See Mark’s article on Page 10.
How Australia plans to connect 600,000 skilled foreign workers and the industries desperate for them. By Dan Jervis-Bardy, The Guardian
A disconnected, complex and costly system for recognising overseas qualifications is blamed for preventing or delaying skilled migrants working in their chosen field in Australia.
As the federal election nears, a broad coalition of organisations spanning unions and employer groups is ramping up pressure on the major parties to fix the “skills mismatch” to unlock an estimated $9bn in economic benefits.
And new research suggests the public is on board.
Justice at last for children detained on Nauru, says RACS, UNSW
Following this ruling from the UN, two critical steps are required in order to secure justice for the children whose human rights were violated. Firstly, the Australian Government should follow the UN’s recommendation to promptly compensate the young people for violating their human rights. Secondly, the Australian Government should provide permanent protection in Australia for the handful of unaccompanied minors and others who are still, after many years, on bridging visas in Australia, many with no pathways to resettlement.
“The UN’s ruling recognises the suffering of the young people who lost their childhoods to Australia’s cruel immigration system,” Ms Dale (RACS) said. “The Australian Government must now respond by providing certainty and residency to these young people who, all these years later, remain in limbo, on bridging visas, despite being refugees owed protection by Australia.”
Justice at last for children detained on Nauru, says RACS, UNSW
Turned away by Australia and rejected by Trump, these refugees have been living in limbo for 12 years. By Niv Sadrolodabaee & Carl Dixon, SBS News
"Every day, we are waiting for an update, 13 years of waiting. We are experiencing a slow death," Nikki says.
"We have lost our years, we are facing health issues, and we face thousands of challenges every day."
According to a report by UNSW's Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, for these refugees "there is no clear way to leave. Returning to the country of origin is impossible; (the chance of) third-country resettlement is remote; and surviving in Indonesia is very difficult".
"The conditions are really, really dire for the 14,000 refugees who are waiting in Indonesia, which is what makes [Australia's] decisions to stop resettling refugees from Indonesia even more cruel," Favero says.
"Australia has a really critical role in our region to provide safety to refugees so that they can rebuild their lives.
"One of the first steps has to be by lifting the ban on resettling refugees from Indonesia."
Trump just dressed up ethnic cleansing as a real estate opportunity, and blew up ‘America First’. By Matthew Knott, SMH
As Australian National University professor Don Rothwell, a leading expert on international law, quickly stated: Trump’s idea would represent a crime against humanity, with the forced removal of Palestinian children quite possibly constituting an act of genocide under the Genocide Convention. The US, Rothwell noted, had no legal right to control Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel – Hamas 2023 Symposium – Refugee Law by Jane McAdam, Guy S. Goodwin-Gill | Nov 17, 2023, Lieber.westpoint.edu
Jane McAdam “Why relocating Gazans to Egypt and Jordan isn’t as simple as Trump might think.
If this terrorised American feels like fleeing, I think Australia should welcome him. By Jenna Price, The Canberra Times
How would it be if we offered refuge to citizens of the United States? I mean, we don't normally consider that we need to offer asylum to those from countries with values like ours, at least what used to be values like ours.
I'm thinking, in particular, Anthony Fauci, who was part of the White House COVID taskforce and who stood up to Trump during those horrific early years of the pandemic. Because, obviously, a real estate agent and reality TV hack would know more about infectious diseases than a doctor and a scholar. Trump's treatment of Fauci trained an entire generation of cookers, aka conspiracy theorists, to threaten and harass.
This language has a rich history in Australia but it's at risk of disappearing forever. By Charis Chang, SBS News
While once the most common Chinese language in Australia, Cantonese has been overtaken by a standard version of Mandarin used as China's official language since the 1950s.
Today, Cantonese is spoken mostly in Hong Kong, Macau and parts of south-eastern China. It's also widely used by the Chinese diaspora around the world, particularly in Vietnam and Malaysia.
Josephine Chau says that over the years she has come to understand how important the language is for connection to culture.
“Australia is multicultural and if we don't remember some of where our ancestors come from, it's very easy to forget that we were all new to this country at some point, and to just appreciate the differences that we have, and also the similarities.”
Asylum Seekers sue Authority. By Jacob Pok, The Post Courier PNG
The Immigrations and Citizenship Authority is being sued for depriving the rights of more than 20 asylum seekers and refugees who are still awaiting processing to leave PNG for a third country.
They have been residing there for the last four years and continue to do so while awaiting their processing.
Asylum seekers sue authority. By Jacob Pok, The Post Courier PNG
How an error kicked off asylum-seeker visa misinformation. By Michael Workman, ABC News
On Tuesday, News Corp titles inaccurately reported that the Albanese government had issued more than 20,000 visas to the families and partners of asylum seekers who arrived by boat.
The true figure was one tenth of this.
The false figure was reported by other mainstream media outlets and fuelled conspiracy theories online.
How an error kicked off asylum-seeker visa misinformation. By Michael Workman, ABC News
The Afghanistan Women's Cricket team have played together for the first time — but the match was so much more than a game. By James Vyver, ABC News
"This hasn't been only a game for all of us," team member Firooza Amiri said from the grounds.
"It's been to represent and be [a] voice of millions of women's fight in Afghanistan."
What is Dan Tehan and the Coalition offering on asylum seeker policy? By Abul Rizvi, P&I
As the overall number of asylum seekers in Australia continues to rise and is now over 120,000, Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Dan Tehan regularly criticises the Labor Government for not doing enough to get control of asylum seeker numbers. But with a Federal Election just months away, we do not know what either the Coalition or Labor will do to get on top of the issue.
Knowing Peter Dutton’s abysmal record on immigration integrity, including allowing the biggest labour trafficking scam in Australia’s history, Tehan has to tread carefully. While Tehan says “Australians will be cynical that Labor is serious about addressing this problem”, he avoids mentioning Dutton’s record or what a Coalition Government should have done when it was in power or would do in the future.
What is Dan Tehan and the Coalition offering on asylum seeker policy? By Abul Rizvi, P&I
Community leaders, advocates and sporting superstars among this year's Queensland Australia Day honourees. ABC News
Mrs Abraham was born in Eritrea, where she became a freedom fighter in the country's war for independence against Ethiopia at just 14-years-old. After years of fighting, she moved to Australia as a refugee in 1992.
Over the last three decades, Mrs Abraham has also helped create dozens of multicultural initiatives, including the Queensland Eritrean Community Association, the Australian African Women's Association and the Queensland African Communities Council.
She said she felt "humbled" to receive an OAM for her work with vulnerable people.
Auschwitz survivors warn of rising antisemitism 80 years on from the camp's liberation. Reuters, SBS
Auschwitz survivors have warned of the dangers of rising antisemitism as they marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp by Soviet troops in one of the last such gatherings of those who experienced its horrors.
In all, between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, along with gypsies, sexual minorities, people with disability and others who offended Nazi ideas of racial superiority.
Auschwitz survivors warn of rising antisemitism 80 years on from the camp's liberation. Reuters, SBS
‘This is a win for Afghan women’: Refugee cricketers send a message to the Taliban. By Jon Pierik, SMH
Dubbed “an Afghanistan women’s XI”, the refugee side will have its first match in three years when it faces a team assembled by Cricket Without Borders in a charity clash at the Junction Oval.
Marcia Langton - Peter Dutton’s deliberate Australia Day cruelty, The Saturday Paper
It’s a bad time to be non-white in Australia. Speaking out of both sides of his mouth, Peter Dutton has demanded an end to anti-Semitism and, at the same time, incited hatred of Aboriginal people, not just exploiting the anti-Voice surge of racism but inciting further racism against us. I agree that anti-Semitism is a scourge and must be tackled with tough laws and policing. So, too, are all forms of racism and xenophobia, particularly the rising levels of race hate against Aboriginal people, Muslims and other ethnicities, many of which have been singled out by Dutton.
In 2022, he alarmed the Australian–Chinese community when he made a shocking claim about a future war with China and compared China to Nazi Germany in the lead-up to World War II. He demonised African Australians, who he claimed so terrorised Melbourne that no one could go to a restaurant. He singled out Lebanese Australians, saying it was a mistake to take them in as refugees.
Marcia Langton - Peter Dutton’s deliberate Australia Day cruelty, The Saturday Paper
Is international law even a thing anymore? Not when it comes to Nauru. By Michael Bradley, Crikey
It all began to fall down with John Howard, accelerating through every successive government because of our obsessive national dread of “boat people”, to the point where — when it comes to how we treat asylum seekers — these days we flout the rules with a middle finger to posterity.
So it is that two recent decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee, calling Australia out for gross breaches of the ICCPR in relation to our treatment of refugees on the outsourced hellhole of Nauru, have been simply ignored by both the Australian government and — disgracefully — the Australian media.
Is international law even a thing anymore? Not when it comes to Nauru. By Michael Bradley, Crikey
Trump administration cancels travel for refugees approved to resettle in US. From Associated Press in Washington Post, The Guardian
Refugees who had been approved to travel to the United States before a 27 January deadline suspending America’s refugee resettlement program have had their travel plans canceled by the Trump administration.
Human Rights Law Centre : Statement on recent hate crimes in Australia
Human Rights Watch, Jewish Council of Australia, Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Australian National Imams Council, Human Rights Law Centre and Amnesty International condemn a recent spate of antisemitic hate crimes in Australia……..
…….These attacks follow a year of escalating hate crimes on the Jewish community and on the Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in Australia. Over the past 15 months Islamophobic, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian and antisemitic hate crimes include racist anti-Arab graffiti in Sydney; the planting of a homemade bomb in front of a Sydney home which was flying the Palestinian flag; the setting alight of a truck bearing the Palestinian flag which belonged to a man of Palestinian heritage in Melbourne; and the firebombing of Melbourne's Adass Israel synagogue. These forms of racism also include politicians denying the seriousness of Islamophobia and media reports using racist language.
Human Rights Law Centre : Statement on recent hate crimes in Australia
Nominations open for the Australia for UNHCR – SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition
The award aims to recognise an individual with lived experience as a refugee who has generated positive awareness about refugees, helped create a positive understanding about the situation of refugees and, in doing so, built a more diverse and inclusive Australian community.
It is named after beloved sports broadcaster Les Murray AM, who hosted SBS’s The World Game football program and was himself a young refugee who arrived in Australia in 1956 at the age of 11 from Hungary.
Nominations open for the Australia for UNHCR – SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition