A lone mother living in hiding with her five children under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been counting the days for nearly two years, waiting to reunite with her husband in Brisbane as logistical barriers and red tape keep many families torn apart.
Shakila Sahak told the ABC from Kabul she was not aware of this week's announcement that the Australian government would spend at least $160 million to overhaul the asylum application processing mechanism.
The living conditions of these refugees highlights the need for a parliamentary inquiry and the St Vincent de Paul Society eagerly awaits notice of when the proceedings will commence. The sooner the better, we believe, and preferably before the end of this year.
Labor has appointed Dennis Richardson, a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Defence, to investigate. We suggest Mr Richardson's inquiry should be extended to include current contracts in PNG as well as shining a light on the previous government's murky deal to "resettle" refugees.
Australia's inhumane treatment of refugees needs urgent attention. By Mark Gaetani, Canberra Times
These reforms represent a significant departure from Australia’s previous attempts to increase the efficiency of Australia’s asylum processes. Over the past three decades, successive governments have instead limited the rights of people seeking asylum – including by cutting funding for legal support.
Pakistan’s government has announced that all undocumented migrants and refugees must leave Pakistan by the beginning of next month, either voluntarily or by force. Hundreds of thousands of them are Afghans.
Why is Pakistan planning to deport undocumented Afghans? By Abid Hussain, Aljazeera
Refugees exiled to Papua New Guinea a decade ago will be sent back to Australia if the Australian government fails to continue funding PNG’s humanitarian program, Port Moresby’s most senior migration official has warned.
PNG’s chief migration officer, Stanis Hulahau, said the refugees had been abandoned by Australia and the PNG businesses that had been housing and caring for the men were owed tens of millions of dollars.
“If Australia wants the refugees to continue to remain in Papua New Guinea then they have to fund the program, or we will shut the program and send the refugees back to Australia,” Hulahau said.
Sounds progressive, right? It is, except there’s a pretty big catch. Being on this panel is an unpaid position. An unpaid position offered to some of Australia’s most vulnerable and marginalised. This is consistent with advisory panel models in other countries.
Asking for their time and expertise without so much as a drop of reimbursement in return.
Labor will need to show it has the migration system under control – more on that below – but the debate has to start with facts, not falsehoods. The truth is that the strain on the system grew worse when Dutton was immigration and border protection minister from December 2014 to August 2018 and minister for home affairs from December 2017 to March 2021.
The asylum seeker failure Peter Dutton cannot deny. By David Crowe, SMH
The commonwealth this week agreed to settle a class action brought by the Indonesians, some who were as young as 12 when they were locked up in adult prisons and prosecuted in adult courts as people smugglers between 2010 and 2012 during the highly charged political climate around border protection.
In January Guardian Australia reported that the Refugee Council was concerned that a massive backlog for processing and review of asylum claims was creating an incentive for unmeritorious applications.
The government claims it can process new claims in as fast as seven weeks for genuine refugees, and that “real-time” processing starting with the latest applications will be fairer without harming those already in the queue.
A group of asylum seekers who attempted to arrive in Australia by boat has been sent to Nauru just months after the last people were removed from immigration detention on the Pacific nation.
Guardian Australia understands that a group of asylum seekers was intercepted in September and taken to Nauru. Staff of International Health and Medical Services have been asked to work on Nauru to provide health services to the cohort, believed to number 11.
In June Guardian Australia revealed that the last of the detainees on Nauru were being moved off, although that detention centre will be kept open at a cost of $350m a year.
According to the most recent statistics for July, released in September, there were still 37 detainees on Christmas Island’s north-west point immigration detention centre.
But an Australian Border Force spokesperson said it “can confirm that the final transfer of immigration detainees from Christmas Island to the Australian mainland has occurred”.
For the last seven years, Hussaini has been a volunteer with the local SES station.
"This is a second family," he tells SBS News.
"With this limbo life I’ve been through for 11 years, waiting to get a piece of paper, a permanent visa, if I didn’t have the SES around me, I might not be here right now and standing here talking to you."
When floods devastated the regionlast year, Hussaini was on hand for months, working through Christmas and New Year's Eve to not only provide flood assistance but also information to the local ref ugee community.
It was hard for Priya to stay positive after multiple deportation attempts. In detention, her children, Kopika and Tharnicaa, faced a litany of health concerns, including rotting teeth, language delays and behavioural issues.
Priya has written her full story with the journalist Rebekah Holt in a new book, Home to Biloela: The Story of the Tamil Family that Captured our Hearts.
“When I was writing this book, the main challenge was going through the painful memories. Despite this, I wanted to tell the struggles refugees go through, and that’s what motivated me to keep going,” Priya says.
“The party is over: the rorts and loopholes that have plagued this system will be shut down,” Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said.
“This is the first of many announcements this week to restore integrity to international education and to our migration system.”
‘Party’s over for rorters’: Government cracks down on visa scams. By Matthew Knott, SMH
The Australian Department of Immigration has kept at least 10,000 people in uncertainty since 2013. Sovereign Borders policy was incubated even earlier. Refugees say that they found the culture of the Department “unhelpful”. Given the values displayed in actions and texts of suspended long-term General-Secretary of Home Affairs, Michael Pezzullo, this will come as little surprise. He was right-hand enabler of right-wing Immigration Ministers from 2014 and in Border Control before that.
The Home Affairs Department told the Senate in July that it had paid an undisclosed amount of Australian taxpayers’ money to the PNG government in December 2021 to deal with what it called the “residual caseload”. The money was paid as part of a “confidential bilateral arrangement” when the decade-long regional resettlement arrangement with Papua New Guinea formally ended on December 31, 2021.
Vanessa Redgrave has donated £4,000 to a legal fund challenging the Home Office’s use of the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate asylum seekers.
The actor and human rights campaigner has been an outspoken critic of the government’s policy to house asylum seekers on the barge in Portland, Dorset.
The Bibby Stockholm has been empty since 11 August when asylum seekers, who had been onboard for just four days, were evacuated after the discovery of deadly legionella bacteria.
Vanessa Redgrave gives £4,000 to Bibby Stockholm legal fight. By Diane Taylor, The Guardian UK
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has today expressed serious concerns about an unfolding crisis in Port Moresby with refugees and people seeking asylum forced to Papua New Guinea a decade ago, as well as their families, now being cut off from critical support services and evicted from accommodation.
Perhaps the Pezzullo case is a line in the sand moment, where the Public Service Act and the High Court’s affirmation of the need for an apolitical public service, are taken more seriously than has been in the case in recent years.
Amidst the shattered remnants of an impartial public service. By Greg Barns, Pearls & Irritations
Over 180 migrant and cultural organisations have expressed support for the Voice, and work has been done on both sides of the debate to engage communities. But after speaking with people on the ground, SBS has found that understanding is not widespread.
Yes, No or I don’t know: Does Australia really know about the Voice? By Emma Brancatisano, SBS News
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