Comment: The Australian Solution
By Waleed Aly
There was a Pacific Solution, a Malaysia Solution and, fleetingly, until someone thought to ask the Timorese, an East Timor Solution. But what exactly is the problem? I’m not asking rhetorically. It’s a serious question, perhaps the most serious question in the entire debate surrounding asylum seekers arriving by boat, and yet it is barely asked. The axioms of the public conversation simp
Comment: Ten Years After Tampa
By Peter Mares
John Howard’s stand on the Tampa is generally seen in retrospect as a political masterstroke that stopped the boats and helped him to secure the 2001 federal election. But to leaf through newspaper clippings from those intense days of late August and early September 2001 is to be reminded that his government took a high-stakes gamble and came close to losing. “Refugee Deal a Shambles” w