Urban policy

The employment relationship – that between employer and employee – is at the heart of capitalism and a core issue for public policy. Governments create rules, policies and institutions within which employees, their representatives, employers and their representatives, operate. The interest to governments when creating policy includes the form that bargaining takes, wage and employment levels, the nature and effects of contracting and the rights of workers – much of this boiling down to issues of power. In recent decades, major policy issues have included the federal Labor government’s Prices and Incomes Accords in the 1980s and 1990s, the Coalition government’s ‘WorkChoices’ legislation, the shift to enterprise bargaining, and developments in such areas as minimum wages and pay equity. In this chapter we outline the matters at stake, the players, the policy processes and some of the key issues

The Exclusionary Politics of Asylum. By Vicki Squire

2 page(s

The logic of selection : immigration and refugee policy in Europe and Australia

Reprint from Garnier, Adele (2010) Die Logik der Selektion. Einwanderungs- und Flüchtlingspolitik in Europa und Australien, WeltTrends 73, S.67-759 page(s

State control and the admission of refugees in Australia and Britain

"9 November 2011"Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Arts, Dept. of Modern History, Politics and International Relations, 2012.Bibliography: p. 319-350.Introduction -- The limits of state control in refugee admission policies: literature review -- Explaining unintended policy outcomes in refugee admission policies: a historical institutionalist approach -- Post-war refugee admission: the slow demise of a dual institutional setting -- Refugee admission policies under the Thatcher and Major governments: rise of asylum claims, contested policy objectives and increasing institutional complexity -- Refugee admission policies under Tony Blair: Peak and decline of asylum claims, political opportunism and permanent reformism -- Refugee admission policies until the early 1980s: selective openness -- Refugee admission under the Hawke and Keating governments: whom to select and how? -- Refugee admission policies under John Howard: opportunistic restrictiveness and global institutional activism -- Conclusion.Since the 1980s, industrialised countries have increasingly attempted to prevent the arrival to their territories of asylum seekers and refugees. Such policies have, however, generally proven ineffective and dangerous for refugees, as well as being politically highly charged. Despite the failings, popular support for less restrictive policies has not grown significantly, if at all. -- This thesis adopts a historical institutionalist research design to investigate these issues. It examines the consequences of conflicts between policy-makers, the deficiencies of enforcement mechanisms, and increasing institutional complexity for the effectiveness and legitimacy of refugee admission policies. It does so through the lens of a comparative study of refugee admission in Britain and Australia from the end of the Second World War to the end of Tony Blair's and John Howard' s Prime Ministerships in 2007. Although their immigration history is very different, Britain and Australia have, since the 2000s, developed preventive policies that have failed to achieve expected results. This has seldom been discussed, much less explained, in existing scholarship, which is why these two cases are the focus of this thesis. -- The thesis shows that Australia and Britain present similar trajectories in regards to the evolution of discrepancies between policy objectives and outcomes in refugee admission. These discrepancies dramatically expanded from the 1980s, and have become increasingly complex during the 2000s. The thesis points to a clear correlation between increasing institutional complexity and decreasing policy effectiveness and legitimacy; in contrast, the significance of conflicts between policy-makers, and of the deficiencies of enforcement mechanisms, varies over time and across cases. This finding has significant implications for the identification of institutional settings conducive to more effective, legitimate and equitable refugee policies.Mode of access: World Wide Web.1 online resource (350 p.

Are states in control of their borders? Testing the venue-shopping approach in the Australian context

21 page(s

Migration policies, types of

4 page(s

Migration management and humanitarian protection : the UNHCR's 'resettlement expansionism' and its impact on policy-making in the EU and Australia

Since the late 1990s, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been a key actor in the resurgence of refugee resettlement in global debates on asylum and refugee policies. This article investigates the dynamics of the international organisation's 'resettlement expansionism' within the UNHCR as well as its impact on policy-making. Firstly, it analyses how the UNHCR has increased its expertise production and dissemination as well as its operational focus on resettlement. Secondly, it assesses the policy-making impact of the UNCR's 'resettlement expansionism' in two distinct contexts: the elaboration of the EU's new joint resettlement scheme and the recent increase of resettlement places by 40% in Australia, a traditional country of resettlement. Lastly, it discusses potential implications of this research in regards to the evolution of the global refugee regime and, more conceptually, to the study of knowledge production and expertise in migration and refugee policy.18 page(s

Twenty years of mandatory detention : the anatomy of a failed policy

On 5 May 1992, Australia’s Commonwealth Government passed legislation resulting in the mandatory detention of persons arriving in Australia without a valid visa. The contingent political reasons that led Keating’s Labor Government to adopt the policy are not widely remembered or remarked upon. But the legacy of that initial introduction of mandatory detention – embodied in destroyed lives, a toxic public discourse, and the expenditure of billions of dollars of Commonwealth revenues – continues to exert itself in the bipartisan political consensus that perpetuates the policy. This paper provides a thick description of the evolution of mandatory detention under both Labor and Coalition Governments. It continues in more analytical mode, arguing that for twenty years the policy has been an abject failure. It has failed in terms of the objectives that its proponents have advanced; it has failed in terms of Australia’s human rights obligations under international law; it has failed in terms of unnecessarily depleting the public purse; it has failed in terms of the coarsening and degradation of Australia’s public discourse; and it has failed in terms of its impacts on the lives of several generations of asylum seekers. The paper ends with a discussion of the reasons why both the Labor Party and the Coalition have persevered with the failed policy of mandatory detention.22 page(s