The compassion of the crowd can make you feel heartless for reserving comment until a reasonable question has been answered. When we began getting pictures of Syrians walking into Europe last week and our media became awash with the story, my heart was stuck on one question: why is this happening now? The Syrian civil Read more
Australia has agreed to take 12,000 refugees living on the borders of Syria and northern Iraq. It continues however to refuse entry to refugees on boats from Indonesia. The head of Australia’s Refugee Council says he expects Australia will soon ask New Zealand to help get it out of trouble with the Nauru asylum seekers’ Read more
New Zealand/Australian pop group Crowded House and British journalist Pete Paphides have re-released Help Is Coming with all proceeds going to Save The Children to support the global refugee crisis. The track, which had previously only seen the light of day on the rarities compilation Afterglow, was released in 1999 but has been giving new Read more
Pope Francis has called on Catholic parishes, convents and monasteries across Europe to shelter at least one refugee family each. The Pope said the two small parishes at the Vatican “will welcome in these days two families of refugees”. The plight of refugees from war-torn Syria has sparked calls for action worldwide, notably after a Read more
Mohsen is late, but effusively apologetic as he sits down. “I can’t sleep at night for the nightmares,” he says. “In the dark I am back in that prison in my country,” – a middle-eastern country Guardian Australia has chosen not to name for fear of consequences for his family – “so instead I sleep Read more
Is New Zealand part of the refugee problem or the solution? For decades New Zealand has been a willing participant in wars and interventions in the Middle East, which have been central in causing the current refugee crisis. Why, then, does this country continue to refuse to play a tiny part in responding to the Read more
As dawn breaks, ghost-like figures with sunken heads laden with babies, bundles of food and clothing can be seen trudging slowly along the autobahn. Alongside the usual tips on tailbacks and delays, traffic bulletins on the local radio alert drivers to “pedestrians who have been spotted on the A3 between the Austrian border and south Read more
Support for growing New Zealand’s refugee quota has been swelling over the last six months. Every week a new commentator sees the global refugee crisis and our tiny intake and agrees that New Zealanders must do our bit. One of the very few people to publicly oppose an increase in New Zealand’s refugee quota is Read more
Judging from the headlines, it sometimes seems no one in Europe wants to help refugees. Record numbers are arriving in Italy and Greece this year, and yet other European governments have agreed to share less than a fifth of them. Hungary is building a wall to keep them out. For the same reason, France has Read more
Last Thursday, Human Rights Watch Australia published a report explaining that, despite two years of processing, very few detainees have left Australia’s Manus Island detention centre. The report is a fresh reminder that forced integration can throw up some wicked dilemmas, whether it is in Nauru or Australia’s other offshore resettlement facility on Manus Island, Read more