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Explore the Kaldor Centre’s Impact
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How can research help shape law, policy and public debate on displacement? The Kaldor Centre’s 2025 Impact Report highlights high impact across refugee protection, climate mobility, public engagement and policy influence.
Discover how the Centre’s work reached an estimated 54 million people through media engagement, informed dozens of policymakers, and brought together nearly 1,500 participants through events and public discussions to achieve tangible outcomes.
Explore our latest Kaldor Centre Impact Report.
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Book for the times: Solidarity in disaster response
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The devastating disaster in Nepal is a stark reminder of why international cooperation matters after disasters.
David Fisher, head of the Nepal delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, is slated to join Dr. Dug Cubie (University College Cork) and UNSW Law Professor Justine Nolan for the timely launch of Solidarity in International Disaster Response Law (Hart), a new book by Dr Thomas Mulder, Laureate Postdoctoral Fellow in our Evacuations Research Hub.
This is the first book to comprehensively explore the role of solidarity in international disaster response law, the regime governing cooperation after disasters.
It is a free, hybrid event. Register to join online or in person at UNSW Law & Justice, on Tuesday, 22 September, 5pm to 7pm AEST.
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How can we protect refugee histories?
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Refugee archives document displacement, resilience and identity, preserving invaluable records for researchers, policymakers, activists and refugee communities. Yet these collections are often at risk from conflict, neglect, underfunding and technological change.
Join an online discussion on safeguarding refugee archives, featuring Kaldor Centre Professor Jane McAdam and leading international experts from academia, UNHCR and the archival sector.
Hosted by The National Archives (UK), this free online event will explore the challenges and opportunities facing refugee archives today.
Register now.
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Masterclass: What works against misinformation?
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Misinformation can undermine trust and social cohesion, particularly during high-stakes public debates.
Responding effectively requires more than correcting false claims. It means knowing when to respond, how to respond and who is best placed to deliver the message.
Join the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT)’s Saul Wodak and Shima Golmohamad, and the Kaldor Centre’s Director, Daniel Ghezelbash, for a practical virtual masterclass exploring our evidence-based framework for responding to misinformation, alongside behavioural tools you can apply directly to your own communications.
Mark your calendar for 16 September, 1pm-2.00pm AEST.
Register now.
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National News
Australian policy developments
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Twenty-five years after the Tampa affair, former Prime Minister John Howard said he feels vindicated about the government’s decision to stop the MV Tampa from disembarking on Australian territory. Despite international condemnation at the time, Howard said many countries are now taking a similar stance on irregular migration. Critics have articulated the policy’s detrimental consequences. While Howard’s policies are often lauded as restoring confidence in a well-managed migration system, Australian National University Professor Alan Gamlen said that during this period the Howard government opened up temporary migration, which has ‘changed the fabric’ of the system. Gamlen argued that the legacy of Tampa shows that ‘a government can be extraordinarily tough towards a small, visible group at the border while allowing a vastly larger migration system to grow without an overall numerical plan or ceiling.’
New research by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and UNSW Poverty and Inequality Partnership has demonstrated varying levels of employment among migrants and refugees, with concerningly high rates of poverty for people holding humanitarian, family and student visas. The report recommends targeted employment support for humanitarian entrants and for asylum seekers, as well as extending work and study rights to people seeking protection visas. It also recommends more tailored and targeted support for refugee women to enable their participation in the workforce. UNSW’s Dr Yuvisthi Naidoo said, ‘Australia’s migration program is already a remarkable success story, but the evidence shows we could achieve even better outcomes by removing barriers that keep people in hardship during the first years after they arrive.’
The recently signed treaty between Fiji and Australia, the Vuvale Union, commits to enhanced mobility between the two countries. However, recent parliamentary hearings in Fiji made clear this would not necessarily result in visa facilitation or visa-free entry for Fijians travelling to Australia. Instead, the priority is to ‘strengthen Fiji’s border management and identity systems before deeper mobility arrangements can be achieved’. The two countries are also enhancing cooperation to combat transnational crime, migrant trafficking and smuggling.
- ‘Former Liberal prime minister John Howard says history has vindicated his tough stance in the Tampa affair’, The Daily Telegraph [$], 2 September 2026
- ‘Australia has spent 25 years ‘stopping the boats’, but that’s not the same as controlling migration’, The Conversation, 1 September 2026
- ‘New report tracks economic outcomes for migrants in Australia’, ACOSS, 4 September 2026
- ‘Report Reveals Cost of Australia’s Migrant Wait Times’, Mirage News, 7 September 2026
- ‘The first 10 years: Employment, incomes and poverty among migrants and refugees in Australia’, ACOSS and UNSW Sydney, September 2026
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Naoero (Nauru) and Manus Island
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Crikey reported today that the Government on Friday tabled its $2.5 billion ‘third-country reception arrangement’ with Nauru, signed in August last year, to provide 30-year visas for people affected by the NZYQ decision. Home Affairs minister Tony Burke had previously made a public interest immunity claim to keep the MOU confidential. The agreement says people removed from Australia to Nauru will enjoy freedom of movement and work rights in Nauru, but it also gives Nauru the option of amending the conditions of the long-term visas, provided Australia is consulted first. Greens Senator David Shoebridge told Crikey that the option for Nauru to vary visa conditions was a ‘giant loophole’ that could lead to Nauru imposing visa conditions in breach of the 1951 Refugee Convention, including conditions that could see people with a well-founded fear of persecution sent back to the country they fled.
Asylum seekers in Naoero (Nauru) have reported that they are facing food shortages, a regime of harassment and robberies, and deportation threats by Naoero authorities. A group of Bangladeshi asylum seekers wrote to the Home Affairs minister, saying that ‘we are trapped in a system that is causing us severe physical and psychological destruction’.
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Refugees and asylum seekers in Australia
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Socceroo Awer Mabil spoke about his response to Pauline Hanson’s calls for a ‘monoculture’ in Australia. Mabil said that he ‘feel[s] passionate about including everybody because that’s what makes Australia great’. Growing up in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, Mabil came to Australia at 10 years old. He and his brother have now started a charity, Barefoot to Boots, to supply refugees around the world with football boots and equipment. They’ve expanded to fund sanitary products, hospital equipment and other essentials for refugees living in camps.
The two Iranian female footballers who sought asylum in Australia earlier this year after refusing to sing the national anthem at the Asia Cup have spoken to 60 Minutes about their decision. Fatemeh Pasandideh, known as Pasand, said, ‘I was scared at times, but I just tried to do what was right’ and ‘to stand with our people’. The profile details their escape from Iranian team officials and the granting of emergency humanitarian visas in a safe house in Brisbane. Six months on, the two women are playing football in Brisbane and enjoying their newfound freedom, while missing their families and teammates.
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International News
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Africa
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The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that nearly 22,000 people were displaced in Sudan’s Blue Nile state last week due to intensifying fighting in the Geissan district, with some sheltering in schools and some fleeing to other areas, including towards the state capital, Ed Damazine. Meanwhile, 730 people were displaced from five villages in South Kordofan state due to deteriorating security conditions, according to the International Organization for Migration.
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Americas
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Six Afghan and Cuban nationals deported from the US arrived in Guyana, which has entered a one-year agreement with the US to accept third-country migrant deportees. More than 30 countries have now signed agreements with the US to accept nationals of other countries who are expelled from the US.
The Trump administration released video games based on its immigration policies, including ‘Rio Run’ featuring a character based on Trump’s ‘border czar’ Tom Homan chasing migrants on the Mexican border, and ‘Build the Wall’, in which players are instructed to ‘protect the border from the coming horde’ by stacking sections of a wall. Rights groups condemned the games as trivializing issues with a serious impact on people’s lives.
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Asia Pacific
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Eleven days after last week’s devastating floods along the Nepal-Tibet border, the death toll reached 1,372, with 5,531 people still missing, according to official data. UN agencies reported the floods displaced entire villages across the Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading regions of Nepal and caused widespread infrastructure destruction, leaving remote communities cut off from transport, power and water. Nepalese authorities said nearly 4,000 flood-displaced people are sheltering in 34 relief centers, where some survivors said they are struggling to obtain essential medicines.
Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency reported that 188,161 people remain displaced on the island of Flores following the 7.7 earthquake which struck on 15 August. The agency said the quake damaged 95,567 homes, and highlighted an urgent need to temporarily house or relocate 27,414 families whose homes were severely damaged.
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Europe
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Ministers of Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, known as the ‘group of five’, announced they expect to sign a deal with a non-EU partner to create a ‘return hub’ by the new year and start transferring irregular migrants to the partner country during 2027. The partner country’s identity was not disclosed. UNHCR has not been approached about the proposal, according to an agency spokesperson.
Spanish authorities reported that more than 80 people died from a boat carrying some 128 migrants that foundered off the coast of Gran Canaria in the Spanish Canary Islands, after setting out from The Gambia 27 days previously. Forty-four survivors were rescued, including three taken to hospital in critical condition.
In Spain, thousands of people protested against the government’s handling of migration, after at least 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco to Ceuta at the end of July, some 5,000 of whom remain in the Spanish enclave. Protestors called for Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to resign, following police reports which said Moroccan security forces showed “total permissiveness” during the mass migration. Sánchez has said Morocco is not responsible, blaming trafficking gangs and online misinformation for encouraging people to cross the border.
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Middle East and North Africa
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The UN human rights office OHCHR issued a report on an Israeli operation that displaced more than 33,000 Palestinians from three West Bank refugee camps in early 2025, and raised ‘serious concerns’ that Israel’s actions may constitute crimes against humanity. The report found Israeli forces killed civilians and systematically destroyed thousands of homes and infrastructure to render the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps uninhabitable, without a necessary military imperative.
In Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province, some 1,790 households were displaced in the two days to 4 September due to escalating fighting between government forces and Houthis, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Previously, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported more than 1,600 people were internally displaced between 23 – 29 August, the majority leaving their homes in Taiz province due to security concerns.
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