The Pacific Ocean may have been named for its peaceful winds, but this year’s 18 nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) has been among the most combative in its five-decade history. At issue was a confluence of sharply competing interests, with China’s growing role at the centre of them. China’s delegation stormed out of the meeting […]
Tag Archives: asylum seekers
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop “insists” that Australias relationship with Indonesia is “very positive”. But Indonesias Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is equally insistent that there is a serious problem with the relationship. If there is regular dialogue between Australia and Indonesia, as Bishop claims, it would seem it is being conducted at cross purposes. Bishop […]
Australia and Indonesia have worked hard over the past decade to build a strong bilateral relationship, seen as valuable by Indonesia and as critically important by Australia. That relationship is now in tatters. The Australian government has been at pains to explain to Indonesia that recent naval incursions into Indonesian territorial waters, intended to stop […]
The current breakdown in diplomatic relations between Australia and Indonesia is close to — or is — the worst the relationship has been. There has been nothing of such damage to the relationship since Australias intervention in East Timor in 1999, when Australia sent in troops with the permission of the Indonesian government to address […]
Australias relationship with Indonesia is at one of its historic low points, despite claims to the contrary by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. What is unusual about this most recent contretemps with Indonesia, with which Australia has previously had several difficulties, is that, unlike in the past, the current problems are entirely a consequence of Australian […]
West Papuan activists are testing Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s statements in relation to his asylum-seeker boat turnback policy, that he has “total respect for Indonesia’s sovereignty, total respect for Indonesia’s territorial integrity”. So far, they are having little luck. As Abbott was preparing to leave for Bali, three West Papuan activists scaled the wall of […]
Tony Abbott’s first international test as prime minister is also likely to be his toughest, when he meets with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono today. It will be a remarkable feat if he can pull the policy fat from the diplomatic fire. In the balance lies Australias critical relationship with Indonesia. Not only has Abbotts […]
In the dog-whistle competition between major political parties against asylum seekers and the war on alleged “terrorism”, the Australian government has jailed legitimate refugees, without charge, for reasons — extraordinarily — we are not allowed to know about. Opposition Senator George Brandis claims refugees who are deemed a “security threat” should be jailed because they […]
At a time of bipartisan support for renewing the Pacific Solution, it is deeply disturbing to see the asylum seeker issue taking a turn for the more extreme. In a world of dog-whistle politics, it appears that further punishing victims is acceptable if it can score domestic political points. Despite the opposition’s success in the […]
Let’s start with some basic facts. The 1951 Refugee Convention (as broadened by the 1967 Protocol) provides that the term “refugee” shall apply to any person who: "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his […]