Australia’s political and media response to Gaza, including the invitation to Israel’s president, reflects the influence of pro-Israel lobbying and the shrinking space for lawful criticism.
The Zionist lobby, antisemitism and Herzog. By John Menadue, Pearls & Irritations
Australia’s new onshore immigration detention operator has been accused by workers and their union of unsafe and “deliberate” levels of understaffing, as the number of critical incidents increase in the centres.
The US private prison company Management & Training Corporation – which has played a key role in the US immigration crackdown – has operated Australia’s onshore detention network since March 2025.
Israel remains a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ratifying it in August 1991. Israel is also a party to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified in October 1991.
This public record underscores the breaches of international law by an occupying power (Israel) of a stateless occupied people (Palestinians), that has dramatically worsened since the Israeli response to the heinous attack on Israel by the military wing of Hamas in October 2023.
The most extreme religious-nationalist government in Israel’s history has eliminated any pretence of a two-state solution with a homeland for Palestinians, pursuing instead a territorial expansion well beyond 1967 once-were-borders. This has led to flagrant abuses of its military power or any obligations it have – under laws their own state ratified - to treat Gazans, including children, with the care mandated. (Fifty per cent of Palestinians living in Gaza are aged 18 or less.)
Stephanie Dowrick Australian doctors protest Israel’s destruction of health rights in Gaza, P&I
The New South Wales chief justice has criticised Tony Abbott's "misconceived" comments on a judge's decision to approve a pro-Palestinian march on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The former prime minister said it should not be for judges to decide when a political protest was justified, in a social media post following Justice Belinda Rigg's ruling last August.
In a speech to the legal profession on Thursday night, Chief Justice Andrew Bell said Mr Abbott's remarks were regrettable.
The chief justice said Justice Rigg's decision was not about whether a political protest was justified, as would have been clear "to anyone who took the time to read it".
"This comment was, with respect, misconceived," Chief Justice Bell said.
The federal attorney general has used her mercy powers to pave the way for two Indonesian children to overturn a shocking miscarriage of justice that caused their wrongful imprisonment as adult people smugglers.
The boys, both aged 15, were among hundreds of Indonesian children who were found on asylum seeker boats between 2010 and 2012 and wrongly deemed adult people smugglers by Australian police.
Children who were suspected of crewing asylum seeker boats were supposed to be sent home. Many were from desperate backgrounds and had been either tricked or coerced into boarding.
Universities will be graded on how well they “deal with” protests, encampments and the display of flags as part of a controversial antisemitism report card system adopted by the Albanese government after the Bondi terror attack, according to documents seen by Guardian Australia.
When Broome nurse Rebecca Smith leaves Gaza in a few weeks, no-one will be able to come in and replace her after Israel announced it would stop Doctors Without Borders from working in the enclave.
Doctors Without Borders — often referred to as MSF for its French name Médecins Sans Frontières — is one of a number of NGOs the Israeli government is banning from operating in Gaza from February 28.
The banned organisations failed or refused to comply with new registration rules, including handing over staff lists.
In a statement, MSF said it "did not hand over staff names because Israeli authorities failed to provide the concrete assurances required to guarantee our staff's safety, protect their personal data, and uphold the independence of our medical operations".
"This is a pretext to obstruct humanitarian assistance. Israeli authorities are forcing humanitarian organisations into an impossible choice between exposing staff to risk or interrupting critical medical care for people in desperate need.
In 2024-25 Palm workers remitted A$450m to their home countries, an average of $1,500 each per person per month. The money bought food, paid school fees, upgraded housing and financed small enterprises.
Benefits flow beyond immediate families. After working in an Australian abattoir, Devid John Suma returned to Vanuatu and invested $30,000 to supply clean drinking water to his remote village.
The second win is for Australia’s economy. Palm workers make a significant contribution to regional businesses that struggle to attract local workers, from farms to abattoirs.
The third win is that Palm advances Australia’s strategic interests, not least by providing a counter to China’s wooing of Pacific nations.
Pacific leaders might wish for more aid from Canberra and be frustrated by the government’s tepid action on climate change. But well-paid work is something Australia offers that China does not.
The decision comes amid reports late last year that the Australian government advised the embassy's ambassador, Wahidullah Waissi, that his diplomatic credentials would not be renewed.
"I think for the community, this announcement has created a lot of fear, confusion and disappointment," Maryam Zahid, the CEO of the Afghan Women on the Move organisation, told SBS News.
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"For Afghan diaspora here in Australia, [The embassy] was more than a diplomatic platform, especially for women and elders. It was a place of connection [and] identity.
More than 100 refugees who had lawfully resettled in the state had been arrested in recent weeks, according to attorneys and advocacy groups. Some were flown to detention centers in Texas, according to attorneys representing the cases, and then were abruptly released – and left to find and pay their own way back home.
The demand is growing to bar the Israeli president from entering Australia next month as a coalition of civil society groups lodged a legal complaint urging authorities to deny Isaac Herzog a visa and open a criminal investigation under Australian law, Anadolu reports.
The complaint was submitted by the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), along with the Jewish Council of Australia and the Hind Rajab Foundation, to the attorney general, the minister for home affairs and the federal police, according to a statement by ANIC that was posted on US social media platform X.
They called on authorities to refuse entry to Herzog and demanded an investigation into whether his public statements and conduct amount to incitement to genocide, complicity in war crimes and unlawful hate speech.
The complaint, prepared by a senior counsel, cites publicly documented remarks made by Herzog in his official capacity.
The groups also accused Herzog of repeatedly denying or downplaying the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, despite findings by UN agencies and famine review bodies confirming widespread starvation and civilian suffering.
Demand grows to disallow Israeli president from entering Australia, Middle East Monitor
The Manuellas are one of the first families to arrive in Australia under a new treaty with Tuvalu, as rising sea levels threaten their homeland.
The visa was partially designed to assist those on the front-line of climate change and rising sea levels.
Professor Jane McAdam, director of the University of New South Wales' Evacuations Research Hub, explains the visa doesn't require applicants to have work or study plans already arranged.
"It provides opportunities for what we call livelihood diversification, it enables kids to go to school in Australia, for people to acquire further skills and training which they might want to use here, but equally might want to take back to Tuvalu," McAdam told SBS News.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has announced that the Afghan Embassy will cease to operate after 30 June 2026.
The Refugee Council of Australia said in a letter to the Australian government last year the embassy has been crucial in providing consular and diplomatic support as well as essential documents such as passports and birth records needed for refugee protection claims and even routine activities like opening bank accounts.
It also served as a diplomatic, cultural and community bridge between Afghan Australians, civil society organisations, schools, universities, local, state and the Australian government.
"Closure of the embassy risks exposing people to danger. With Afghanistan under Taliban control, many Afghans fear that the loss of the Embassy may force them to seek documents directly from Taliban-run institutions," the council said.
Local advocates and politicians have called for a review of MTC’s immigration detention contracts with the Australian government. MTC is also contracted by state governments to run several correctional facilities.
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre deputy chief executive, Jana Favero, said the Australian governments partnership with MTC was “deeply concerning”, given its track record in the US.
“Yet, despite this troubling track record, it is alarming the Albanese government continues to knowingly award and extend the company’s control of Australia’s offshore detention system to MTC,” Favero said.
“As we watch in horror at what’s happening on the streets in the US, including the violent crackdown on migrants, we should do everything to distance ourselves from such actions here, starting with ending the contract with MTC.”
Rwanda has taken legal action against the United Kingdom’s refusal to disburse payments under a now-scrapped, controversial agreement for Kigali to receive deported asylum seekers, according to a Rwandan official and UK media reports.
Rwanda launched arbitral proceedings against the UK through the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration on Tuesday. It is seeking 50 million pounds ($68.8m) in compensation after the UK failed to formally terminate the controversial agreement about two years ago, The Telegraph newspaper reported.
Rwanda sues UK over scrapped asylum seeker deal. By Mariamne Everett and News Agencies, Aljazeera
..Amid the French debate on a migration halt, the Spanish government is taking a different approach with its decision to put a new law to parliament that would grant at least one year of legal residence to people who are already in the country without permits.
Spanish Minister of Migration Elma Saiz estimated this could help 500,000 people living in Spain without authorisation.
The draft plan would grant legal status to foreigners who arrived in Spain before December 31 last year and could prove they had lived in the country for at least five months without any criminal record.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been a vocal supporter of giving asylum to people fleeing persecution and has argued against the curbs on migration advocated by right-wing parties, setting up a major test on the issue at the national election due by August next year.
Immigration freeze on table as deep rift splits Europe. By David Crowe, SMH
Every five years UN member states undergo a Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council, where their human rights records are scrutinised.
Australia appeared before the UN Human Rights Council on 26 January 2026. The Albanese government must now respond to these recommendations by July 2026.
Australia’s last review occurred in 2021 where 122 states made 250 recommendations, and the Australian Government supported 177 of the recommendations.
The Australia Human Rights Commission’s assessment is that only 6% of these recommendations have been fully implemented, although 86% have been partly implemented, since 2021.
On Monday, more than 300 citizenship ceremonies were held across Australia to welcome 18,800 new citizens from over 150 countries.
Thousands of people also turned out to competing rallies, including Invasion Day rallies in every capital city. The date has attracted an annual protest since 1938, when First Nations people inaugurated a Day of Mourning.
March for Australia rallies, whose attendees have raised concerns about immigration and cost of living pressures, also saw turnouts across major cities.
Consistent with the practices of other imperialist powers, the vulnerable who should have a central place in crafting a durable peace with justice must be ignored. In the grandiose claims about the Trump Board and what it will achieve, there is no mention of conditions in Gaza or of the two state objectives. Hamas must be disarmed but Israel is under no pressure to leave Gaza. The one sided version of imperialism flourishes.
Trump’s 'Peace Board' is imperialism in a new suit. By Stuart Rees, P&I
Former Men at Work frontman Colin Hay has disavowed the use of the band’s 80s anthem Down Under by Australian anti-immigration protesters, saying the song “does not belong to those who attempt to sow xenophobia”.
“Go write your own song, leave mine alone.”
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