Refugee Advocacy Network

The report delivered today by the Joint Select Committee on the Immigration Detention Network contains critical recommendations that the government must urgently implement in full. “The recommendations provide a blue print for a humane, practical and cost-effective response to asylum seekers,” Greens’ immigration spokesperson, Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young, said. “Prolonged and indefinite detention is at the heart of the crisis in our immigration detention network. The evidence gathered by the Committee and the findings presented in this report are a sobering…

“ABC Radio Current Affairs Reporters, Fairfax writers and News Ltd Reporters all jumped too keenly to assume a direct correlation between an increase in asylum levels in industrialised countries and the number of boats arriving in Australia from Indonesia – and all of them got it wrong,” WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom said this morning. “There is almost never a relationship between the number of boat arrivals and an increase in asylum outflows around the world in almost any…

Australian unions are proud to support the Welcome to Australia campaign to make asylum seekers and new migrants feel welcome to our country. ACTU President Ged Kearney was today announced as an ambassador of Welcome to Australia, which aims to develop diversity, compassion, generosity and a commitment to give all individuals a fair go in our communities, workplaces and institutions Ms Kearney said she was proud to support the initiative, which celebrated the fact that Australia’s cultural diversity has helped…

The UNHCR’S latest asylum trends in industrialised countries report shows despite the hysterical tone of the political debate in Australia, we accept less of the world’s asylum seekers than tiny Switzerland, the Australian Greens said today. “While there was a 20 percent jump worldwide in the amount of people seeking protection last year, Australia took just 3 percent of the world’s most desperate people,” Greens’ immigration spokesperson, Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young. “This report shows a 9 percent drop in the number…