He said refugees would not use New Zealand as a "back door" into Australia. "I think that is just an excuse. I think no one should accept that." "That doesn't make sense. That you keep these people in indefinite detention for eight years and always reject this offer, that doesn't make sense."
Behrouz Boochani calls for urgent resettlement in New Zealand of refugees in limbo (video)
The gang reportedly broke into the complex at around 3:30am local time, assaulting the asylum seekers and ransacking their rooms. At least three required hospital treatment and several had all their belongings taken.
SBS: Asylum seekers in PNG 'scared and devastated' after reportedly being held at gunpoint
The original contract awarded to Canstruct was worth just $8m in October 2017 but this was amended almost immediately – increased by 4,500% to $385m just a month after being signed………….
Canstruct, a Brisbane-based company and Liberal party donor, won the contract by limited tender, meaning there was not an open and competitive process to secure the initial contract. The auditor general criticised the process, saying “it is not clear why the department could not have secured a replacement supplier using a more competitive procurement method”.
I am often asked what it was like being locked up in an Australian-run detention centre in the Republic of Nauru for six years. I wonder if I can provide an answer to this question now, sitting in my home in Los Angeles over a year after being transferred as part of the Australia-United States resettlement agreement. I was traded by the Australian government after six years of incarceration. Who was I traded with? What was I traded for?
The torture of Australia’s offshore immigration detention system
In January, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton explained the initial releases as a cost-saving measure, stating it was “cheaper” for people to live in the community than in a hotel. While this has long been true, it seems a hollow line from a government that continues to maintain a policy of offshore detention in Nauru and Papua New Guinea to the cost of over $1.2 billion per year (that’s roughly $4 million per person this financial year).
Scores of medevac refugees have been released from detention. Their freedom, though, is an illusion
Some 130 refugees and asylum seekers sent by Australia to Manus Island in 2013 and 2014 remain in PNG, with all but two now in Port Moresby. The six positive cases are isolating in a hotel and other accommodation One of the refugees, who didn't want to be named, told AAP he tested positive last Tuesday after attending hospital with stomach pains. Doctors told him he has pneumonia in his chest.
Calls mount for refugees to be 'urgently evacuated' to Australia as PNG's coronavirus crisis worsens
There were three critical ‘decision months’.…….The first was September 2011 when the Coalition in the House of Representatives with the help of the Greens MP and Independents rejected amendments to the Migration Act that would have enabled the Gillard government to implement the Malaysian Arrangement. It was necessary to amend the Migration Act in light of a High Court decision.
Under the Malaysian Arrangement 800 boat arrivals in Australia would initially be repatriated to Malaysia and Australia would accept from Malaysia 4,000 refugees who had been orderly processed in Malaysia in cooperation with the UNHCR. With the collapse of the Malaysian Solution, when four to five boats a month were arriving, there was a steady and then rapid increase in boat arrivals until July 2013 when 48 boats arrived…..
John Menadue: Abbott and Morrison did not stop the boats, but the media collaborated in the spin
Biloela Family - Media reports suggest the Government has spent almost $40 million in detaining this family and taking legal action against it. How much have we actually spent and what further costs are expected? How has this spending furthered the public interest? Why didn’t the department just leave the family in Biloela until all legal issues had been resolved?……………………… …….The current detainees on Manus and Nauru have been there for eight years at a cost of billions of dollars. Has DHA done a full analysis of the costs and the further expected costs? Why has DHA not resolved this situation earlier and saved the taxpayer a fortune? Why don’t we accept the New Zealand offer to re-settle these refugees and immediately close Manus and Nauru detention centres?….
So many questions for Home Affairs. By Abul Rizvi, Pearls & Irritations
Thanush Selvarasa and Ramsiyar Sabanayagam were among around 60 refugees and asylum seekers last month released from immigration detention in Australia, in a surprise move by the federal government. Mr Selvarasa - a refugee from Sri Lanka - had spent nearly six years in offshore detention on Manus Island before being transferred to Australia for mental health treatment under now repealed Medevac legislation.
What do you think the Australian Government spends too much money on? Keeping asylum seekers in detention offshore. For the love of me, I cannot see why economic rationalists wouldn’t have worked out that that’s a really poor use of money. As a Christian nation, we shouldn’t be doing it.
Cathy McGowan: ‘Every day I wake up and think about refugees and our treatment of them’
"In 2013, we had a problem as a country with asylum seeker arrivals by sea however, rather than deal with it sanely and humanely, these people who have been proven to overwhelmingly have fled persecution, have been demonised and a highly effective PR campaign perpetrated on them over a period of decades. It is not surprising that ordinary Aussies have found it difficult to care .. when the issue has been metronomically polluted by lies and propaganda.
"Imagine not knowing when your suffering will end, when you'll see your family again, your child? I can't accept that this represents us as a people.….
Australia has interned medically-vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers in hotels under its controversial 'offshore' processing policy. After months confined to a hotel room, some are finally being freed.
Medically vulnerable refugees in Australia hotels finally freed
In recognition that detention centres needed to expand rapidly, the expenditure review committee agreed in May to “long-term funding” for the immigration detention centres. The cabinet papers show the Howard government united on preferring private sector management and that it explored the idea of successful refugees repaying part of the costs of their detention. The idea of “a risk management approach”, instead of detention, was rejected.
Cabinet papers reveal how seeds of Australia’s divisive seeker boats policy were sown in 2000
Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian exile and journalist who became the voice of those incarcerated on Manus Island, has had his refugee status formally recognised by New Zealand, and granted a visa to live there.
He said he finally felt secure “knowing that I have a future.”
Behrouz Boochani granted refugee status in New Zealand. By Ben Doherty, The Guardian
The Australian government is set to move all children now held in immigration detention on Nauru to Australia by the end of the year (2018).
George Brandis, the former attorney general and who is now the high commissioner to the UK, confirmed the plan in a radio interview in London early on Thursday morning.
“There are hardly any children on Nauru and in New Guinea and we expect that by the end of this year there will be none,” Brandis told LBC radio.
His comments follow reports in the Australian newspaper, which said it had been told that the remaining 40 children of asylum seekers still living on Nauru would be relocated to Australia by the end of the year.
About 1,200 men, women, and children who sought refuge in Australia and were forcibly transferred to the remote Pacific island nation of Nauru suffer severe abuse, inhumane treatment, and neglect, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. The Australian government’s failure to address serious abuses appears to be a deliberate policy to deter further asylum seekers from arriving in the country by boat.
Refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru, most of whom have been held there for three years, routinely face neglect by health workers and other service providers who have been hired by the Australian government, as well as frequent unpunished assaults by local Nauruans. They endure unnecessary delays and at times denial of medical care, even for life-threatening conditions. Many have dire mental health problems and suffer overwhelming despair – self-harm and suicide attempts are frequent. All face prolonged uncertainty about their future.
Australia: Appalling Abuse, Neglect of Refugees on Nauru. Human Rights Watch (2016)
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