Presented by Jane Lee with Paul Karp
TheLabor’s big deportation miscalculation – Full Story podcast, The Guardian attempt to rush through new legislation designed to give the government extra powers to deport individuals from Australia has been rejected by the Senate.
Labor’s big deportation miscalculation - Full story podcast, The Guardian
Australians are rightly proud that the White Australia policy, once described as our Magna Carta, withered and finally died 50 years ago.
But the constitutional power to deport “aliens” that gave the exclusionary policy its real clout endures.
The parliament, as it has done repeatedly since 1901, is again tinkering with laws to better “ring fence” the nation. This month yet another Australian government will turn itself in knots as it seeks to convince the high court that it can detain unverified refugees who fail to cooperate with their .involuntary removal.
Palestinians arriving in Australia on visitor visas are facing hardship and community organisations are stepping in to help.
Meet the Sydney volunteers who are feeding families fleeing Gaza. By Mustafa Rachwani, The Guardian
For Dutton, who believes vividly in the forces of good and evil and believes lawyers side too regularly with the forces of evil, it is a lifelong hostility. And for the Albanese government in recent months – confronted with the spectre of High Court judges freeing convicted criminals from detention – Politicians vs Lawyers is a showdown it's joined through sheer existential, electoral desperation.
Academic and author Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was arrested and jailed in Iran for over 800 days
, is now using her platform to push for other Australians detained abroad — including Zahab.
She too thought he had died in the 2022 airstrike, telling SBS News "at the time I was utterly horrified".
News of his survival and continued incarceration in a Syrian prison "affected her deeply".
"I think the government has a moral duty to help Yusuf, and to help the other — in particular underage children — who are Australian citizens," she said. "These children are not culpable for the alleged crimes of their parents or their older siblings."
The delegation of eight Tamil, Iranian and Rohingya refugees, aged 17 to 27, addressed MPs from Labor, Greens and Independents at a series of briefings in Parliament House on Tuesday, calling for a fair and fast pathway to permanency for hundreds of young people and the 9,000 refugees who continue to be overlooked by the Albanese Government.
Refugee delegation visits Canberra to end decade of uncertainty. By Janet Salmon, IA
The committee was critical of the "broad discretionary powers" the bill would give to the immigration minister, to take action against other countries which do not accept their citizens deported from Australia.
Originally from the northern suburbs of Melbourne, the circumstances of how Zahra’s family came to be in Syria are contested.
Some male members of her family reportedly joined the IS group, but Zahra maintains the women had no choice but to follow.
"I didn’t make this bed," she says.
"We are now forced to suffer for the decisions that other people – other male influencers – have made on our behalf, and now they're all gone and we are left to suffer with our kids."
A conscientious man in a controversial portfolio, for the immigration minister being the respondent to literally hundreds of cases a year just comes with the territory.
When the high court ruled in the NZYQ decision that indefinite detention is unlawful if it is not possible to deport the person, overturning a two-decade-old precedent, the legal terrain got even rockier.
The Coalition supported a Greens motion in the Senate to send the deportation legislation to a Senate inquiry, despite having voted with the government to pass the legislation through the House of Representatives, after Labor failed to produce reasons for the bill’s urgency.
The latest Migration Act amendments reflects the fact that Pezzullo’s protégées are still running the Department of Home Affairs. They are actively papering over the mess that their own indefinite detention decisions created. A sharp new broom is needed to clear out the departmental debris……..
So what is Labor’s real game: draconian policy or benign inclusion and compassion? If Labor intermittently apes the LNP just to get across the electoral line, more of the electorate may be tempted to flirt with independents and the LNP.
Nightmare of deportation: Labor tries on Dutton's racist jackboots. By Jane Salmon, P & I
The bill also gives the minister a new power to “blacklist” entire countries and prevent their citizens from applying for Australian visas.
This is a discretionary power that requires little consultation and is unlikely to be subject to administrative or judicial review. The only limitations on this power are that the minister first consults with the prime minister and minister for foreign affairs. The immigration minister must also detail why they think it is in the national interest to make such a decision.
Baffled, blindsided and distressed. That’s how Ali Elliin says members of the Iranian-Australian community feel about the Albanese government’s proposed immigration changes that could ban their extended family members and friends from entering the country.
Under the changes, the immigration minister could prevent foreigners from particular countries from entering Australia, even as tourists, if their home country refuses to accept the return of failed asylum seekers. Iran, Iraq, Russia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe are the countries most likely to be targeted as “removal concern countries”.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles hoped to keep the document from public scrutiny, according to seven government sources who spoke to this masthead on background, planning instead for the recently appointed Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster to provide verbal answers to Paterson’s questions late on the Monday afternoon.
Labor blindsided after detainee documents tabled. By James Massola and Nick McKenzie, SMH
Crossbenchers in the lower house warned that Australia would send people to their deaths under Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ latest bill, which also denies visas to people from nations that don’t accept unwilling deportees and allows the Immigration Department to reverse protection findings after they are granted.
The bill makes it a criminal offence not to co-operate, attracting between one and five years in prison. “Non-cooperation with removal processes demonstrates a disregard for Australian laws,” the explanatory memorandum states.
A group of crossbenchers in parliament – led by independent senator David Pocock and independent MP Allegra Spender – are now demanding Immigration Minister Andrew Giles expedite the process and provide a permanent pathway for people like Piume.
"A lot of these people have made a big contribution … a lot of them came as young seven, eight, nine or 10-year-olds, they see themselves as Australian," Spender told SBS News.
"I think it's time to get them out of the slow lane. Let's make decisions and let everybody get on with their lives."
In early October 2023, the Albanese Government announced a package of measures to address the asylum seeker situation. That was the first formal announcement of a package of measures to address this since before the biggest labour trafficking scam abusing the asylum system in Australian history. That started under Peter Dutton in 2015. Dutton ignored the issue while railing about the risk of asylum seekers by boat under a Labor Government.
But the problem has been allowed to grow so big that it will take many years and a fortune in taxpayer money to get things back under control. Even then, there is no chance of Australia ever getting back to the situation that existed before Dutton became Minister for Home Affairs when there were around 5,000 asylum applications at the AAT.
In 2022-23, onshore asylum seekers were 33% less than under Peter Dutton. By Abul Rizvi, P & I
On Tuesday, the inquest was told Mr Ishak Ahmed was seen on CCTV clutching his chest moments before suffering the fatal fall.
Doctors had already given evidence the refugee had presented multiple times – up to eight times in December 2016 alone – with varying symptoms.
The Year 11 students, whose surnames have been withheld for their families’ safety, both moved to Sydney’s west as refugees six years ago, where they met at Chester Hill Public School’s intensive English program.
In their home country, Seema and Sania could not go to high school. By Mard Ward
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