Offshore detention remains one of the most controversial issues in Australia. Although the government won the latest challenge to its regime of detaining asylum seekers offshore while their humanitarian visa claims were being considered, the High Court of Australia recently warned,“The commonwealth is not authorised ... to support an offshore detention regime which is not reasonably necessary to achieve that purpose.”

In its first decision of the year, the High Court of Australia ruled in favour of the government’s offshore detention policy effectively allowing the government to continue maintaining several offshore detention centres. Some 267 people - including 91 children - who were brought to Australia for medical treatment are now likely to be returned to an offshore detention centre. The federal government has spent more than $1 billion this financial year to house about 2200 asylum seekers in offshore detention centres.

However, the High Court has warned that the government cannot create a regime of indefinite detention offshore, that there are limits to its power to hold people and that it cannot allow people to languish in detention while interminable ‘processing’ drags on, according to a report in The Guardian which anticipates that more legal challenges will follow given the decision.

Sweeping changes to Australia’s migration program are being considered according to government documents leaked to the ABC.

The leaked document outlines plan to remove direct access to permanent residence; overhaul the citizenship test and citizenship pledge; increase monitoring of migrants, even after they're granted citizenship, according to the ABC.

Fearing that terrorist cells may be lurking particularly in the humanitarian intake of refugees from Syria, the reports suggest that access to permanent residency may be denied to this group.

According to the ABC the changes proposed include:

If this question is important to you and your clients, then consider getting the expert opinions of some of the best in the business at the upcoming Migration Alliance and Legal Training Australia Migration Conference. 

Accredited Specialist in immigration law Christopher Levingston and Lawyer Hugh Ford who worked for 16 years at the Department of Immigration will be deciphering the major issues now facing partner visa applications at this one-day conference in Sydney.

Gus McLean from the Australian Federal Police will join the key speakers to discuss some of the main issues Registered Migration Agents need to consider when providing advice to partner migration applicants, particularly those deemed by the department to be from ‘risk’ countries.

The fate of a Bangladeshi woman together with those of several thousands of other asylum seekers detained offshore could be decided today when the full bench of the High Court of Australia hands down its decision on the legitimacy of Australia’s offshore detention facilities.

For the past nine months, lawyers for the woman who was on a boat intercepted by Australian authorities in 2013, have argued it is illegal for the Australian Government to operate and pay for offshore detention in a third country, according to a report on the ABC.

The woman was initially detained offshore but was brought to Brisbane to give birth in late 2014. Her lawyers from the Human Rights Law Centre then filed an application to prevent authorities from taking the woman back to Nauru.

In a similar case in 2014, Australia's offshore processing operation in Papua New Guinea was upheld by the High Court. The court found in this case the law designating PNG as a regional processing country was valid under the aliens power in section 51 of the constitution.

A lower birth rate and an ageing population means a diminishing tax base. How then is Australia going to support itself in the next few decades, if this continues?

The number of people aged between 15 and 64 for every older person has fallen from 7.3 in 1974-1975 to an estimated 4.5 this year. By 2054-55 that number is likely to be 2.7, according to Treasury statistics.

These figures presumably take into account current migration planning levels which have been set at 190,000 per year. But by the way things are going, it doesn’t look like it is enough.

Late last year, the ABS released statistics showing that the total birth-rate, or fertility rate, was 1.8 babies per woman. This rate is well below the replacement level of 2.1. Last year’s rate was lower than the 1.88 in 2013, and charts a downward trend evident for the past five years.

Altogether, 299,700 births were registered in Australia in 2014, down from 308,100 in 2013. For the first time the ABS mapped birth rates and found families in city centres have a much lower birth rates than outer suburbs, where the rate exceeds two children.