The diversity of Australia's 26-man squad — comprising at least 15 cultural and ethnic backgrounds — has become a focal point of the team's World Cup campaign, with players releasing a video celebrating their migrant roots on the eve of the tournament.
The players spoke about their diverse backgrounds and how they reflected modern Australia, while saying "football is for everyone".
"No matter where you come from, football is for everyone," each player said one by one.
Australia has resettled one million refugees since World War Two. But many remain unemployed or underemployed despite their skills.
The federal government's Humanitarian Program is set to remain at 20,000 places in 2026-27.
However, migration has become an increasingly contested political issue, with debates over housing affordability, infrastructure and population growth dominating public discourse.
The Socceroos’ victory is what happens when we embrace, celebrate and foster a truly multicultural vision of Australia. But the alarming reality is that hostility towards refugees such as Irankunda and his family is growing fast. The pathway to safety that brought them to Australia is rapidly closing.
Those who celebrate the Socceroos’ win while opposing the arrival of refugees and immigrants into Australia now have two options. The first is silence because there really is no counterargument to the proof that refugees and migrants are real Australians and do make noteworthy contributions to our country.
The second is to argue that people like Irankunda came “the right way”. This is a false and toxic framing about what a person must do in fleeing for their lives, what parents must do to protect their children. There is no single static way to access safety in Australia.
Al Hattab holds a Temporary Humanitarian Concern visa, subclass 786, offered to Palestinians who fled to Australia after the conflict in Gaza escalated in October 2023.
The three-year visa — issued only on a case-by-case basis following mandatory health, character, and security checks — is the second step of the Australian government's Temporary Humanitarian Stay program.
It allows her to work, study and access Medicare, but expires in early 2028. Unlike the version offered to Ukrainians in the aftermath of Russia's invasion, it provides no pathway to permanent residency.
Paramedics were called to the scene after the fan suffered what was believed to be a massive episode of cognitive dissonance. “He sort of just froze when the goal was scored, like his brain was buffering,” one witness said. “After a few minutes he started muttering the phrase ‘yeah but he’s one of the good ones’ – it seemed to be some sort of coping mechanism. Not long after that he went into a cardiac arrest”.
A short documentary and original music video created by a group of multilingual young people will launch this Refugee Week on ABC.
Developed through a series of arts workshops run by not-for-profit organisation Same Drum in partnership with Healthway and the Intensive English Centre at Aranmore Catholic College, the films celebrate friendship, family and resilience through storytelling and music.
Same Drum facilitator Rita Yousif said the program gave young people a powerful platform to share their stories in their own way. “This program creates a safe and creative space for young people to express who they are, connect with each other and work as a team,” Ms Yousif said.
“The stories and music they’ve created reflect their strength, their cultures and their sense of belonging.”
Young multilingual filmmakers launch powerful Refugee Week films, FilmInk
Native plant project IndigiGrow has collaborated with The Bread & Butter Project to launch a series of six indigenous-inspired products which celebrate Australia's combined refugee and First Nations cultures.
The collaboration brings together Australia's oldest and newest inhabitants in the creation of quality artisan baked goods, which will be hand-made by refugees at The Bread & Butter Project's Marrickville bakery using IndigiGrow's locally sourced native ingredients.
As two of Sydney's much-loved social enterprises, The Bread & Butter Project and IndigiGrow have shared prized recipes, ingredients and stories to create the new products in the process aiming to promote a deeper understanding and respect for the traditions and knowledge of Indigenous Australia.
Included in the exciting new range are lemon myrtle and pepperberry sourdough varieties, dark chocolate and wattleseed brownies, toffee'd saltbush blondies, caramelised white chocolate and saltbush bikkies, and lemon myrtle toffee'd caramel shortbreads, with all products set to be available via Harris Farm stores Sydney-wide.
Some are mothers who have fled arranged marriages and international students who would rather die of shame than tell their families.
They are homeless, like Bikram Lama, who The Guardian reported to be a former international student from Nepal. His death outside St James train station has shone a light on an invisible situation taking place on Australia's streets.
These homeless are not citizens, and they don't have permanent residence, but they are stuck here, unable to return home or waiting on seemingly endless temporary visas, hoping Australia will allow them to stay.
The Nauruan government has issued a rare statement insisting it is a “friendly” and “welcoming” country after a whistleblower alleged “serious threats of physical violence” were made against a group of non-citizens removed there by the Albanese government.
The unexpected defence, sent shortly after midday on Thursday, was mounted hours after the independent MP Andrew Wilkie used his three-minute constituency statement to read claims from an anonymous whistleblower familiar with the arrangements of the secretive $2.5bn deal between Australia and Nauru.
The person, who claimed to be involved in the process through their employment, said the serious threats arose from “numerous conversations” and “were not idly made”.
When Australia’s high court ruled indefinite immigration detention unlawful in 2023, Sara’s* father returned home to Australia’s east coast after years in onshore immigration detention. He is just one of the more than 350 people who make up what’s known as the NZYQ cohort, which includes individuals who have had their visas cancelled on character grounds but cannot be deported to their country of origin.
Last year the Australian government signed a secretive deal to deport members of the group to Nauru on 30-year visas, and Sara fears her father could be next. She speaks to Nour Haydar
*Not her real name
A daughter’s plea to halt her father’s deportation to Nauru – Full Story podcast, The Guardian
Someone is violently dry-heaving in the waiting room outside our meeting space. Khairul, though, doesn’t bat an eyelid, so I pretend not to notice and carry on with another question.
Is it possible, I ask, to go back to the refugee camp and see your parents?
“By the grace of Allah, I survived the boat journey here. It was my luck,” he says. “That cannot be my luck if I am going back.”
We’re speaking in Penang, Malaysia, in what used to be a warehouse or offices. A few years back, Medecins sans frontieres (MSF) turned it into a free health clinic for innumerable Rohingyas, a persecuted Muslim minority from western Myanmar. Some were smuggled directly from their scorched homelands. Others, including Khairul, came from dire conditions at teeming refugee camps in Bangladesh. Close to 900 Rohingya refugees died at sea last year.
Khairul was 14 when he left the camp where he was born, crowding “shoulder to shoulder” on a boat with 250 others. He was fed only one meal and 2½ glasses of water for each of the 19 days he sobbed at sea.
After reaching land, the smugglers took him and the others deep into the jungles of southern Thailand, where he says a man dropped dead in front of him – he presumes from exhaustion, thirst or starvation.
Only when his parents scrounged and borrowed for his “ransom” did the smugglers let Khairul cross the border to Malaysia, he says.
He has not seen his parents since.
Since a military coup in 2021, Myanmar has again been mired in a multifront civil war. Some of the fiercest fighting between the ruling military and ethnic rebels has been in the Rohingyas’ home state of Rakhine, where they have lived for generations.
The military has long wanted to eradicate the Rohingyas, claiming they are interlopers from Bangladesh. Some 750,000 fled to the refugee camps in that country when the killings and village-burning started in earnest in 2017. Other nations don’t want them.
Now 27, Khairul works for MSF helping his people get the essential medical treatment effectively denied to them elsewhere in Malaysia.
As with Indonesia, the other main destination for fleeing Rohingyas, the Malaysian government has not signed up to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention. It tolerates their presence while denying them meaningful support, status or rights.
Malaysia alone has about 130,000 Rohingyas registered with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Many, perhaps tens of thousands more, are not registered because of backlogs at the UNHCR and difficulties getting to its only office in Kuala Lumpur.
Even when registered, they are not legally allowed to work. Nor are they charged the same rates as locals for medical care.
Since US foreign aid cuts killed other services, the privately funded MSF clinic in Penang is now so overwhelmed, the small medical team has to turn people away.
Khairul, acting as my interpreter, asks the dozen or so women in one of the waiting rooms if any of them wishes to speak to an Australian journalist. A smattering of hands rise from black Islamic shawls.
One belongs to 23-year-old Minara. She has come to the clinic with her two children, aged five and three.
The children are Malaysian-born, but will never be citizens. Unless the family gets resettled in another country – which will take unknowable years, if it happens at all – the kids will have to work off-the-books like their father. He makes the equivalent of about $1000 a month at construction sites at the best of times, nowhere near enough to afford hospital fees.
Minara came by boat to Thailand from Myanmar in 2020 and then overland to Malaysia. At that time, it was a new route, she says. She and her travelling companion, a sister-in-law, each paid smugglers from the Arakan Army – an armed ethnic group fighting the military and also tormenting the Rohingyas – close to $8000 borrowed and saved by their families.
Her parents remain in Rakhine, moving from village to village to escape the fighting,
Last year, Minara and her husband had a third child, who was born with a heart problem. They went more than $10,000 into debt with the hospital to keep the baby in special care for 1½ months, but couldn’t afford the necessary surgery.
“The doctor said, ‘If you want to bring your baby home, you can, but if he passes away that’s not our responsibility’,” she says. “Because of our financial situation, we had to bring our baby home.”
He died three months later.
Western Australia has recorded the fastest population growth of any state or territory.
According to ABS data released in March, Western Australia recorded the fastest population growth in the year to September 30, rising 2.2 per cent, or about 66,000 people.
Queensland and Victoria both grew by 1.7 per cent, adding 97,300 and 122,000 people respectively.
The Northern Territory’s population rose by 1.4 per cent, or 3,700 people, while the ACT grew by 1.3 per cent, or 6,500 people.
South Australia added 21,100 people, up 1.1 per cent, while Tasmania recorded the smallest increase, at 0.3 per cent, or 1,700 people.
Last October, ABS data on fertility rates showed there were 1.48 babies per woman on average in 2024 — a record low and a dip from 1.5 the previous year. "We have an ageing population, we are living longer, having fewer children," Allen said.
The US private prison company running Australian immigration detention centres was slapped with penalties by the Australian government after allowing a dozen escapes, but the head of the Australian Border Force has declined to reveal the cost of the punishment.
MTC signed a $2.3bn contract to run Australia’s onshore immigration detention network from early 2025.
Guardian Australia revealed serious incidents including detainees missing medical appointments because MTC lacks the staff to escort them to health centres, two MTC staff members being admitted to hospital with smoke inhalation after trying to rescue an unconscious detainee from a fire, more than 12 escapes from MTC facilities (several during transport and escort operations), and a risk assessment system federal work safety regulator Comcare warned was putting staff at serious risk of violence.
Details of the first payment made to the Nauru government in exchange for resettling the NZYQ cohort have emerged.
Greens senator David Shoebridge has questioned the disbursement of the funds as well as the declaration of conflicts of interest.
Under the arrangement, the Australian government will pay $70 million annually to Nauru.
Migration experts say much of the debate often lacks key context, including ongoing domestic labour shortages, post-COVID-19 migration flows and Australia's economic reliance on skilled migrants and international students.
Australia, like many advanced economies, is an ageing society — a demographic shift that economists and demographers say makes immigration central to sustaining the labour force, productivity and long-term growth.
Experts say the challenge for the broader community is to ensure that debate over migration does not harden into division, as the country grapples with balancing economic pressures with the realities of a diverse, multicultural society.
Exclusive: Prison multinational MTC (Management and Training Corporation) uses a ‘minimalist staffing model’ that critics say is putting detainees and staff in serious danger.
In his budget reply speech, the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, said people got welfare “as soon as they arrive” in Australia.
But refugees, international students, those on temporary visas and permanent residents all face various waits for – and varying access to – any government help at all.
The Australian Council on Social Services says permanent residents already have to wait four years for payments including jobseeker, the parenting payment and youth allowance, and 10 years for disability support and the aged pension.
More Australian women linked to the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) group are reportedly likely to leave Syria within days, but the prime minister insists no government help will be provided to the group.
The six women, along with their children and grandchildren, have been living in a camp for former Islamic State fighters and their families.
Logistics are being negotiated between Kurdish and Syrian officials for the 10-hour drive from the al-Roj refugee camp to the Syrian capital Damascus according to the Australian Associated Press — where they're expected to board flights to Australia.
Second group of IS-linked women have no government support, Albanese says. SBS News
Alison Battisson, Abdul’s lawyer, said his case was “extraordinary and deeply troubling”, owing to claims he was groomed and sexually abused by a carer as a minor after settling in Australia…………
………Battisson said Abdul’s case raised “profound legal and moral concerns” because the Australian government had a duty to protect him and failed.
Many people who cross borders fleeing war, violence and persecution are highly skilled and educated, of working age and are either not permitted or severely constrained to engage in local labour markets. At the same time, regional Australia is experiencing significant skills shortages, particularly among small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
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