They are part of a bushwalk organised by the not-for-profit First Hike Project (FHP), which was founded in 2015 with the goal of helping welcome refugees to Australia through an experience in the bush.
FHP now operates in five capital cities and has taken hundreds of young migrants on their first bushwalks in Australia.
As thousands of international students prepare to take summer holiday jobs, Associate Professor Bassina Farbenblum, an expert on migrants' rights from the University of New South Wales, warns that more is needed to protect students from wage theft and abuse. She says Australia has a ‘pervasive problem’ with workplace exploitation of international students and those on temporary visas.
It was Fraser who was responsible for accepting many Indo-Chinese refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Those refugees, supported by the generous Australian community response, were the decisive turning point in moving Australia away from White Australia…..
……The Fraser Government extended ethnic radio and established SBS television. Petro Georgiou and Brian Johns, who remained a senior officer in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Fraser, were the key drivers for SBS. Fraser got on well with Brian Johns. He saw him as professional and straight. Years later, Johns was to head SBS and the ABC.
Fraser encountered a lot of opposition from within the Liberal Party and the ABC and its supporters over the establishment of SBS, but he believed, correctly in my view, that the elitist ABC should have better served the non-English-speaking section of the Australian community. What was required was a specialist, more focused broadcasting service to meet the needs of those who were being neglected by mainstream media. The Broadcasting and Television Act of 1977 provided for the establishment of SBS to provide multicultural radio and TV services. SBS was an important achievement of the Fraser Government.
Working with PM Fraser - burying White Australia - Part 4. By John Menadue, P&I
A top secret translation of the Nauruan president’s public commentary on the NZYQ deal will remain suppressed for a decade after the Albanese government considered its release “inappropriate”.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, explained this week that the translation notes had been “taken hastily” by an official who was not an accredited translator and were “for internal purposes only”.
“The translation of Nauruan to English is the source of much debate in Nauru. As the government of Nauru has not provided its own translation, nor endorsed the above-mentioned notes as a true and accurate reflection of the interview, it would not be appropriate to release them and doing so would damage our bilateral relationship.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dismissed concerns a secret operation using fishing boats to remove people from Australia's northern waters is subsidising illegal fishers and people smugglers.
Last week an Australian Border Force (ABF) vessel docked in Broome carrying four modified fishing boats, giving locals a firsthand look at an ongoing Commonwealth program of buying fishing boats from across Australia.
Multiple sources say the boats are given to illegal fishers and asylum seekers found in Australia's waters as a safe way to return home.
Liberal MPs say skilled migration and international student numbers must be cut to reduce overseas arrivals into Australia, but have warned colleagues against demonising multicultural communities ahead of the next election.
An Afghan man who worked as a tradie for the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan has had a humanitarian visa revoked without explanation, just weeks after it was granted.
Juma Gul Gul, also known as Jumaghul, was granted an in-country special humanitarian visa on November 3, almost two years after first applying.
It was then revoked less than two weeks later without explanation, Home Affairs documents seen by AAP show.
Visa granted then revoked for Afghan who helped ADF. By Dominic Giannini, Canberra Times
The Minns Labor Government has today announced the inaugural members of the NSW Settlement Advisory Council, a new expert body that will provide advice to the Minister for Multiculturalism and Multicultural NSW on refugee settlement policy.
The establishment of the council, the first of its kind in NSW, is a continuation of the Minns Labor Government’s focus to improve the process of refugees settling in the state and illustrates its commitment to ensure NSW is a home to all.
Inaugural NSW Settlement Advisory Council members announced. NSW Government
Denmark once prided itself on its liberal welfare state and human rights commitments. But it has spent the past decade turning itself into one of Europe’s toughest destinations for refugees.
Indeed, it is the only country in Europe to have revoked refugee protection on a large scale. And the first to reorient its laws away from integration and towards return.
Think twice before copying Denmark’s asylum policies. By Michelle Pace, The Conversation
Britain is launching the largest overhaul of policy on asylum seekers in modern times, drawing inspiration from Denmark's approach, one of the toughest in Europe.
The Labour government has been hardening its immigration policies, particularly on illegal small-boat crossings from France, as it seeks to stem the surging popularity of the populist Reform UK party, led by MP Nigel Farage, which has driven the immigration agenda and forced Labour to adopt a tougher line.
As part of the changes, the statutory duty to provide support to certain asylum seekers, including housing and weekly allowances, will be revoked, the Home Office said in a statement on Saturday.
A spokesperson said the Australian government was committed to "generous and flexible humanitarian and settlement programs that meet Australia's international protection obligations".
"As refugee situations around the world increase in scope, scale and complexity, Australia is committed to finding sustainable global solutions for refugees," they said.
One millionth refugee milestone in Australia on horizon By Danuta Kozaki, ABC News
From 1947-1954, prime minister Ben Chifley welcomed 170,000 displaced people to Australia from the camps of Europe. This was roughly three times more refugees per capita than we admit today………
……In the 1970s, when boats of Vietnamese asylum seekers began arriving in Australia’s north, prime minister Malcolm Fraser actively encouraged ordinary Australians to understand they deserved protection, humane treatment and fair processes. The future governor of South Australia, Hieu Van Le, arrived by boat in Darwin Harbour in 1977…
..There are no easy solutions to this issue. Refugee movements are complex by nature and people in desperate need will resort to desperate measures.
Trying to deter people in need of protection leads not to sustainable solutions, but rather to expensive, chaotic and damaging measures with intergenerational consequences.
The only people who benefit from the arrangement are Nauruan politicians and the Australian Government, which has effectively shut down migration and refugee matters as an election issue by banishing vulnerable people who can’t vote to a remote Pacific Island.
The exclusive footage, captured by a 9News Perth drone, shows the Australian Border Force’s 110-metre Ocean Shield sailing out of the port on Wednesday evening, carrying the four fishing boats which had their identification numbers removed.
As Australia approaches issuing its one millionth permanent visa through its refugee and humanitarian program, advocates are calling for celebration over the contribution refugees have made to Australia's national story.
David Adeang briefly visited Parliament House in an unannounced visit, where he is understood to have met with the home affairs minister.
The Nauruan president's clandestine visit comes amid accusations criminal bikie gangs were awarded a lucrative contract to provide security for former detainees transferred to Nauru.
A high-ranking Home Affairs Department official has blown the whistle on what he says was corruption infecting the federal government’s offshore detention regime, alleging he was pressured to cover up suspected rorting and graft so Australia could keep using Nauru as a border security outpost.
Home Affairs acting assistant secretary Dr Derek Elias has alleged, in an interview with this masthead and 60 Minutes, that Australian taxpayers paid millions of dollars for nonexistent or unnecessary offshore asylum seeker services as part of a system that “enabled” corruption by Nauruan politicians and Australian companies.
Elias alleges Home Affairs – through negligence, mismanagement and renewal of corruption-prone contracts to provide offshore immigration services on the tiny pacific island – had likely facilitated the bribery of Nauruan officials and encouraged systemic rorting by the department’s former major contractor Canstruct.
“We created an enabling environment for corruption,” Elias said. “We were renewing contracts which were no longer fit for purpose. We were overpaying for services that were no longer required or delivered.”
Elias oversaw offshore procurement for Home Affairs between 2019 and 2021 and is still technically employed by the federal government, albeit on extended leave after claiming his departmental role severely impacted his health. He risks dismissal or other serious sanctions by speaking publicly.
Elias alleges Home Affairs – through negligence, mismanagement and renewal of corruption-prone contracts to provide offshore immigration services on the tiny pacific island – had likely facilitated the bribery of Nauruan officials and encouraged systemic rorting by the department’s former major contractor Canstruct.
He said department officials had no way of holding Nauruans to account.
“Money was handed over to them,” he said. “How that money was spent, where it ended up, we had no visibility of, certainly my team didn’t. We just pushed the money into the contracts.
“That was the environment that we were enabling by pouring money into a trough, basically, of broken contracts and services … I had a moral problem with that, and I still do.”
In a contract renewal he oversaw in mid-2021, Elias claims he identified up to $16 million in taxpayer dollars paid to Canstruct for nonexistent or unnecessary services. He suspected the firm’s overcharging ran into the tens of millions of dollars.
The public servant said he recently gave crucial evidence to an ongoing federal police corruption probe into Canstruct.
The inquiry, codenamed Operation Bernie-Beveridge, is examining how Canstruct had charged Home Affairs millions of dollars to pay for insurance premiums now suspected to have been used to insure fast cars, mansions, expensive art and a yacht.
Elias alleged Canstruct had pressured Home Affairs to pay the multimillion-dollar insurance premiums during contract negotiations and concealed the firm’s decision to use taxpayer funds to insure personal items.
“I do remember at the last negotiation that Canstruct made it very clear … to me personally in the corridor ... they were happy to negotiate on a variety of things, but not the insurances.”
“I found it very confronting,” he said of the suspected abuse of funds, while also claiming he was encouraged to cover up suspected wrongdoing.
“There was a very strong culture within that Home Affairs regime at the time where questioning the decisions to keep things going in Nauru would not be conducive to your employment.
“You’re expected to stay quiet about your concerns. Absolutely.”
While Elias’ visibility over suspected Home Affairs contract dealings ceased in 2021, his decision to go public comes with the Albanese government facing growing scrutiny around a separate immigration deal with Nauru.
Arthur Boyd’s The Old Mine is another of the allegedly insured artworks.
The tiny country recently agreed to take hundreds of former immigration detainees deemed too dangerous to stay in Australia. Nauru is granting visas to the so-called NZYQ cohort in return for up to $2.5 billion in Australian taxpayer funds over 30 years.
On Saturday, another whistleblower, former Australian soldier Oisin Donohoe, revealed how the Finks bikie gang had infiltrated this deal via a Nauruan security company in an attempt to make millions of dollars from this pool of funds.
“It was pretty confronting to know that an outlaw motorcycle group was running a company that had got a government contract [on Nauru],” said Donohoe, who previously served almost five years as a rifleman in the Australian Army.
He described it as “mind-boggling” that bikies could be part a “contract to oversee quite a significant national security item”.
A 2024 inquiry by former spy chief Dennis Richardson raised similar concerns to those of Elias about Home Affairs’ failure to safeguard government funds on Nauru in respect to the offshore processing regime.
The Albanese government regards its offshore processing arrangement on Nauru as entirely separate from the NZYQ deal, despite both involving huge sums of public money spent on the notoriously corrupt island.
The Richardson inquiry led to departmental reforms meant to improve due diligence surrounding offshore immigration contracts.
In a statement, Home Affairs insisted that improved controls had been embedded in its ongoing offshore processing regime, which comprises about 100 asylum seekers on Nauru.
But documents provided to this masthead suggest unlawful activity, including the artificial inflation of subcontracts, continues to occur under the watch of the company hired by Home Affairs to replace Canstruct to run offshore processing on Nauru, MTC.
MTC referred queries from this masthead to the department.
Elias said he believed the rorting of Australian funds continued apace on Nauru.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that that happened and it continues to happen,” he said.
Elias said he had wrestled for years with the idea of becoming a public whistleblower.
“It’s been on my mind for a very long time but ultimately, I think it’s almost a duty,” he said. “I think it’s very important for the public to know how their money has been misspent.
An Aston Martin Superleggera, similar to that alleged to have been insured.
“We were propping up a system that was unaccountable. We were paying for things that didn’t happen.”
Elias also hit back at what he described as attempts by Home Affairs to cast a cloud over his honesty and motivations, saying he stood to gain nothing by airing his claims and had been unjustly attacked by his employer for accusing it of wrongdoing.
“I’m really, really sick of it,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. Why would I have to apologise or feel guilty about pointing out that we have spent money that we shouldn’t have, and it’s gone to people who have put it in their own pockets?”
Canstruct has previously faced allegations it paid subcontractors owned by or connected to suspected corrupt Nauruan politicians, who then pocketed excessive profits.
One of those accused of improperly benefiting from these kickbacks is President David Adeang, who signed the recent NZYQ immigration deportation deal with the Albanese government.
In his interview, Elias claimed it was an open secret in Home Affairs that suspected corrupt Nauruan officials would seek to profit from Australian taxpayer-funded offshore immigration deals.
“Canstruct had a very cosy relationship, I would say, with the government of Nauru providing additional services and favours, sweeteners, if you will, that they paid to the government of Nauru, which I found quite shocking,” he said.
Adeang has a sordid history of suspected corruption. Australian security agencies previously warned the federal government he might have pocketed alleged kickbacks paid by firms subcontracted to run Australia’s offshore processing regime on Nauru in 2020.
Adeang has also been suspected of using Australian banks to money launder funds meant to be used to run offshore processing, according to intelligence briefings shared with federal government agencies and senior ministers.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke declined an interview request, but the Home Affairs Department said in a statement that its offshore processing regime was carefully managed and included “robust” due diligence.
“Suppliers must meet ethical, performance and diligence standards expected of them as suppliers to the Commonwealth, and they must have the capability and capacity to deliver and perform in accordance with the agreed contract terms and conditions,” the statement said.
Canstruct did not respond to a request for comment but has previously declined to comment on the allegations being probed by the AFP.
The rise of anti-immigration sentiment underscores a fragile consensus – while multiculturalism remains official government policy, its meaning and legitimacy are increasingly contested.
As Jakubowicz observes, Australia is a country with a racist past, striving not to have a racist future.
Australia’s fragile multicultural consensus under threat. By Wanning Sun, Pearls & Irritations
And both permanent and temporary migrants add to economic activity when they work and spend money here. Speaking last year about whether the spike in migration had affected the economy, Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock said she believed it was neutral overall.
"New migrants add to demand … they have certainly added to pressure on the housing market, we know that," she said. "But on the other hand, they have added to labour supply … I think it's been pretty much of a muchness."
These charts show the effect of migration on Australia's housing story. By Tom Crowley, ABC News
She highlights border security, migrant deportations, attempts to disrupt fentanyl trafficking, US tariffs on other countries and "restored peace in the Middle East", as key achievements of the Trump administration.
Hanson outlines One Nation agenda at surprise Mar-a-Lago address. By Ewa Staszewska, SBS News
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