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Aug 21, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
Australia has always found a way to bring in people suffering in conflict zones – when it wants to.
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Jul 31, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
Given the catastrophe they inherited from the Coalition Government, Labor’s immigration record over two years is actually quite good. Huge improvement is still required. They will remain seriously hampered by the Home Affairs portfolio construct and must eventually restore a freestanding Department of Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs. Andrew Giles has been unfairly criticised for his handling of a problem that was of Peter Dutton’s making.
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May 26, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
The High Court decision in the ASF17 case removed the apparent driver for the government’s sledgehammer immigration removal legislation. There is little evidence that the legislation would work as intended. A sledgehammer is not much use for a problem which is more akin to undoing a couple of tight screws. The government should drop the legislation and completely redevelop its immigration compliance and removal strategy.
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Apr 2, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
The government’s new legislation represents a sledgehammer approach to twin immigration removal problems – non-cooperation by people who don’t want to be removed from Australia on the one hand and non-cooperation by their country of citizenship on the other. These problems are quite tricky, but they are not new. Alternative approaches are needed. In the past, the government could continue to keep those who don’t cooperate in their removal in immigration detention (technically forever).
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Feb 19, 2024 | 
lexology.com | Susie Daykin |Daniel Gerring |Jonathan Gilmour |Niamh Hamlyn |Peter Hughes |David James | +5 more
The Government has laid before Parliament the final regulations concerning the funding and investment strategy requirements to be introduced by the Pension Schemes Act 2021 (the "Regulations"). The Regulations set out new principles that will govern how defined benefit (DB) schemes will have to be funded, alongside an integrated investment strategy, based on a long-term objective for providing benefits (for example buy-out, consolidation or run-off).
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
Australian Citizenship should be revived as a positive unifying element in a cohesive multicultural society. The Australia Day citizenship ceremony controversy is just a sideshow. The real issue is the completely unacceptable waiting times for processing Australian citizenship applications. The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government trashed the good work of previous Coalition and Labor governments by pursuing regressive citizenship policies. There is a big restoration job to be done.
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Dec 18, 2023 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
The government’s new migration strategy is a commendable attempt to restore some shape to immigration policy and to deal with pressing short, medium and long-term policy problems. A massive implementation effort is needed to make it work. It comes at a time of a pathetic level of public discourse on immigration issues. Institutional change is needed to get immigration fully back on track.
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Nov 20, 2023 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
The use of immigration detention in Australia has expanded well beyond its original intended purpose. It has become a political tool, a convenient proxy for dealing with issues that should be dealt with in other parts of government and a vehicle for delivery of immense cruelty. There was a certain inevitability that the High Court would eventually stop governments from misusing it.
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Jul 27, 2023 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have published serious allegations about millions of dollars of Australian government funding for Offshore Processing Centres finding their way through contractors to bank accounts controlled by South Pacific politicians. This comes on top of a history of criticism by the Auditor-General on how providers were selected and contracts managed by the Department of Home Affairs.
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May 1, 2023 | 
johnmenadue.com | Peter Hughes
The 190 page Parkinson Immigration Review provides a very good blueprint for the future, considering the limitations placed on it by its terms of reference and timeline. The government has circulated a “Migration Strategy” document for consultation picking up broad concepts in the review’s recommendations. There is much more work to be done to decide on, and implement, the best of this report and to deal with outstanding issues that it was not requested to cover.
