The recommendations are now with the federal government to consider and seek further advice. The report helpfully provides an example of what a human rights bill might look like, to promote understanding and discussion.
It is up to government to decide whether to accept the recommendations and, if so, for parliament to vote.
Amid a spate of horrific domestic violence killings in Australia, migration and trafficking experts say there is a hidden crisis where women, typically those already subject to domestic violence, are tricked, threatened or forced into leaving Australia. Technically called exit trafficking, the practice is illegal and is treated as a form of people trafficking under commonwealth law.
Gurpreet Singh has lived and worked in Australia for 14 years.
Two of his three children with his wife, Jasbir, are Australian citizens and all three are enrolled in school.
But a visa processing delay led to Singh being classified as an unlawful migrant and losing his right to work. The family was left homeless, living out of a tent for almost a month. They are now surviving off charity.
Immigration is a wickedly complex and tough portfolio so the first test is: would anyone else handle it better than the beleaguered incumbent?
Giles’ gentle presentation makes him seem hesitant in the face of the Coalition onslaught and that leans some of his colleagues towards maybe. Others argue the problem is not the minister’s competence or communication but the circumstances – the high court’s November ruling that indefinite detention was unlawful and the home affairs department’s failure to properly notify him that some of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions allowing violent criminals to stay in Australia might need attention.
I have researched the performance of every immigration minister since the 1980s. There are none who have created the policy and administration disasters that Dutton was responsible for, including in terms of immigration integrity and dealing with those who undermine the visa system.
Dutton’s abysmal record on immigration integrity. By Abul Rizvi, P&I
When clinical psychologist Scarlett Wong began receiving children in Gaza for treatment, her team was told the kids needed help for developmental delay or autism. But their condition had nothing to do with either.
They were starving….
….But as her placement was wrapping up in Gaza, it was the final messages from her colleagues to the world that still haunt her.
"They said, 'Can you tell everybody who's helped us, thank you'," Wong remembers.
"And then they said, 'Tell your children about us, tell them about our lives and that we love life'
Médecins Sans Frontières International President, Dr Christos Christou, presents to the National Press Club on 'the state of humanitarianism today'.
Médecins Sans Frontières President Christos Christou at National Press Club | ABC News
On Sunday, while discussing the Coalition’s plans to cut immigration, Tingle said: “We are a racist country, let’s face it. We always have been, and it’s very depressing.”
“I also want to inform the house that I have cancelled the individual’s visa and, as this matter is before the courts, I’ll say nothing further about this matter.”
After years of being stateless refugees, my family now enjoys the privileges and protections of citizenship. I hold an Australian passport, the only passport I have ever had.
Recently, I returned to the place that first formed me: Kakuma refugee camp, home to almost 300,000 people in northwest Kenya. I travelled with Australia for UNHCR – the national partner of the United Nations Refugee Agency – in a voluntary capacity. I did this because I want to use my story to help raise funds for refugee education programs.
The LEE program began in 2013 and offered resettlement for Afghan employees who were at risk of harm as a result of their work with the ADF.
It has helped 900 former workers settle in Australia since its inception, but as it draws to a close, there are still many former interpreters stuck in Afghanistan who say their lives are at risk.
Now, they can do nothing but hide, and they say the Australian government has abandoned them.
“ Regardless of who the migrants are, just by having more you benefit because you don't need twice the resources to sustain that population. You also have a larger customer base. There's all kinds of benefits that come from size.
"That's why people move from country to city, it's exactly the same argument there as the argument internationally… There's also international evidence that shows migrants add to productivity, because more people means more ideas."
Dr Ryan Edwards, a migration expert at the Australian National University, warned against letting short-term concerns about housing distract from this long-term benefit. "I think it's a risky game for politicians to play."
Similar sentiment is almost universal among migration experts. And politicians on both sides of politics are also happy to agree that migration has long-run benefits.
But as on many issues, the politics can tend to focus on the short-term.
“Firefighting devices were discharged directly on to people in detention and, in one disturbance, into enclosed areas where people had retreated, including people who had not been involved in the disturbances,” the ombudsman said.
A spokesperson for Serco said: “The safety of all detainees in our care is of paramount importance to Serco. “Our priority is always to treat people in our care with dignity and respect in a safe and secure environment.
Shaun Christie-David can still picture the bin where he used to ditch his dhal sandwiches, the furtive act of a teenage boy of migrant parents desperate to fit in.
Today, that dhal, Amma’s Dhal, takes pride of place on the menu of Colombo Social, the first of Shaun Christie-David’s string of Sydney-based restaurants and social enterprises that celebrate multiculturalism and diversity, giving work and purpose to refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, older women, people with a disability and former prisoners.
The Grattan Institute estimate backs the treasurer Jim Chalmers’ statement that Dutton’s proposed migration cuts would cost “billions”, which the opposition leader dismissed on Monday as “voodoo economics”.
Two senior government sources with direct knowledge of the issue told The Saturday Paper that while the government had not formally decided against repatriating the so-called ISIS brides and their children, the prime minister had made it “very clear” that unless there was a dramatic deterioration in the security situation in and around the camps, the issue “would not be revisited before the election”.
“Not bringing these women and children who are Australian citizens home is nothing other than a complete failure of political will,” says Save the Children Australia chief executive Mat Tinkler. “That and nothing else.”
Exclusive: Repatriation of ISIS brides shelved. By Jason Koutsoukis, The Saturday Paper
Achieving a sense of belonging is one of many barriers faced by refugees and asylum seekers coming to Australia, and advocates say that's even more so when they identify as LGBTIQ+. On International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersex Discrimination and Transphobia, new funding in Victoria is aiming to give vulnerable people a chance at a new start.
Victoria announces new grants for groups supporting LGBTIQ+ communities. SBS News video
After heavily criticising the level of net migration, as if Coalition Government policies had nothing to do with the boom, in his Budget reply Dutton announced he would cut the migration program to 140,000 and the Humanitarian Program from 20,000 to 13,750.
The immigration debate: smoke, mirrors and a dash of xenophobia By Abul Rizvi, P&I
The government pushed debate on the bill to the next parliamentary sitting in late June as Immigration Minister Andrew Giles faced off with the Coalition, which is calling for greater safeguards for those affected.
Labor’s deportation bill shelved in Senate stand-off. By Angus Thompson, SMH
But in the budget reply Dutton did not commit the opposition to a target on net migration, instead promising to slash the permanent migration program by 25% from 185,000 to 140,000 for the first two years, followed by 150,000 then 160,000.
Dutton argued this was being done in “recognition of the urgency” of the housing “crisis”. The policy would reduce the intake of skilled workers and recipients of family visas by a cumulative total of 150,000 over four years.
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