the high court their client, aged 28 to 30, “may potentially be detained for life” unless it rules that people can only be held temporarily to facilitate their deportation.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Former Manus Island detainees facing loss of accommodation, but the Australian government claims it is no longer responsible for their welfare
Refugees exiled to Papua New Guinea by Australia have been told they will be evicted from their Australian-sponsored accommodation after bills were not paid for more than a year.
The refugees and asylum seekers were formerly detained within Australia’s Manus Island detention centre before it was ruled unlawful and ordered shut by PNG’s supreme court. About 70 men remain held in PNG, most in rented accommodation in Port Moresby.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Canterbury Road fire: firetrucks wetting down area
Supt Adam Dewberry with Fire and Rescue NSW has just provided us with an update on the factory fire on Canterbury Road in Sydney’s south-west.
Vacancy rates under 1% in most of these suburbs show the immense strain on housing availability. When you’re allocating nearly half your income on rent … the financial stress becomes unbearable.
Our index is more than just numbers; it’s a call to action. Policymakers and stakeholders need to acknowledge this growing crisis.
The relentless climb in rent and plummeting vacancy rates are not just statistics but indicators of a quality of life that is rapidly deteriorating for Australian renters.
Continue reading...Breach, discovered by Guardian Australia, resulted in information being used to allegedly threaten some in detention
The Australian government may be liable for tens of millions of dollars in compensation to asylum seekers after it posted their personal details online while they were in immigration detention.
The mass data breach, discovered by Guardian Australia in 2014, resulted in information being used, in some cases, to allegedly threaten asylum seekers, or persecute and even jail their family members.
Continue reading...Exclusive: 2020 report told of risk to detainees’ health from indefinite detention and sending ‘prison hardened’ cohort into system
Peter Dutton’s home affairs department was warned that immigration detention was “failing” by an independent review but options to reduce reliance on detention were “not progressed”.
The report by the former secretary of the attorney general’s department, Robert Cornall, found that visa cancellations sent “prison hardened detainees” into immigration detention and warned this may breach the Australian government’s duty of care to other detainees including asylum seekers.
Continue reading...Reports about China’s ‘influence’ made public more suspicious of Chinese-Australian communities, according to 70% of respondents to UTS survey
First-generation migrants from China believe Australian media reporting has fuelled unfriendly or suspicious attitudes towards them, new research shows.
The report, published by the University of Technology Sydney, explores the hopes and fears of members of Chinese Australian communities, including a parent whose child came home from school asking: “Mum, is China going to invade us?”
Continue reading...Company formerly known as Polytrade fined more than $375,000 in the federal court
Refugees and asylum seekers employed to sort rubbish were systematically exploited and underpaid by one of the biggest recycling organisations in Victoria.
A recycling company formerly known as Polytrade, a linked subsidiary, and its owners, were fined more than $375,000 in the federal court this month, over what a judge described as “obnoxious conduct” and a “cavalier disregard” for the law, grossly underpaying migrant workers who spoke little English and were vulnerable to exploitation.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: The government has reached a confidential settlement with Barati’s family, who say they ‘fought for justice for Reza’
The Australian government has reached a confidential settlement with the family of the refugee Reza Barati, nine years after he was murdered by guards inside the Manus Island detention centre, and two years after his parents sued over his death.
Barati was 23 when he was beaten to death by guards and other contractors during a violent rampage inside the Australian-run offshore detention centre in February 2014. His assailants attacked him with a length of timber spiked with nails, repeatedly kicked and punched him once he had fallen and dropped a large rock on his head.
Continue reading...Business Council of Australia wants migration to be more business-friendly and rejects concerns of a surge in arrivals
Big business has sided with the Albanese government by rejecting the “misconception” that migration is higher than normal and the “disingenuous” claim by the Coalition that Labor is pursuing a big Australia policy.
In a report titled Migration Makes Australia Stronger, to be released on Thursday, the Business Council of Australia calls for reforms to make migration more business-friendly and rejects concerns about a surge in arrivals after Covid border closures were lifted.
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Continue reading...Federal police say they did not tell then home affairs minister name of man who was subject of Nauru investigation or that department had contracts with him
Australian federal police investigating an Australian citizen for allegedly bribing politicians on Nauru have told a Senate estimates hearing they did not tell the then home affairs minister his department was paying the man’s company multimillion-dollar accommodation contracts at the same time, because it was not “custom and practice”.
The AFP says it knew a company linked to Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani had multiple ongoing contracts with the home affairs department when it briefed the then home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, on its Nauru foreign bribery investigation on 12 July 2018.
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Continue reading...Neil Para and his wife and two eldest children have been on a temporary protection visa since they arrived in Australia in 2012
For 11 years, Neil Para’s life has been riddled with uncertainty.
He fled war-torn Sri Lanka for Malaysia in 2008 in search of a safer life for his growing family, temporarily leaving his pregnant wife behind.
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Continue reading...Abdellatif remains in Australian immigration detention, where he has been held for a decade thanks to security assessments tainted by evidence obtained under torture
An Egyptian refugee detained by Australia for more than a decade has been cleared by Asio of being a security threat, but the home affairs department continues to stall on his release.
Sayed Abdellatif arrived in Australia by boat in 2012, seeking asylum with his wife and children. Australia has recognised he has a well-founded fear of being persecuted and cannot be forced to return to his home country. But he has been denied a visa on the basis of tainted security assessments and held in immigration detention.
Continue reading...The woman managed to secure a safe haven visa but not her parents and brother, who escaped with her to Australia
The family of a woman who fled Iran after facing the death penalty for escaping an arranged marriage has been granted the chance to stay with her in Australia.
Despite an Immigration Assessment Authority decision to deport the woman’s parents and brother, the federal circuit court has ruled the trio should have their application for asylum reviewed.
Continue reading...Police extend search for Andrew Findlay after body of art dealer Tim Klingender was found. This blog is now closed
A man and woman will face court today in Melbourne accused of murder after the body of a man in his 40s was found in a city street, AAP reports.
Police say the charges follow an alleged incident at a home near Glen Waverley train line in Binalong Avenue, Chadstone on Tuesday, where a man in his 40s was fatally assaulted.
It can be a sensitive and confronting topic for many people so it is important that any future legislation is done through intensive and thorough consultation with all Territorians.
This is an imperative step forward for the Territory and I am honoured to play my part in this important consultation process.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Australian government is refusing to say how much it is giving Papua New Guinea under the agreement
The Australian government is refusing to say how much it is paying to Papua New Guinea in a secret agreement to hold about 75 refugees and asylum seekers in Port Moresby.
Parliamentary documents have revealed for the first time this week that the Morrison government signed a “confidential bilateral agreement” with PNG in December 2021, paying the PNG government to provide welfare and support for refugees forcibly sent to PNG by Australia.
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