Judgement follows failure to transfer seriously ill refugee under medevac laws
A federal court judge has excoriated the Australian government, accusing it of putting its relationship with Nauru ahead of complying with court orders and federal law.
The judgement by Justice Debra Mortimer was published on Friday, after the government failed to comply with a 14 June order to transfer a refugee with “serious medical and psychiatric issues” to Australia under the medevac laws.
Continue reading...Abdul Aziz Muhamat delivers a plea for urgent action to the Human Rights Council
Since Abdul Aziz Muhamat left Manus Island for the last time, he has climbed a mountain in his new home of Switzerland, and then returned to advocating for the resettlement of the hundreds of men and women he left behind.
The Sudanese refugee spent more than six years in Australia’s offshore processing and detention system in Papua New Guinea, before he was granted residency in the European nation earlier this month.
Continue reading...To disestablish these camps anywhere, we need to oppose them everywhere
Australia’s economy is increasingly in the doldrums, but our leaders can point to a successful export of their own devising. In the US, the Trump administration is bedding down and expanding its network of punitive refugee camps. Like Australia’s, they have a dual function: as a deterrent to pursuing the right of political asylum, and as a political weapon.
Australia’s nightmare, like the USA’s, has been long in the making. It is a bipartisan creation. Labor, under Paul Keating, instituted the policy of mandatory detention. John Howard did much of the work of shaping it into permanent nightmare, and of turning the issue of refugees into a cudgel with which to smite political opponents.
Continue reading...James Marape says foreign contractors should not be doing work that locals can do
Papua New Guinea’s newly appointed prime minister wants Australia to cancel its controversial contract with Paladin to deliver services on Manus Island.
James Marape, who became prime minister after the resignation of Peter O’Neill last month, told PNG’s parliament on Tuesday he would summon Australia’s diplomatic head of mission “to provide an explanation”.
Continue reading...Home affairs minister alleges 250 applications for medical transfer being reviewed by ‘activist’ doctors
Peter Dutton claims asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru are refusing resettlement offers in the United States because of the medevac legislation, claiming 250 applications for medical transfer were currently being reviewed by “activist” doctors.
Despite conceding last week the US was “unlikely” to resettle 1,250 refugees under the deal Malcolm Turnbull struck with the then US president, Barack Obama, and begrudgingly held to by Donald Trump, Dutton said the medevac legislation had upended the process and claimed asylum seekers and refugees were still holding out for Australia.
Continue reading...Two worldviews face each other uncomprehendingly – and the flashpoint is the climate emergency
This is the first piece in a new series on what the election result means for the progressive side of politics and the path forward
Political commentators reflexively overinterpret election results. The story we’ve been told is that the Coalition’s win means that “Australian voters” have rejected Labor’s radical plan for reform of the tax-and-spend system, confirming that Australians prefer stability and incremental change.
Continue reading...Shadow home affairs minister says Labor would examine government amendments to laws, if necessary
Labor says it is prepared to consider government amendments to medical evacuation laws if necessary, but sees “no evidence” to suggest the laws are not working as intended.
As the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, ramps up pressure on Labor to side with the government to scrap the so-called medevac laws passed against its will in February, Labor’s shadow home affairs minister, Kristina Keneally, said the party was standing firm in support.
Continue reading...New Zealand gave a home, and hope, to Abbas Nazari. He wishes all refugee children could be given the same chance
Abbas Nazari was stranded on a ship in the Indian ocean when he first heard the words “New Zealand”.
Then aged 7, Nazari’s mother, father and four siblings were among 430 asylum seekers, predominantly of the ethnic minority Hazaras of Afghanistan, plucked from a sinking fishing boat by the Norwegian cargo ship, the Tampa. They were later transferred to the HMAS Manoora, where they waited for asylum after Australia refused to accept them; creating an international quagmire over which country would, or should, offer sanctuary on humanitarian grounds.
Continue reading...Appearing to set an important precedent, judge rules doctors don’t have to speak to patient to make assessment
The federal court has overturned the home affairs department’s attempt to block the medevac transfer of a critically ill 29-year-old Iraqi man from Nauru, by ruling that doctors don’t have to speak to a patient in order to make a medical assessment.
In a judgement delivered on Tuesday, Justice Mordecai Bromberg found in favour of the refugee, whose lawyers had claimed the department secretary, Mike Pezzullo, had refused to notify the minister of the man’s application for a medical transfer, which would commence the process.
Continue reading...Peter Dutton says legislation creates ‘broad power’ to overrule minister but Keneally says this has been ‘misconstrued’
Kristina Keneally has reaffirmed Labor’s support for the medevac legislation after Peter Dutton claimed the opposition is looking to repeal or amend the law which facilitates medical transfers from offshore detention.
On Sunday the home affairs minister said that more than 30 people have come to Australia under the medevac bill and gave new details about the refugee swap deal with the United States, including that two Rwandans accused of murder are the only people to have come to Australia under the deal.
Continue reading...Jane McAdam of the Kaldor Centre for refugee law argues for seven principles to inform new policy and overturn ‘draconian’ laws
Australia can reset and reform its refugee and asylum seeker policy by looking to its past successes and best current practice from around the world, a leading refugee law study centre has found, to create a “principled and pragmatic” approach.
The UNSW Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law has examined best practice refugee policy throughout the world, crafting seven principles as a foundation for “a more positive, long term approach” to how Australia treats those seeking asylum.
Continue reading...Exclusive: court documents show US attorney wanted to be able to prosecute pair again for ‘horrendous’ crime, before they came to Australia in refugee swap deal
Two Rwandans accepted into Australia were accused of crimes so “grave” and “horrendous” that the United States fought for the right to prosecute them a second time, court documents show.
The Australian government sparked controversy last month for accepting two Rwandan militants previously accused of murdering tourists in targeted 1999 attacks in the Bwindi Impenetrable national park in Uganda.
Continue reading...Home affairs minister to hold high-level meetings and says Australia will help country rebuild after Easter terrorist attacks
The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, will hold high-level meetings in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, with people smuggling at the top of the agenda.
Dutton is due to meet Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena, prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministerial counterpart in Colombo on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Rwandan community doesn’t want genocide victims’ families living in Australia to experience additional trauma
Celestin Ngoga knows what happens when Rwanda’s traumatic history comes hurtling into the present.
He’s been on European streets with genocide survivors when they encountered their attackers by chance. It can happen in English classes, he says, or on the train, or in shopping centres.
Continue reading...Former prosecutor says US was confident when charges were brought that the two men were part of a Hutu rebel group
The attorney who brought charges against two Rwandan men recently resettled in Australia says the United States was “certain” they were members of a Hutu rebel group that was later designated a terror group by the US government.
The comments again raise questions about how the pair managed to pass Australia’s tough and vigorously applied character and security checks, under which others have been deported for minor offences or historical associations with criminal groups.
Continue reading...‘There never seems to be any consistent rule or fairness,’ specialist migration lawyer
A 28-year veteran of migration law whose Rwandan clients have all been denied Australia’s protection says the resettlement of two members of a violent Hutu rebel group shows a “frustrating” double standard.
Australia’s deal with the US to take in two former members of the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda, once designated a terrorist group by the US, has prompted consternation among some experts and lawyers. The pair were languishing in US detention after the collapse of a case against them for the slaughter of tourists in Uganda in 1999.
Continue reading...Two men accused of killing tourists were resettled despite being members of a group on a terrorist exclusion list, as judge in their case brands them ‘dangerous’
Two Rwandans who were let into Australia under a secret US aslyum deal could have been rejected under Australia’s strict and vigorously enforced character test, a migration law expert has said.
The assessment comes as an American judge who heard their US asylum case insisted they were “dangerous” and had posed a threat to the safety of the US.
Continue reading...Australia’s government faces questions over secret deal with US in which the men were granted humanitarian visas
Just hours out from a federal election, the Australian government is facing questions over its decision to grant humanitarian visas to two Rwandan men accused of the brutal 1999 murder of tourists in Uganda.
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has said that the men were subject to – and cleared – security checks, and on Friday distanced himself further by suggesting the approvals occurred when his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister.
Continue reading...Exclusive: US advice was that the men, who have refugee status and were accused of murdering tourists in Uganda in 1999, presented no security threat
The national security committee of cabinet was briefed about all aspects of the American refugee swap deal in late 2016, including the resettlement of two Rwandan men accused of murdering tourists in Uganda.
Guardian Australian understands the NSC was briefed, and the then treasurer, Scott Morrison, the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, and the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, were aware of all the elements of the agreement signed by Malcolm Turnbull and Barack Obama in 2016.
Continue reading...Deporting Indigenous peoples strips them of their identity and right to country and devalues their cultural obligations and responsibilities
Aboriginal people have occupied the continent of Australia for more than 60,000 years, so why does the Australian government feel justified imprisoning them in immigration detention centres and threatening them with deportation?
Australia’s indefinite detention of asylum seekers in inhumane conditions has long been a public concern, but only recently have we learned that the government is prepared to treat its Indigenous people in a similar manner. This week, two Aboriginal Australians who have experienced such treatment brought their cases to the high court, asking the court to rule that the federal government’s constitutional power to make laws with respect to “aliens” (essentially, foreigners) cannot apply to Aboriginal Australians.
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