What’s the story now?

Not that I like suggesting that discussion of petrol prices should not be our major concern, but perhaps this little revelation could be the subject of sustained investigation by some self-respecting journalists:
DOCUMENTS have revealed the department of former prime minister John Howard became involved in the Mohamed Haneef affair less than 48 hours after the [...]

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Snap, indeed

Cross-posted from Public Polity:
This seems quite a strange thing to happen one week before election day:
IMMIGRATION Minister Kevin Andrews has ordered a snap review of all 450 people held in immigration detention in Australia to establish whether an administrative error means their incarceration is technically unlawful.
Department officers are being forced to go back and check [...]

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Keelty, come clean

An e-mail obtained under Freedom of Information has confirmed that the AFP had communicated with the Department of Immigration about a contingency plan to detain Mohamed Haneef after he was granted bail [PDF of e-mail]. Kevin Andrews’ office denies that the Minister was aware of such communication, or of any contingency plan.
While Kevin Andrews’ knowledge, [...]

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Insert “ivory tower” pun here

Obviously, these 165 academics have been contaminated by the unions:
“Many of us work directly with humanitarian refugees and other
immigrants,” the letter says. “We take exception to the statement by
… Kevin Andrews that links the reduction of Australia’s African
humanitarian intake to assumed integration difficulties.
“We know of no empirical evidence that refugees from particular
countries find it more [...]

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Ivory and ivory, live together in perfect harmony …

Nice to know that Kevin Andrews has a loyal friend. And someone needs to explain to Pauline what the word “refugee” means:
Ms Hanson, who has formed a new political party, Pauline’s United Australia Party, for this year’s election, said Australia should send aid to Sudan instead of accepting refugees.
“If we want to do things for [...]

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Playing on race

It’s unsettling when I find logical reasoning in Andrew Bolt’s column:
This latest fuss started with Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews saying we’ve filled our quota of African refugees for this financial year and no more will be allowed until the next.
From the screaming since, you’d think three things are sickeningly true, which in fact are reassuringly [...]

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Playing the man, not the ball

I don’t need to say much here because several learned bloggers have done the job for me, but I want to give voice to my disgust at Joe Hockey and Peter Costello for their appalling attempt to defame academics who have done research that points out some inconvenient truths about AWAs.
On 7.5 the other night, [...]

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Considering equality

John Howard is going to decide whether gay couples get equal rights, because Cabinet put it in the too-hard basket. Still, at least they had a vigorous debate that got to the important equity issues relating to same-sex couples. Why, look at how tuned into the issues these people are:
Ministers were also concerned at the [...]

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Trust me, I judge people’s character for a living

Kevin Andrews says to trust the PM’s judgment on the Exclusive Brethren:
“I’ve known the Prime Minister for a long time.
“I find him a very serious man, one whose got the national interest at heart, and I’m sure if there was anything untoward the Prime Minister would know about it.”

Two things:

Somehow, this doesn’t seem the right [...]

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The "secret" chat-room conversation

So, Kevin Andrews has made a highly selective disclosure of some of the previously unreleased information that shaped his decision about Haneef’s visa. Haneef’s lawyer claims that the chat-room conversation is not news to him or Haneef, as Haneef was questioned about it (any chance of a leak of that transcript?). Several initial observations and [...]

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