It’s perfectly fitting that Scott Morrison’s final official act as prime minister should have been one of pure self-interested political bastardry at the expense of vulnerable people. Stick that on his headstone — it’s all he deserves.
Instructing Border Force to publicise the turnback of an asylum seeker boat from Sri Lanka was transparently revolting, but will there be consequences? ……………
The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, revealed on Tuesday that Australia will prevent the resettlement deal for 450 refugees from becoming a “back door” by stopping would-be travellers at the border.
In an interview with Radio National Andrews struggled to explain how such a ban would be enforced, after home affairs department officials warned in March legislation would probably be required.
It's the most significant, one-off increase to Australia's humanitarian program since Tony Abbott offered an additional 12,000 places to Syrian and Iraqi refugees over two years in 2015, after catastrophic conflict in the region.
However, it will still not bring the annual humanitarian uptake to the same level it was before the pandemic, in 2018-19, when the government had a target of 18,750 places.
According to activist group the Refugee Action Coalition, an Iranian asylum seeker was found dead in his room in a compound of the detention centre in NSW at around 1.00pm on Saturday.
RAC said the man was aged in his late 30s and had been detained in Villawood for two years.
Death of asylum seeker in Villawood detention centre to be investigated: SBS
The Morrison government has finally accepted New Zealand’s offer to resettle some of the refugees stuck in Australia’s torturous immigration system – nine long, cruel and pointless years after it was first made. Under the three-year agreement, announced by the two governments today, 450 refugees (150 per year) will be settled in New Zealand, with priority given to about 100 people still on Nauru. This deal is objectively good news (a “blessed, belated relief” as Greens immigration spokesperson Nick McKim put it), although, as Asylum Seeker Resource Centre advocacy director Jana Favero notes, there are still more than 500 other detainees left in limbo. But several questions must be asked here. Why did it take so many years for the government to take up this simple, humanitarian, moral option? Why is it happening now? And who will be held accountable for the needless suffering, the years lost, the lives destroyed, and the billions in wasted costs that occurred thanks to the government’s cynical delay? When it comes to Australia’s offshore detention regime, it’s long been difficult to shake the feeling that the cruelty is the point.
Andrews was anxious to stress the government’s tough border policy had not changed. No one who came illegally by boat would ever be allowed to settle here, she said.
“This arrangement does not apply to anyone who attempts an illegal maritime journey to Australia in the future,” she said.
“Anyone who attempts to breach our borders will be turned back or sent to Nauru.”
The Refugee Action Collective said most of the men had been given six-month bridging visas with no access to welfare and little support.
“They have been released to a cheap motel, on a long weekend, with almost no support,” the RAC’s Chris Breen said.
“After eight years in detention, they have been traumatised, institutionalised, denied education and the ability to work and gain skills.
“They should be granted permanent visas, compensated, and given full support, not dumped in the community to fend for themselves.”
Nine more refugees who have been detained for several years have been released from Melbourne’s Park hotel, however those freed remain uncertain about whether they will be allowed to permanently live in Australia.
There are understood to be 18 refugees who remain in the Park hotel – where the world No 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic was detained before being deported from Australia in January.
Nine refugees released from Melbourne’s Park hotel face uncertain future
The Canstruct group, or entities associated with it, have made 11 donations to the Liberal National party in Queensland. The company has previously strenuously denied any link between political donations and the awarding of any contracts.
Canstruct International’s Nauru contract has attracted significant parliamentary interest and repeated questioning in the Senate.
Demonstrators from across the country have turned up at Parliament House demanding the federal government provide permanent living options for refugees who have fled Afghanistan.
Hazara refugee Zaki Haidari arrived in Australia in 2012 after fleeing his home country and was granted a temporary protection visa.
Ten years later, he says he has no adequate pathway of permanently resettling in Australia, the country he now considers home.
THE GOAL OF Australia’s mandatory detention policy appears to be the systematic, slow-motion destruction of individual refugees to warn persecuted peoples thousands of miles away that Australia is hostile territory.
Indefinite detention is a disgrace: We must vote to end it: by Hannah Thomas
"Like me, many asylum seekers are involved in building motorways, we build people's homes and we work on farms and factories to make the future of Australia," Mr Masoomi said.
"But the Australian government has taken our future from us."
Thousands of asylum seekers from Afghanistan living in limbo on temporary visas: Source: AAP - SBS
Refugees seeking asylum in Australian airports don’t even get access to lawyers before they are put on the next flight out of Australia, let alone a chance to argue their case.
Djokovic, on the other hand, had access to a team of lawyers who were able to lodge an urgent injunction preventing him from being deported.
RCOA: Djokovic case exposes unfair treatment of refugees in Australia
The refugee, known as Jamal, described the anguish that led him to a drastic act, setting himself on fire while in detention on the Pacific island of Nauru………………..
His lawyer, Alison Battisson, worked to extract 110 people from Afghanistan when Kabul fell to the Taliban last year. She said that was a simpler process than trying to free her client……..
"He is someone who put himself and his family in danger to assist the coalition's fight against the Taliban.
"He worked to keep the rest of the world safe and in his hour of need, not only did we abandon him, but we sent him to a place that has torture-like conditions ... This is not the Australian way."
…Beyond this, border politics are used to grow a detention industry to benefit big businesses, particularly private security companies. Conservative estimates suggest that more than 12 billion Australian dollars have been spent on this industry, with billions pocketed by private businesses.
The international attention around Australia's handling of the Novak Djokovic case has also shed light on the country's treatment of refugees.
The world's top tennis player was detained for several days in the same building where dozens of refugee men are being held, with no expected release date. Now advocates are pleading with Novak Djokovic to maintain the momentum for their cause.
Craig Foster asks Djokovic team to speak out on refugee detention: ABC RN The World Today
Outside Djokovic ‘hotel’, Serbian supporters rub shoulders with refugee advocates………….
Just four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the luxurious city hotels where most of the other players at the Australian Open are staying, the Park Hotel, a grey five-storey building with locked windows in an inner-city suburb, is officially known as an “alternative place of detention”.
Inside on the second floor are around 30 men from several countries who were evacuated for medical treatment in 2020 from Australian detention centres in the impoverished South Pacific island nations Papua New Guinea and Nauru, now trapped in Australia’s hardline immigration system.
ALJAZEERA: Djokovic row highlights plight of asylum seekers in Australia
The government has declined to tell the Senate to whom it has paid nearly $400m to help run the regime on Nauru.
Cost of Australia holding each refugee on Nauru balloons to $4.3m a year
An alliance of Australian fashion brands has called on the federal government to increase its humanitarian quota of refugees from Afghanistan, with pledges the industry will help support, train and employ the new migrants.
‘We can do it again’: Australian fashion brands offer employment for Afghan refugees
She said that in the days before her eventual departure, Australian forces attempted to help her leave the country. "The military of Australia called me and they really tried to coordinate for my evacuation, but I could not because I was very, very afraid to take the decision to [take] the local taxi," she said.
"The Australian government also called me and they told me to send [them] the list [of staff to] the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "This was the first international partner who asked for women who worked in government and directly from Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
Afghanistan's minister for women says she fled the country in disguise. By Sally Sara, ABC News
590 Tahoe Keys Blvd, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150