The prosecutions, launched in the highly charged political climate around border protection, led to children as young as 12 being jailed in maximum security adult prisons in Western Australia.
A Guardian Australia investigation last year revealed that police relied on the technique despite being aware of information casting serious doubt on its reliability and accuracy.
Helen Kvelde and Dominique Jacobs, members of activist group the Knitting Nannas, launched a challenge in the NSW Supreme Court through the Environmental Defenders Office in October 2022.
They argued section 214A of the Crimes Act 1900 and clause 48A(1) of the Roads Regulation 2018 were "unconstitutional as they impermissibly burden the implied freedom of political communication of the NSW community".
The board - comprised of officials from the Australian Border Force, Home Affairs, and former law enforcement officials - met for the first time on Monday, and will continue to advise Immigration Minister Andrew Giles on the roughly 160 released detainees.
A lack of information, polarising language and hurried-through laws are all harming how we discuss asylum seekers, writes former refugee Behrouz Boochani.
The politics of migration turned in the new year, when an explosion in the number of arrivals since Covid border restrictions were lifted pushed up net overseas migration.
In his budget reply, Dutton warned Australia was on track to add more than the population of Adelaide in five years and the Coalition started to link the issue to surging rents.
Ma’ruf, the vice president, suggested the Rohingya be settled temporarily on the island near Singapore.
“We used Galang island for Vietnamese refugees in the past. We will discuss it again. I think the government must take action,” Ma’ruf said on Tuesday.
Galang housed about 250,000 Vietnamese refugees, known as “boat people,” from 1979 to 1996. The UNHCR built healthcare facilities, schools, places of worship and cemeteries.
Ma’ruf said the government could not turn away the Rohingya, but also had to consider local people’s objections and the possibility of more refugees arriving.
Families have run out of food for their children; refugees have been left without electricity because they do not have the money to keep it connected. Electricity in Port Moresby costs up to $150 a week. Even drinking water has to be bought.
Inaction by the Australian government leaves PNG refugee children going hungry. By the Aim Network
On 23 November, a boatload of asylum seekers was dispatched to Nauru for offshore detention. They were found wandering the coast of Western Australia by Aboriginal people, three days earlier. This has been Australian policy for unauthorised boat arrivals since 2013; 10 arrivals in the past year. But there was a time when asylum seekers were welcome.
Such is the story of Vietnamese refugee doctor, Sang Phan, his wife Kim Chau, and their children Thanh, Lan Huong, and Tri. Of escape from Vietnam and the perils of an ocean journey in a small boat. A journey of apprehension and uncertainty – including a baby delivered by Sang Phan in the vast Indian ocean – to Indonesia, Malaysia, and finally to Brisbane, and then, Sydney.
From Vietnam to Australia, a refugee doctor's journey. By Ian Webster, P & I
As the global refugee crisis continues, Australians can help by participating in a sponsorship program.
VIDEO: Community sponsorship brings relief and support to refugees. ABC News
Nowadays there are several organisations dedicated to multiculturalism and interfaith promotion and schools are starting to acknowledge a variety of cultural celebrations. The narrative is changing. Migrants are not viewed as foreign entities with everything to take and nothing to give; communities are rallying around refugees and assisting with resettlement, which then has a flow-on effect on the overall economy.
Many rural Australians are dedicating their time to sponsoring refugees from afar. Our food, businesses, the health and education sector, the arts and entertainment scene — all flourish thanks to the contribution of our multicultural communities.
Dickinson said clients the centre had spoken to were getting headspins from hunger.
"They're not sure how long they're staying in their current accommodation. They're not sure what support is available to them, and they're in limbo and in fear. And then on top of that, they're subjected to incomprehensible conditions and quite extraordinary public debate suggesting they should be locked up forever, more or less," she said.
Some clients said they feel too ashamed to go outside and were significantly impaired by the nature of their release, she added.
On Thursday the Courier Mail reported that a man was arrested in Queensland after it was realised there was a warrant to return to jail for allegedly breaching his parole conditions before being placed in immigration detention in 2012.
After Labor and the Coalition voted together to bring the bill on, Cash said the government are “finally” doing what the opposition leader had demanded, to allow “law enforcement agencies to lock up high risk individuals who have been roaming free”.
Cash revealed the Coalition will move a “modest” amendment requiring the minister to “report to parliament every time one of these dangerous individuals is released into the community”.
The amendment was voted down, but the Coalition and Labor combined to pass the bill shortly after 6:30pm. It will go to the House of Representatives on Thursday.
Earlier, the Greens senator, Nick McKim, accused the major parties of “a race to the bottom” to demonise refugees, with “xenophobic” legislation that “only applies to foreigners”.
Dutton will know the vast majority of these people will never be removed from Australia and are likely to live in the Australian community for the rest of their lives. But he will nevertheless enjoy making life hell for the Government for as long as he can.
Dutton’s actual border protection record
Most Australians would be surprised to learn that while Dutton was Home Affairs Minister, Australia experienced the biggest labour trafficking scam abusing the asylum system in our history.
Dutton’s border protection rhetoric is nothing like his border protection record. By Abul Rizvi, P&I
The Albanese government is close to finalising new laws to re-detain migrants and refugees deemed to pose an “unacceptable risk” of reoffending, amid an escalating political fight.
The court made it clear that a person must be released from detention when there was no real prospect of them being deported in the foreseeable future. Previously, there was no limit to the length of time people could be detained in immigration detention in Australian law. In fact, people could legally be detained for the rest of their lives without ever being found guilty of a crime.
This week, I, alongside a group of advocates, refugees and politicians, stepped into the Australian parliament to launch a campaign for a royal commission into the Australian detention system. For me, this moment marked the culmination of a decade of waiting and fighting to expose this system – a surreal and historic moment for refugees who have experienced the brutality and violence of the detention industry.
Peter Dutton as immigration minister exercised a discretion allowing the plaintiff, whose case overturned indefinite immigration detention, to reapply for a visa after he was convicted of raping a 10-year-old, the government has revealed.
After weeks of Coalition attacks for its handling of the fallout from the high court’s ruling that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful, the immigration minister, Andrew Giles, hit back in question time on Wednesday by claiming “this ultimately is [Dutton’s] mess”.
In the reasons published on Tuesday, the judges stated that was when “the constitutionally permissible period of executive detention of an alien who has failed to obtain permission to remain in Australia” comes to an end.
But the judges warned that “release from unlawful detention is not to be equated with a grant of a right to remain in Australia”.
While there is much hysteria from Peter Dutton and the Murdoch press associated with the 12 asylum seekers who recently arrived by boat (it’s a catastrophe apparently), there was less excitement about a new post-pandemic monthly record for primary asylum applications set in October at 2,322. That is now approaching the monthly record of over 2,700 asylum applications set when Peter Dutton was Minister. It seems asylum seekers arriving by boat are much more exciting than those who arrive by plane.
Hysteria: Putting the 12 asylum seeker boat arrivals into context. By Abul Rizvi, P&I
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