Two former officers have warned that a racist culture within NSW Police is contributing to high Indigenous incarceration rates.
New data from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show a record number of Indigenous adults in custody in New South Wales.
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said there was "no place for racism or discrimination" within the force.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke has been holding backroom talks with the opposition to strike a deal on an issue that has plagued his government since last year’s High Court ruling freed more than 200 immigration detainees into the community: what to do with people Australia doesn’t want but who can’t be deported.
The Albanese government has merged three bills to form an immigration package that allows it to put non-citizens back into detention once another country agrees to take them, and jail people for up to five years if they do not co-operate with moves to deport them.
But Labor’s agenda has alarmed human rights groups, who described it as draconian and discriminatory, while lawyers warn the planned laws will be hit with flurry of court challenges. Greens senator David Shoebridge said it was the “most extreme migration legislation since the White Australia policy”.
The people affected include many who have made their lives here, filled front line roles in construction or health, whose children only speak English and who have contributed tax for 12 working years. These people have survived Fast Track limbo. The track disappeared, only to be replaced with (Burke’s) Back Track. Is the Pacific again to be (Burke’s) Big Backyard for dumping the migrants he wishes to offload?
I beg Senators to Block the Bill to protect parliament from the shame of this vicious proposal.
Why oppose the latest deportation and surveillance Bill proposal. By Jane Salmon, P&I
As the Albanese Government’s efforts to control asylum seekers released from immigration detention continues, legal experts are warning the legislation it’s put forward to address the issue would give it unprecedented powers to forcibly remove non-citizens from Australia.
But now legal experts are warning the bill the government has drafted to replace it could be used to deport a wide group of people, including genuine refugees and people seeking asylum who have lived in and contributed to the Australian community for years.
GUEST : Associate Professor Daniel Ghezelbash, Director, Kaldor Centre for Refugee Law at UNSW
A little over six months ago Ezra, a young Congolese artist, landed in Australia with his large family straight from one of the largest refugee camps in Malawi to a quiet, leafy street where he appreciated the sounds of chirping birds.
"Cockatoos are the most unique creatures I've ever seen in my life and that's why I decided to paint them," he told AAP.
Young Congolese refugee paints new Australian life. By Farid Farid, The North West Star
The ASRC's Detention Policy Casework Lead Heidi Abdel-Raouf has accused the government of attempting to shelve its responsibilities.
"The Australian government has tried to abdicate their responsibility for the refugees and the people seeking asylum to the PNG government. However, they cannot absolve their responsibility and their duty of care to these people who they banished to Papua New Guinea more than eleven years ago. And so, the refugees are so unwell, the Australian government must medically evacuate them to Australia for urgent medical treatment. But in the interim, the refugees and their families must have access to safe accommodation, medical care and food."
Zaki Haidari arrived by boat in Australia as a refugee from Afghanistan at the age of 17 in 2011.
This week he delivered the inaugural Kaldor Oration - a speech intended to enrich the national conversation on refugee issues.
Former Afghan refugee delivers the Kaldor Oration, ABC RN, Saturday Extra
Carina Ford, the chair of the Law Council’s migration committee told a Senate inquiry that there is “no requirement” in the bill that removal countries have signed up to the refugee convention.
“It’s probably very unlikely they would be, if you look at past history of deals that have been made not just here but in the UK, I think the best example in the UK is the failed Rwandan removal country – sometimes it’s easier to deal with countries [that have not signed up].”
Mobile phones could be confiscated from immigration detainees under a federal government response to what it says are an increasing number of criminal activities being organised inside.
But immigration law experts argue the changes could have serious implications for the rights of detainees.
The Sudanese crisis may not be dominating the headlines, but for families fighting for survival and Sudanese Australians torn between our past and an uncertain future, our struggle is real. We need our government to acknowledge that our pain, though less publicised, is no less urgent.
Sudanese refugees in Australia deserve the same recognition, stability and security as others. Our stories deserve to be heard, and our community deserves to be seen. It’s time for the Australian government to act – because no refugee should be left behind.
Recognising the humanity in others, especially those in crisis, isn’t just about compassion; it’s about reflecting on who we want to be as a nation.
These “boat people” are not a threat; they are reminders of the resilience that has built and sustained this country for generations. Let us not be a society so secure in our privilege that we cannot see the humanity in those who yearn for the very freedoms we so readily take for granted.
Soon after the Rudd election victory Attorney General Debus and Ministers Evans, Plibersek and Smith adopted practical systems of accountability and transparency on human trafficking policies. In that same spirit the Albanese government this week delivered on the promise of a commissioner for anti-slavery. But as former minister Evans takes up this newly formed role in December, the opaque challenge of Operation Inglenook and related Border Force powers surely looms large.
In recent months a semi-autonomous network led by Asian Migrant Sex Workers, AMSWAG (Asian Migrant Sex Worker Advisory Group) has been joined by more than forty civil society organisations, many from the modern slavery sector, calling for an end to the Inglenook gender and race profiling at the border.
For Asian migrant sex workers caught in the cross-fire of anti-slavery policy, Villawood detention centre has become ‘home’.
Maryam Zahid first fled to Australia as a refugee from Afghanistan 26 years ago. Since then, she's been an advocate for women in her community being able to live freely and openly in their new home of Australia through her organisation Afghan Women on the Move. They help provide skills training, financial literacy and employment opportunities to women while helping to heal trauma through art programs and support groups. One of Maryam’s latest projects to get the word out about her organisation, is a one-act play called The Good Woman which shares some of the stories of women helped by Afghan Women on the Move.
… the sweeping new removal powers are not restricted to the non-citizens with criminal histories who feature so prominently in political speeches and media reports.
They could be used to deport a wide group of people, including refugees and people seeking asylum who have lived in and contributed to the Australian community for years. It could separate families and communities, devastating Australian citizens and permanent residents who are left behind. The bill is already causing widespread fear in affected communities.
An Australian human rights lawyer and a former long-term immigration detainee have given private testimony to the United Nations on Australia’s detention and consular practices, condemning successive governments for “criminalising immigration” and alleging inadequate support for victims of hostage diplomacy.
Alison Battisson, from the charitable law firm Human Rights for All, and the former detainee Said Imasi addressed the UN working group on arbitrary detention in Geneva this week, in special closed sessions marking the group’s 30th anniversary.
Back on Croker island, Clayton and the ranger group want to keep fighting to help the four men they rescued.
“I just wanted them to feel comfortable here on the island, and I wanted to talk to one of the police or someone else, like Border Force, just for them to stay here [so we could] take care of them. I can adopt people and keep them here,” Clayton says.
Vilification of communities with origins in Asia, Africa and the Middle East; Muslims being generically targeted as terrorists; a rise in anti-Semitism; and abuse of Indigenous Australians: these have all, unfortunately, become things that some of our political leaders are prepared to pursue, only faintly condemn, or at the least deal with very inconsistently.
Migration is intrinsically tied up in all these provocations: our intolerance of each new wave of migrants stems back to the early days of the colony. But just now that intolerance is also tied up in questions about our economy and about a very real housing crisis faced by many Australian families.
Can Australia actually have a sensible debate about immigration? By Laura Tingle, ABC News
There were 984 people held in Australian immigration detention at the end of September. More than 800 detainees have a criminal record and just over 100 are people who arrived unlawfully by boat.
An investigation by this masthead last year interviewed dozens of current and former Serco guards and detainees, many of whom claimed understaffing was entrenched, leading to violence, allegations of sexual assault and an illegal drug trade that puts both detainees and staff at risk.
The report finds that people on visas are set up to fail by discriminatory treatment in prison, with limited access to parole, rehabilitation, and education hindering their ability to have their visas reinstated.
While Australian citizens are granted liberty after serving a sentence, people who are subject to visa cancellation are ‘pipelined’ from prison to immigration detention and deportation from Australia.
These people face a heavy mental burden in prison, exacerbated by the anxiety of potential visa cancellation, limited legal assistance, and uncertainty about prolonged detention – with this pressure often leading to a forced choice to give up and accept deportation.
Over the last decade, successive Australian governments have dramatically expanded visa cancellation powers to punish visa-holders and pipeline them between prison, immigration detention and removal from Australia.
Young people on visas are missing out on crucial schooling and rehabilitation, for no other reason than their visa status.
This system sets up visa-holders to fail and to lose hope from the moment they are sentenced.
Four non-citizens reportedly found on remote Croker Island in the Northern Territory have been removed from Australia.
The ABC reported the four foreign nationals were found on Monday on the island north of Garig Gunak Barlu national park, near Arnhem land.
Guardian Australia understands the four people are no longer in Australia, but the government won’t say if this means they have been taken back to their country of departure, of origin, or to the regional processing centre on Nauru.
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