Month: October 2023

Catherine CrittendenMay 2, 2019Uncategorized

An informative article by Claire Higgins of the Kaldor Centre UNSW

The politics of “border control” is at odds with Australia’s
successful record of humanitarian resettlement.

Judith Betts, 2019, ‘Malcolm Fraser’s real mistake’, Inside Story, 12 April 2019. https://insidestory.org.au/malcolm-frasers-real-mistake/

Judith Betts and Mehal Krayem, 2019. ‘Strategic Othering: Framing Lebanese Migration and Fraser’s ‘mistake”, Australian Journal of Politics and History: Volume 65, Number 1, 2019, pp.100–114.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ajph.12538

Judith Betts and Claire Higgins, ‘The Sri Lankan Civil War and Australia’s Migration Policy Response: a historical case study with contemporary implications’ (2017) 4(2) Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 272,  

https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/publication/sri-lankan-civil-war-and-australias-migration-policy-response-historical-case-study

Labor for Refugees strongly supports the position of a number of organisations regarding the urgent need to release immigration detainees in line with recommendations of peak medical bodies and human rights lawyers advising the federal government on their response to COVID-19. In particular, Labor for Refugees endorses the statement made by Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow who has declared that these detainees should be put into community detention where it is safe to do so.  He said that putting people in community detention would enable these people to practise social distancing, as we are all urged to do, and that this must be done as soon as possible.

Commissioner Santow’s position aligns with the joint position of the World Health Organization (WHO), UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration (OIM) and UN Commissioner for Human Rights.

The link to Commissioner Santow’s SBS interview, where he clearly sets out his position on this issue and the reasons for it, follows

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/human-rights-commissioner-calls-for-immigration-detainees-release-over-coronavirus-infection-fears

L4R NSW held its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday evening.  We had a wonderful guest speaker in Dr Daniel Ghezelbash who heads Macquarie University’s new Social Justice Clinic.  He teaches courses in administrative law, human rights, refugee law and social justice advocacy and operates a pro bono refugee law practice and is a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project. Dan is also a member of the management committee of Refugee Advice and Casework Services, the only dedicated free refugee legal centre in NSW. He has written a book Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World, which examines the spread of mandatory detention, maritime interdiction and offshore processing policies from the United States to Australia and beyond. Dan spoke about Australia’s current hard-line asylum policies which could trigger a race to the bottom, with the potential to completely unravel the international refugee protection system.

At our AGM we held our election.  Two new positions of Junior Vice-Presidents were added to the NSW Executive.  The following members were elected as Office Bearers. 

Co-Convenors (2):  Jenny Haines & Shane Prince

Vice President: Mairi Petersen

Jnr Vice Presidents (2):  Sabrin Farooqui & Shannen Potter

Treasurer & Social Media: Jenny Haines

Secretary:  Nizza Siano

Assistant Secretary & Webmaster:  Cath Crittenden

National Co-ordinating Committee Members (3): Nizza Siano, Jenny Haines, Shane Prince

Returning Officer:  Chris Haviland.