Australian Immigration Daily News

OK everyone here’s your opportunity to share your experience and wisdom through another open forum!

Today’s topic: Have you had any success in getting  the “notorious” Condition 8503  “no further stay” “waived”?

Earlier this month I posted an article about a case that was decided by the Federal Circuit Court called Farhat, in which I described the challenge of getting 8503 waived as being harder than pushing a boulder uphill.   And just before Christmas of last year, I discussed another case in which an 8503 waiver was unsuccessfully sought, called Karan.  My tart and seasonal reference to that case was that it was “another lump of coal from the Department”, in other words a circumstance where in my view regulatory inflexibility prevailed over compassion.

In this day and age, it is truly shocking, appalling, terrifying and tragic for people from Western societies to contemplate that “honour killings” still occur in other countries (like Pakistan).

Maybe not as shocking as one might prefer to think, in light of the raging epidemic of lethal domestic violence that continues to afflict Australia.  And in light of the raging misogyny freely given voice to by the now “president” of the United States, a person who was elected notwithstanding his own widely publicized (Access Hollywood tape) statements that he believes that his “celebrity” entitles him to treat women as objects and to use them for his own purposes as he sees fit, and the evidence of about a dozen women who came forward to provide accounts of his conduct as a serial sexual predator.

So self-evidently, and incredibly disappointing  and disturbing as it is, the world has not come as far as we might hope in recognizing the rights of women to full equality and to be protected from violence and the threat of violence.

In the past two years, Australia has secured 0 human trafficking convictions. Let’s be clear here: this is not because human trafficking doesn’t occur in Australia. In fact, Australia is a prime destination country for trafficking, with many Asian women and children being trafficked into Australia as sex slaves. It happens, and it happens right under our noses, often in illegal brothels and often in the most unsuspecting of suburbs. Many Melbournians would be surprised to learn that a notorious Thai sex slave trafficking racket was based at the (now closed!) Clifton Hotel, right in the middle of prestigious Kew Junction. 

Ok everyone, it’s time for a Friday quiz!

How many of you are familiar with the lyrics from the George and Ira Gershwin song: “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, from the 1937 (!!) Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers (who?) film “Shall We Dance”:

“You say either and I say either,
You say neither and I say neither
Either, either neither, neither
Let's call the whole thing off.

The now failed proposal to permit the extradition of PRC nationals and others to the PRC is a step in the right direction.

The PRC is a totalitarian state who is in a relationship with a democracy ( Australia) that enjoys the rule of law.

This is in contrast to the position of the citizens of the PRC who do not enjoy the fundamental rights and protections available to Australian citizens.