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Andrew Forrest’s Healthy Welfare Card – A BasicsCard with added Human Rights?
By Adam Fletcher Last year mining magnate Andrew Forrest was commissioned by the Australian Government to conduct a review of Indigenous jobs and training. One of Forrest’s recommendations was a ‘Healthy Welfare Card,’ an idea which might be more familiar to readers in the form of the previous Government’s ‘BasicsCard’ (perhaps a new name was…
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Commonwealth Games: is it time to stop playing?
By Paula Gerber Barely six months ago, international anger and calls for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Russia drew nearly as much news coverage as the games’ sporting achievements. And as the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow get under way, it is worth remembering that although Scotland has nothing to match Russia’s gay propaganda laws, the…
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Is Australia’s new asylum policy the harshest in its history?
By Azadeh Dastyari Last week’s announcement is perhaps harsher than any asylum policy we have had in our recent history. It attempts to achieve what the Howard government’s Pacific Solution could not: that is, to ensure that no refugees are in fact resettled in Australia. Whether it can achieve this aim is a big question.…
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Explainer: Australia’s obligations under the UN Refugee Convention
By Azadeh Dastyari Prime minister Kevin Rudd has indicated that he would like to revisit Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. We are yet to learn what this may mean, but it is important to clarify some misconceptions about the convention in the lead-up to his announcement. The convention was…
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‘Push Backs’ of Boats to Indonesia
By Maria O’Sullivan This piece considers whether the opposition’s plan to “tow back” boats to Indonesia complies with international law. On 17 July, our associate Azadeh Dastyari published this critique of the opposition’s claim that its plan is similar to the United States’ tow back policy. For a number of years now, the debate about how to…
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Abbott’s copycat tow-back plan won’t stop the boats
By Azadeh Dastyari This piece critiques the opposition’s claim that its plan to “tow back” boats to Indonsesia is similar to the United States’ tow back policy. On 18 July, our associate Maria O’Sullivan published this piece considering whether the opposition’s plan complies with Australia’s international law obligations. In recent weeks, the Opposition Leader, the shadow immigration…
Castan Centre for Human Rights Law 