It’s been a long hard battle, but today (Tuesday 29 July 2008) the Immigration Minister announced new policy changes that will vastly reform immigration detention in Australia.

This is a major improvement for human rights in Australia. Congratulations to the Minister, to the Rudd Government, to the members of the Coalition who spoke out, and to all those members of the public who battled for many years in their lounge rooms and on the streets.

Let's make sure these reforms are here to stay by making them law, not just policy!

See this newsletter for more details.

Immigration detention inquiry

The Joint Standing Committee on Migration are conducting an inquiry into Immigration Detention. AJA coordinated a joint statement from the advocacy community on the principles that detention should meet, and we have also made a submission to this inquiry.

Playing God with Sanctuary

A dangerous gap exists in Australia’s refugee system that means people threatened with torture and gross human rights violations are at risk of being sent back to their country of origin after years in detention centres because they do not fit the technical definition of a ‘refugee’, according to a joint report by refugee policy group A Just Australia (AJA) and Oxfam released on Saturday 21st June.

Read the report. Read AJA's media release. Read the Age article

AJA at the 2020 summit

AJA’s National Coordinator, Kate Gauthier, was invited to the 2020 summit as a participant in the Governance stream rather than the social inclusion stream. The Governance stream discussed issues such as the republic, indigenous representation in parliament, indigenous recognition in the constitution and electoral reform. Issues that were relevant to AJA’s work included a bill or charter of rights, and increased community participation in government decision-making.

Refugee advocates are well represented in the summit: click here to see a report of AJAs work at the summit and to see who else attended.