In 1856 a worldwide achievement of the labour movement occurred in Melbourne. The ‘eight hour day’ was won by stonemasons working on projects at Melbourne University Parkville and the Victorian Colonial Parliament House in Spring Street. In 1934, the Eight Hour Day was renamed Labour Day and has been celebrated since then as recognising workers’
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The front page of today’s Age demonstrates aptly the problem with the politicization of the asylum seeker debate – in a vain attempt to leverage the issue for political gain, we see Scott Morrison deliberately capitalizing on an allegation against one member of the asylum seeker community, blanketly applying it to all asylum seekers, and
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Last week the Coalition announced that under their governance they would scrap the review process introduced by Labor in October 2012 for asylum seekers given adverse ASIO assessments to have them appealed. This move would mean that ASIO would be able to brand refugees a security risk to Australia, they would not have to reveal
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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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