A new year is often a time for reflection; to reflect on bad decisions made during the year past, and a time to plan how to rectify those decisions in the year ahead. Chris Bowen it seems, did not have this time for reflection on the practical costs of his ‘no advantage’ policy for asylum
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Last week Chris Bowen announced that the ‘no advantage’ principle would extend to asylum seekers arriving by boat whose claims are processed onshore in Australia. This is in direct response to the arrival of 7500 asylum seekers post August 13, and the realisation that it was impossible to accommodate this number on Nauru and Manus
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Since the reinstatement of offshore processing for asylum seekers was announced in August 2012, there has been much debate around whether the government’s ‘circuit breaker plan to reduce the current surge in irregular migration to Australia’ has been successful. What seems most notably absent from all political discourse currently around offshore processing, is the lack
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The plan to detain asylum seekers for processing on Nauru and Manus Island has failed even before the first detainee has arrived. The belief that this policy could be effective was built upon the false premise that the first ‘Pacific Solution’, implemented under the Howard government was effective in deterring boat arrivals. In fact boat
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The airing of SBS’s ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ this week has injected a much needed dose of reality and perspective into a debate dominated by sound-bites, spin and misinformation. The program has taken 6 ‘celebrity’ guests and flung them into the very real situations faced by asylum seekers in some of the
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