Julian Burnside – Home
All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running
from, and to, and why. - James Thurber
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CENTRE: click here
The arts
Chamber
Music Australia: Asia-Pacific Chamber Music Competition Jury members
announced: click here
Art, music and theatre: what’s on at fortyfive
downstairs (
Wolfgang Sievers photographs
for sale
Fine chamber music: Musica Viva Australia
Music and the City: an occasional
soirée which is hosted to bring together musicians, amateur and professional,
and music-lovers. It's a not-for-profit event where musicians get together to
play chamber music in a gorgeous venue over a glass of wine. Starts in
Melbourne 17 April.
Opinion: National Times
Today news
headlines: SBS
online, Age, SMH, Australian, ABC, Guardian,
World clock graphically
illustrating time zones
Current
affairs and comment: Inside Story
ASIO assessments and the profound unfairness of locking
up people assessed as entitled to our protection.
Facts about
refugees, compiled by the Centre for Policy
Development. For some people, the facts have a bearing on their opinion.
Unfortunately Abbott, Morrison and the Gillard government prefer to ignore the
facts as they chase votes.
This is the information given to people
carted to Nauru against their wishes: first we hijack them, then we threaten
them, then we get Nauru to imprison them: that’s how we drive them to despair.
The Far West Community Legal Centre desperately
needs financial help. Follow the link,
see what they do, and please contribute if you can.
ASIO
assessments: the Coalition shows its warm fuzzy side
A reflection on Australia Day, 2013
Mother
and baby locked up, possibly forever, without being allowed to know why.
This is not how Australia is supposed to be.
Censorship on Manus Island: obviously we are ashamed
of what we are doing. And so we should be.
Voices from people detained on Manus Island. Think of their despair and ask whether this
is how we should treat people, at Christmas or any other time.
A child detained on
Manus Island tries to speak out.
Read the plight of a
boy found to be a refugee but held in detention in conditions
which the government knows are likely to result in his death.
Some small stories about the dreadful treatment
of refugees right now.
The process of ‘screening out’ asylum seekers at the point of entry
to Australia operates to create terrible injustice
The Golden Rule – the
principle of reciprocity – the idea “do unto others as you would have them do
unto you” is nearly universal. Here are some examples.
As we increasingly demonise boat-people it is worth remembering the voyage
of the St Louis in 1939: It was denied permission to land its cargo of 900 Jews,
and as a result hundreds of them died in concentration camps.
UNHCR
report condemns Pacific Solution, and here is their press
release
A girl held on Manus
Island writes to Minister Chris Bowen
Some ideas for a better, and much
cheaper way of treating boat-people.
The cruelty of Temporary Protection Visas
Refugee policy: heading down the wrong track
Here is the Constitution of Nauru – note the Charter of
Human Rights at the start of it - and the very recent Nauru Refugee Convention Act
Very important
decision of the High Court in case
M47/2012: the High Court held invalid a regulation which prevented the
grant of a protection visa to a refugee if ASIO assessed the refugee to be a risk
to security. Accordingly, a majority of the Court held that the decision to
refuse the plaintiff a protection visa on the basis of that regulation had not
been made according to law.
Some irresponsible
people put around emails saying that refugees get more government benefits than
pensioners. It is false, as this report
from the Parliamentary Library shows.
Spreading discredited stories despite the facts is the mark of bigotry.
DASSAN: Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and
Advocacy Network: doing a great job in the Northern Territory
The UNHCR does not
seem convinced that Pacific Solution Mk II is a good idea. In particular, their letter to Minister Bowen
suggests that Nauru does not have the ability to undertake refugee processing,
and Australia does not have the right to side-step its Convention obligations. See UNHCR letter of 5
September 2012 to Minister Bowen
The $15 billion challenge: there are prizes to be won in this home-grown challenge. I am donating the prizes to find who has the
best ways of spending $15 billion instead of throwing it at the Pacific
Solution Mk II. See the challenge here.
A clash of national ideals is exposed by Go
Back
National list of organisations
helping Asylum Seekers and Refugees
There are two contradictions at the
heart of Pacific Solution Mk II
On 8 August Barry Jones’ gave the 33rd Daniel
Mannix Memorial Lecture
26 August 2012: eleven years on from Tampa
Tony Abbott on 7.30: can we believe what he says?
Latest developments in Assange case
A marvellous Letter to
the Editor from Dermot Daley-really worth reading
A few simple questions for Julia Gillard and
Mr Abbott
A brief response to the Report of the Expert
Panel on Asylum Seekers
The policy of deterrence: is it
really who we are?
The evidence
about asylum seekers, by Sharon Pickering.
All submissions
to Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers:
A selection of the submissions to Expert Panel:
- Human Rights Law Centre submission
- Asylum Seekers Resource
Centre submission
- Centre for Policy
Development’s submission
- Greens submission
- Sev
Ozdowski’s submission
- Darwin Asylum Seeker
Support and Advocacy Network submission
- my submission
- and
The Conversation has put together an expert panel to make recommendations: see their
findings here
Mr Abbott criticizes boat-people as unChristian.
He is wrong. Read
why.
Malaysian Solution or Nauru Solution: some
choice.
Is
Australia being swamped with refugees? No: look at this comparison
Detained, possibly
for life, without charge, without trial, without appeal. this should not happen in Australia, but read
about what we are doing to this mother and her two children
Asylum Explained. Asylum Seekers Resource Centre has a
brilliant new resource about seeking asylum: this is useful to refugee applicants,
community supporters of refugee applicants, and just about anyone not in the
lock ‘em up brigade.
Senate
Report recommends substantial improvements to immigration detention system
A Just Australia reports: 528 children remain in
immigration detention facilities or alternative places of detention as at March
2012. Welcome to Australia…
Senator Brandis and Ron
Merkel - why Brandis is wrong
50 refugees face lifetime detention without
breaking the law, without reasons.
Offshore processing and the problem with
Nauru
How do we respond to the fact of refugees
drowning at sea trying to get here?
Public swearing
Excellent article by James Hathaway about
asylum seekers being held by Indonesia
Have a look at the website of Welcome to Australia – a
really beaut idea.
Myths about boat people – get the facts here
op-ed in
Newcastle Herald 3 November 2011 (original as published here:
slow to load)
Senate Access
to Justice Report (Dec 2009)
Refugee facts from the
Asylum Seekers Resource Centre
Download Uniting Church Human
Rights kit ; get a useful factsheet on refugees and a
useful summary of myths and facts
from the Refugee Council of Australia; and a useful compilation of asylum facts
prepared by the Parliamentary library
Australians All and The Justice Project
find a Community
Legal Centre to help you
The
Rendition Monologues: available here for any theatre group to perform
Interesting and
diverse legal coverage on Stephen Warne’s
website
Latest news and
projects
·
Special
Review of CIA interrogation techniques in Guantanamo Bay etc
·
UN Human Rights
Committee Report
on Australia
·
A new report
on the operation of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities
·
Human Rights Watch 2009 Report
·
The Australian Human Rights Group
announces its campaign for a Human Rights Act for
·
Proust
report on department of Immigration response to Palmer and Comrie reports
·
Sir Richard Kirby lecture, 2008
·
Report
of joint parliamentary committee on detention
·
It’s Time for Australia to have a Charter of Rights
·
Magnificent bloopers in commentary at the Olympic Games
·
English Court
of Appeal holds government to account for ‘special rendition’
·
Jail for politicians who mislead the public. Ignore Laurie
Oakes and
Andrew Bolt who misrepresent or misunderstand the point.
See the argument here.
·
9th Manning Clark Lecture, delivered 10 March 2008
·
Age
editorial calls for scrapping of mandatory detention
·
HREOC report on mandatory
detention
·
·
The Charter of Rights in Victoria
·
The Centre for Constitutional Rights
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Contact:
burnside@vicbar.com.au