The abolition of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) is a crucial part of Attorney General Mark Dreyfus KC’s integrity platform. In the last decade of Coalition governments it had become overwhelmed by partisan appointments, creating a bedlam of incompetence and politically-motivated decisions. Many of these Coalition appointments were unqualified, with no legal training or experience: Continue reading »
Immigration, refugees
It helps to apply all the lessons of the past correctly when considering learnings from a recent High Court decision about the use of personal Ministerial intervention powers under the Migration Act It saddens me to have to comment negatively on an article by one of my favourite national commentators. Jack Waterford’s article “The Home Continue reading »
This front-page story in The Australian on the blow out in net migration has created a frenzy of finger pointing, most of it ill-informed. It is true net migration is currently running at levels Australia has never before experienced – we are in uncharted waters as net migration for the 12 months to end March Continue reading »
In February 2023, the number of asylum cases in Australia for the first time exceeded 100,000. Despite the intense attention on boat arrivals for the last decade, note that very few of these 100,000 asylum cases are boat arrivals. The bulk arrived during an intense period of labour trafficking of Malaysian and Chinese nationals from Continue reading »
This editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests an independent body should determine which occupations are in shortage for employer sponsored visas rather than using labour market testing. That would be a mistake. It is entirely appropriate labour market testing should be abolished. It has always been a charade. It was why my former colleagues Continue reading »
The Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, has declared Australia’s migration system is “broken. It is unstrategic. It is complex, expensive and slow. It is not delivering for business, for migrants, or for our population”. While no one is to be held accountable for this, not even the guy who has been in charge for Continue reading »
Opening up access to permanent residence for long stay refugees on temporary visas is right and inevitable. The decision will not set off a major new surge of maritime asylum seekers. The Coalition and their supporters have selective memories. Temporary protection visas were never a deterrent anyway. The government’s decision to allow access to permanent Continue reading »
Six years ago, John Menadue, Robert Manne, Tim Costello and I agreed that Australia’s refugee and asylum seeker policy was in a complete mess. The trouble started with the 2013 election campaign when Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott tried to outdo each other, pledging that the boats would be stopped and that anyone headed for Continue reading »
The western sanctions weapon is not new to Syria, but since 2019 it has become a lethal one, destroying entire Syrian sectors and killing its people. First published in The Cradle February 6, 2023 Some 83 years after being employed against Germany in 1940, economic sanctions have become the most widely-used tool in Washington’s arsenal Continue reading »
Overseas students are a key source of export income and a tool of Australia’s soft diplomacy. Whether for good or bad, they have also become a major funding source for university research. But far more importantly, they have since around the year 2000, contributed around 25 percent of the annual migration program – in other Continue reading »