Commentary
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J. McAdam, ‘Never too late to get kids of Nauru’, The Interpreter, Lowy Institute, 25 October 2018
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W. Aly, ‘New Zealand, asylum seekers and nonsense’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 October 2018
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Interview with Marion Le, ‘The Brief: Seeking Asylum’, Podcast, Crawford School of Public Policy, 23 October 2018
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D. Bahar, ‘Latin America Is Facing a Refugee Crisis’, Foreign Affairs, 23 October 2018
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KALDOR CENTRE CONFERENCE - 23 NOVEMBER 2018
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Refugee Diplomacy: Negotiating protection in a changing world
Human rights for refugees - should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Find out when Human Rights Watch’s Refugee Rights Program Director Bill Frelick joins the Kaldor Centre’s Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill and Marianne Dickie, Visiting Fellow, Australian National University College of Law, for a robust panel entitled 'Negotiating protection on the international stage'
See the full program and book your tickets here.
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The future of refugee litigation: What role can academic research play?
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The Kaldor Centre is holding a workshop that will explore ways in which academic research might better support strategic refugee litigation. The workshop is aimed at leading and emerging law academics, refugee law practitioners and NGOs in the refugee sector. It will run from 1.30-6pm on Tuesday 13 November, followed immediately by a cocktail reception.
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National News
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Nauru and Manus Island: Australian asylum policy debate
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Last week Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison raised the possibility that his government would accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 refugees off Nauru, on the condition that they would not be able to move onward to Australia. While the Labor opposition flagged its willingness to consider the so-called ‘visa ban’, as did a number of high profile lawyers and refugee advocates, Mr Morrison has now rescinded his interest in taking up New Zealand’s offer. Dr Kerryn Phelps, the independent candidate who won the recent byelection in the federal seat of Wentworth, has accused the Morrison government of raising ‘false hope’. Opinion polling shows strong public support for resettling children and families from Nauru to New Zealand.
Labor has also said that if elected to government it would consider on a ‘case-by-case basis’ allowing those brought to Australia for medical treatment to settle here. A former Department of Home Affairs official has sent a paper to federal parliamentarians arguing that asylum seekers and refugees held on Manus Island and Nauru should be brought to Australia. News outlets have reported that in the last five years more than 3,000 asylum seekers have been preventing from entering Australian waters.
Liberal MP Julia Banks has publicly called for the transfer of children and families off Nauru and to Australia. Former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said refugees and asylum seekers are ‘very well looked after’ on Nauru and has urged voters not to abandon the Liberal party in favour of independent candidates at the next election. Author and commentator Jane Caro, who advocates for transferring refugees from Nauru and Manus to Australia, has flagged the idea of running against Mr Abbott for the seat of Warringah. Human rights advocate Father Rod Bower, of Gosford Anglican Church, has announced that he will run as an independent candidate for the Senate at the next federal election. Rallies against offshore detention were held in Sydney and Melbourne over the weekend, while members of popular children’s group The Wiggles have joined the call to transfer children off Nauru.
The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee has held supplementary estimates hearings at which representatives of the Department of Home Affairs have answered some questions about Australian asylum policy. A transcript can be found here.
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- “They were offering false hope’: Kerryn Phelps accuses government of breaking byelection vows’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October 2018
- ‘Morrison rejects Labor offer on Nauru asylum seekers as ‘horse trading’, The Guardian, 23 October 2018
- ‘No timeline for getting kids off Nauru: PM’, 9News, 26 October 2018
- ‘Boat turn-backs make offshore detention ‘meaningless’, The Australian, 24 October 2018
- ‘Former Home Affairs officer calls for all refugees to be brought to Australia’, The Conversation, 24 October 2018
- ‘Labor may allow asylum seekers transferred to Australia for medical treatment to be settled here’, The Australian, 28 October 2018
- ‘Almost 80% of voters support NZ resettlement for children on Nauru, poll shows’, The Guardian, 28 October 2018
- ‘How Australia finally started to care about asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru’, The Guardian, 27 October 2018
- ‘Thousands of asylum seekers turned back’, SBS News, 25 October 2018
- ‘Thousands rally in Sydney and Melbourne against offshore detention’, The Guardian, 27 October 2018
- ‘Liberal MP calls for immediate transfer of children and families off Nauru’, The Guardian, 25 October 2018
- ‘Outspoken Anglican rector Rod Bower announces bid for Senate seat’, The Guardian, 28 October 2018
- ‘Tony Abbott says Nauru ‘pleasant’ and has better healthcare than many Australian towns’, The Guardian, 29 October 2018
- ‘Jane Caro poised to run against Tony Abbott in seat of Warringah’, The Guardian, 21 October 2018
- ‘The Wiggles join refugee groups calling for children to be transferred off Nauru’, SBS News, 24 October 2018
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Nauru
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The ABC has reported that mental health assessments and other leaked documents reveal that medical advice about the plight of asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru was ignored by Australian authorities. Lawyers representing the Department of Home Affairs have argued that the Federal Court does not have the authority to order transfers off Nauru. Around eleven children were transferred off Nauru early last week, and there were believed to be around 52 children remaining on the island. However, Australia’s Minister for Immigration Mr Coleman has also said that a number of these children were unlikely to be resettled in the United States, under a 2016 agreement between the Obama administration and the Turnbull government, after their family members were rejected by United States authorities on security grounds. According to figures presented at last week’s Senate Estimates hearing, the United States has resettled 276 refugees from Nauru, with another 31 to be resettled pending medical checks, and has rejected 148 refugees. Meanwhile Greens’ immigration spokesperson, Senator Nick McKim, has been denied a visa to Nauru; news outlets are reporting that Nauru has said that Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs did not support Senator McKim’s application.
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- ‘Leaked psychological reports on Nauru child mental health crisis’, ABC News, 26 October 2018
- ‘Dutton’s department challenges federal court’s authority to order Nauru transfers’, The Guardian, 26 October 2018
- “Worrying red flags’: eleven refugee children flown from Nauru to Australia’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 2018
- ‘Eleven kids transferred off Nauru with 52 still on island’, News.com.au, 23 October 2018
- ‘Scott Morrison reveals more children have been transferred off Nauru’, The Australian, 26 October 2018
- ‘Security concerns set to keep children in Nauru limbo’, The Australian, 23 October 2018
- ‘U.S. rejects 148 refugees as crossbench flexes new muscle over Nauru children’, The Australian, 22 October 2018
- ‘Greens senator McKim denied visa to Nauru’, 9News, 26 October 2018
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Manus Island
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A case brought to Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court by asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island has been dismissed on a technicality. Meanwhile Abdul Aziz Muhamet, who has been held on Manus Island for more than five years, has been nominated for the Martin Ennals Award, an international human rights award.
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Asylum seekers in Australia
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At the Qantas annual general meeting in Brisbane the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility unsuccessfully proposed that Qantas review its participation in the deportation of asylum seekers. The Australian newspaper has reported that asylum seekers and migrants are waiting up to three years for their cases to be heard in the Federal Circuit Court.
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Other news
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International News
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Americas
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The Trump administration is reportedly considering executive action that would bar the members of a caravan of Central American asylum seekers from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and seeking asylum. Meanwhile Mexico has announced a plan including temporary work permits, medical care, schooling and temporary housing for Central Americans who officially seek asylum in the states of Chiapas or Oaxaca. UNHCR has sent dozens of staff to southern Mexico to assist with asylum applications from members of the caravan. To date, about 1700 people in the caravan have applied for asylum in Mexico.
Canadian immigration officials have undertaken a review into whether the United States remains a safe country for asylum seekers, and have determined that it is. The review was undertaken because Canada was concerned about changes in US immigration policy and a series of executive orders issued by US President Trump.
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Asia Pacific
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A UN fact-finding team of United Nations has claimed that genocide is still underway against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The team presented a report at the Security Council calling for the matter to be referred to the International Criminal Court. The chairperson of the mission has said that beyond mass killings, the conflict includes the ostracization of the population, prevention of births, and widespread displacement in camps. Meanwhile, at the 20th Homeland and Global Security Forum in Geneva, Bangladeshi President M Abdul Hamid urged the international community to increase the pressure on Myanmar to repatriate the Rohingya refugees being sheltered by Bangladesh in Cox’s Bazar. Myanmar will soon finish the construction of more than 1,500 housing units for Rohingya refugees returning from Bangladesh. However, refugees remain reticent about returning, due to concerns for their safety.
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Europe
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Residents of the village of Moria located a short distance from Greece’s biggest refugee camp on the island of Lesbos, have reported break-ins, cases of arson, and animals killed for food. Residents have blamed overcrowding in the camp, and expressed sympathy for asylum seekers resident there. A recent report by the International Rescue Committee described the camp’s conditions as ‘unacceptable’, and stated that overcrowding has led to long line ups for washrooms, food and water, with one shower between 84 people and one toilet between 72 people.
Two people have died after a boat carrying refugees sank 50 metres off Turkey’s western coast on Monday 22 October. Seventeen people on the boat were rescued and three made it to shore by themselves, but two of those people later died in the hospital.
A UK High Court judge has ruled that the social-media activities of asylum seekers can be investigated if they claim to have fled their native countries because they are gay.
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Middle East and North Africa
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A UN -led aid delivery to thousands of civilians stranded in the Rukban camp on the Syrian-Jordanian border has been delayed following heavy sandstorms. The last time an aid convoy reached Rukban was in January.
UNHCR has increased its efforts to ensure that tens of thousands of displaced Yemenis have immediate access to cash support. During October 2018, UNHCR cash-interventions have reached more than 22,000 vulnerable families (approximately 150,000 people), who have fled fighting to areas of perceived safety, or returned to their homes after internal displacement, often finding their homes damaged or destroyed.
The Turkish Red Crescent has announced that it will support Bosnia-Herzegovina in dealing with a developing refugee crisis near the border with Croatia. Bosnia-Herzegovina has recently emerged as a thoroughfare for asylum seekers trying to gain passage to EU countries.
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