There is a schism between older African migrants – who think Australia is ‘the greatest country in the world’ – and those who came here young or grew up here
This is the fourth in a six-part series on life inside Melbourne’s high-rise public housing. Read the third part here.
Nor Shanino would get into big debates with his father, Idris, an Eritrean refugee, about the police and the country.
Continue reading...Prime minister Scott Morrison cancels extradition treaty citing the new national security law as ‘a fundamental change of circumstances’
China has accused Australia of “gross interference” after Scott Morrison granted a range of visa holders from Hong Kong a five-year extension and suspended an extradition treaty with the city.
The prime minister announced on Thursday that Australia would allow a range of visa holders to stay in the country for longer and then offer them a pathway to permanent residency – but has stopped short of creating a special humanitarian intake for Hongkongers fearing persecution under the new national security law.
Continue reading...The rally, which was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, has been declared a prohibited public gathering
Refugee activists have vowed to push ahead with a planned protest this weekend despite the supreme court prohibiting the event amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Justice Michael Walton on Thursday night granted a NSW police application for the rally to be declared a prohibited public gathering.
Continue reading...Scott Morrison has said of the pandemic, ‘we’re all in this together’ but his government has excluded more than 1 million people from assistance. Laura Murphy-Oates talks to some of those people and Ben Doherty analyses the government’s response.
You can read Ben Doherty’s reporting on people excluded from coronavirus relief funding here.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Privacy experts say the breach in the SkillsSelect platform, which affects data going back to 2014, was ‘very serious’
Privacy experts have blasted the home affairs department for a data breach revealing the personal details of 774,000 migrants and people aspiring to migrate to Australia, including partial names and the outcome of applications.
At a time the federal government is asking Australians to trust the security of data collected by its Covid-Safe contact tracing app, privacy experts are appalled by the breach, which they say is just the latest in a long line of cybersecurity blunders.
Continue reading...‘We are moving in the right direction,’ friend says after verdict that asylum seeker family was denied procedural fairness
The Tamil asylum seeker family from Biloela say a reprieve from the federal court on Friday has given them their first “real win” in two years in their fight to stay in Australia.
The federal court ruled that the family was denied procedural fairness in the decision on whether to process their visa claim in 2019 and their deportation must remain on hold.
Continue reading...Australian safe haven visa holder Amir denied re-entry and sent back to Europe in case reminiscent of detained footballer Hakeem al-Araibi
Refugee advocates fear time is running out for a refugee to return to his Australian home after he was denied the right to board a flight from Indonesia to Australia because of his visa status.
In what advocates fear may be a repeat of the Hakeem al-Araibi case, which left a refugee wrongly detained in a Thai prison after a series of bureaucratic bungles over his visa status, Amir, a young Iranian refugee on an Australian safe haven visa, has been sent back to Turkey amid the coronavirus crisis.
Continue reading...It will take a full inquiry to determine what really happened, but clearly Australia’s protocols for assessing disease risk were inadequate
There is nothing more unedifying than different levels of government finger-pointing during a crisis.
In the aftermath of the bushfires, there was sniping via the media as the prime minister’s office blamed the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, for refusing offers of defence help.
Continue reading...A summary of major developments in the coronavirus outbreak across Australia
• Follow our Australia coronavirus live blog for all the latest news and updates
• Follow the latest global coronavirus updates in our international live blog
Key Australian developments in the global coronavirus outbreak on Thursday include:
Continue reading...Australia’s home affairs minister had linked New Zealand prime minister’s comments to her upcoming re-election bid
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has brushed off criticism from Australia’s home affairs minister Peter Dutton, saying his policy decisions are “regrettable”.
At her weekly news conference in Wellington on Monday, Ardern was scathing about Dutton’s criticism of her recent meeting with Scott Morrison, saying it was not her plain-talking that was to blame for increasing tensions between the neighbours – but Australia’s policy decisions on immigration matters which were hurting Kiwis.
Continue reading...The New Zealand prime minister was justified in taking Scott Morrison to task over a policy that is both spurious and damaging
We’ve seen this movie before.
Then, in Love Actually, Hugh Grant played the unlikely prime minister of Britain, standing up to an oleaginous Billy Bob Thornton as president of the US.
Continue reading...New Zealand PM says Australia is deporting ‘your people and your problems’ using unfair policies
The New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has lashed Scott Morrison for “testing” the friendship between the two nations, accusing Australia of deporting “your people and your problems” using “unfair” policies.
Ardern took her strongest stance yet opposing Australia’s policy of deporting New Zealand citizens, no matter how long they had spent in Australia, if they had committed a crime.
Continue reading...Home affairs adviser accused of untruthfulness as Tamil family waits on court to decide if youngest daughter can apply for asylum
The Tamil asylum seeker family from Biloela may have to wait another three months for a decision on whether their youngest Australian-born daughter can have her asylum application assessed, after a court hearing in which a home affairs adviser was accused of untruthfulness.
Tamil asylum seekers Priya and Nades and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa have been detained on Christmas Island since late last year awaiting the hearing on the processing of a visa application for Tharunicaa.
Continue reading...Treatment of refugees and asylum seekers ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading’, but does not warrant prosecution, ICC office says
Australia’s offshore detention regime is a “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” and unlawful under international law, the international criminal court’s prosecutor has said.
But the office of the prosecutor has stopped short of deciding to prosecute the Australian government, saying that while the imprisonment of refugees and asylum seekers formed the basis of a crime against humanity, the violations did not rise to the level to warrant further investigation.
Continue reading...Large numbers of easily exploited temporary migrants could have a ‘corrosive’ effect, says Kristina Keneally
Australia’s reliance on temporary migration is creating a new economic underclass that risks having a “corrosive” effect on the nation’s society, Labor’s shadow home affairs minister, Kristina Keneally, says.
In a major speech to the Curtin institute on Thursday night, Keneally will step up Labor’s attack on the government for its reliance on temporary migration, saying current trends could see as many as 3 million people – or 12% of the population – living in Australia on a temporary basis.
Continue reading...The moral case for the former Manus island detainee becoming a citizen is as simple as ‘asylum is a human right’
I wonder if it winds up Peter Dutton to know that Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist, award-winning author and former Manus Island detainee, is a free man in the continent’s orbit. Boochani, the best-known witness, critic and victim of Australia’s offshore “processing centres”, remains in New Zealand after his 30-day visa came to an end. No one quite knows what the No Friend But the Mountains author is planning next, but it seems safe to assume that sooner or later he’ll lodge an application for asylum in New Zealand. A permanent reminder to Dutton, his predecessors and the country’s immigration detention system that they are not as close to vanishing the “boat people” problem as they might have thought.
For their part New Zealand’s policymakers fear as much with headlines suggesting if Boochani’s hypothetical asylum application is successful it could “fuel tensions with Australia”. The problem is Behrouz Boochani, New Zealander, would enjoy free movement between his new home and his old incarcerators, unless Dutton and the gang insert new exceptions in the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. This is the “back door” the Coalition government in Canberra is so afraid of, and the political problem preventing Scott Morrison from taking up Jacinda Ardern’s invitation to resettle the last remaining detainees on Manus.
Continue reading...Resettlement in the US has allowed some long-persecuted people to flourish, but that doesn’t let Australia off the hook
“To freedom.”
Imran, a 25-year-old Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, raises a glass with a big smile. We are in a bustling restaurant on Chicago’s north side. This midwestern city seems a million miles from Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, or the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, yet it’s now home to several Rohingya men resettled under an agreement between Australia and the US.
Continue reading...Brutal winter, poor healthcare and limited food raises fears for welfare of infant, born to Sydney woman Rayan Hamdoush
An Australian woman has given birth to a baby boy in the al-Hawl camp in Syria, prompting revived calls for Australia to rescue 67 nationals still held in the camp.
Rayan Hamdoush, 24, from western Sydney, was pregnant when she entered al-Hawl. She gave birth to the boy on 30 November. The boy’s father, Samer Hajj Obeid, also from Sydney, is missing.
Continue reading...Scott Morrison announces cut in number of government departments as part of public service overhaul. All the day’s political news, live
Labor is moving a motion saying the government’s attempts to push the union-busting bill through without debate was “anti-democratic”.
Better still is this bit of the motion:
This is a prime ministerial tantrum, with the prime minister of Australia behaving like a juvenile schoolyard bully just because he didn’t get his way last week.
We’re now moving through the votes for the government’s union-busting bill.
A side note - this is the 100th division to take place in the House for this sitting fortnight.
Continue reading...Sydney lord mayor approached by police investigating accusations the emissions reduction minister relied on a falsified document to attack her. Follow all the day’s political news live
That’s where we’ll leave the live blog for the day. Thanks for following along.
It’s been another messy day. Many say the medevac repeal has made it one of parliament’s darkest.
Another development on the Angus Taylor front.
The City of Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, has been approached by police to provide a statement for their investigation into accusations Taylor relied on a falsified document to attack her travel-related emissions. The council said in a statement:
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