Australia's Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is painting the return of 16 asylum seekers to Sri Lanka as a victory in the fight against human smugglers who sell spots on rusty boats. The men arrived in Australia after the August 13 decision to reinstate offshore processing on Nauru, and decided to return to their home country rather than wait in tents on the remote Pacific Island for an indefinite amount of time as their refugee claims are assessed.

"Both the Nauru transfers...

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The families at Inverbrackie call Sunday "party day." It's the day that volunteers from the Hills Circle of Friends come through the minimum security gates of this detention centre in the Adelaide Hills, bearing food, toys and clothes for the families living in detention. Circle of Friends coordinator Maggie McMahon invited me to join her enthusiastic group. After having my visitor request approved by Serco, the private company that manages the detention centres, I was fortunate enough to sha...
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The first planeload of 30 asylum seekers arrived on Nauru early Friday morning, but not the last, as the Australian immigration minister indicated women and children could also be sent to the remote Pacific island as a deterrent to human smugglers. The Australian government is fulfilling its promise to reinstate offshore processing, a policy instigated by the Howard government in 2001 which saw boat migrants sent to Nauru and Manus Island before they could be processed in Australia. The polic...
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On Sunday I visited the Fremantle Prison, a fascinating relic of Australia's history as an island for convicts. It was the first British convicts in Western Australia who in the 1850s built their own jail — The one metre by two metre cells with rusty buckets instead of toilets; The solitary confinement rooms where misbehaved prisoners were locked in complete darkness for 23 hours a day; And they built the gallows where 43 men and one woman were hanged. Eventually the cells would be doubled ...
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Christmas Island is like no place on earth. The plane descends into the jungle, finding a small strip of runway next to an airport so small it looks more like a gas station. The thick, humid air engulfs me and I quickly shed a layer of clothing. I jump in my rental four wheel drive and start exploring. The landscape looks like a cross between Jurassic Park and Fern Gully, both places I thought were entirely fictional up until now. A few wrong turns here and there (the map given to me by the c...
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The Yongah Hill Detention Centre appears suddenly amidst the farmland and bush of the Avon Valley, located just outside of the town of Northam, about 80 kilometres east of Perth in Western Australia. Beyond the electric fence of the imposing steel and concrete structure are 521 asylum seekers who have travelled to Australia by boat. The men, most Hazara, Tamils or from Bangladesh, have been transferred here from remote Christmas Island, the first processing centre for boat migrants. The anti-...
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