http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/kate-gauthier/ Kate Gauthier is a contributing author to the Centre for Policy Development’s (http://cpd.org.au) recent publication More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now (http://morethanluck.cpd.org.au). Kate is the Chair of the recently reformed ChilOut (Children Out of Detention). Most recently, Kate was the National Coordinator of A Just Australia, a refugee policy lobby group which recently merged with the Refugee Council. Previously Kate has worked as the immigration and refugee policy adviser to Senator Andrew Bartlett, and the community liaison officer for Senator Aden Ridgeway. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/take-more-asylum-seekers-to-ensure-fewer-boats/ The grace period for not politicising human tragedy is less than 24 hours. Both major parties are in full swing - misinforming the public, drumming up fear and spinning themselves out of any actual policy action. The fact remains that Australia does not have an ‘asylum problem’ but we do have a problem with our policy response. Receiving less than 1 per cent of the world’s asylum claims in a year is not a problem. People dying at sea is most definitely a problem, unfortunately not one unique to Australia or to Indonesia. The public debate around Labor vs. Coalition policy proposals can be likened to the saying: “When the finger points at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger.” feddback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Gauthier) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/take-more-asylum-seekers-to-ensure-fewer-boats/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/take-more-asylum-seekers-to-ensure-fewer-boats/#item7430 Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:55:49 +0000 Kate Gauthier | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/both-parties-are-all-at-sea-on-asylum-seekers/ You’ve heard a lot about the asylum policy debate in the media. The Government announces a new policy. The opposition denounces any new policy. Talk back radio goes back and forth about the best way to deal with this issue. If all this noise about asylum seekers makes you almost believe there is thought put into how to develop best practice approaches, think again. You’ve been conned. For those of you who have seen The Usual Suspects, asylum seekers are Kaiser Sozé. A made up bogey-man criminal used to distract you from what is really going on. It’s all just a political marketing campaign from both parties aimed at marginal seat voters. They use the boatpeople debate to define their party’s image. ‘Cruel to be kind’ for the Coalition, with ‘tough but humane’ for Labor. The reality is, when you analyse policies from both parties from a purely rationalist public policy angle, they both fail the test. feddback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Gauthier) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/both-parties-are-all-at-sea-on-asylum-seekers/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/both-parties-are-all-at-sea-on-asylum-seekers/#item5202 Sun, 27 Feb 2011 19:35:02 +0000 Kate Gauthier | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/big-ideas-a-sensible-policy-solution-on-asylum-seekers/ This is the third in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. The Labor Government has set itself up for failure by upholding the view that asylum seeking is a national security threat, writes Kate Gauthier. It is said that any civilised society can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable people. Asylum seekers, vilified by the media and feared by the public, make an excellent target for unscrupulous public figures who seek to gain power or position through a culture of fear. In order to appear tough on asylum seekers – tough on the victims of human rights abuses – successive governments and political parties have enacted or proposed policies that severely curtail the rights of people fleeing war, persecution and torture. The argument in favour of taking a punitive approach is that it discourages onshore asylum seeking. This is shown to be false by two issues. feddback@thepunch.com.au (Kate Gauthier) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/big-ideas-a-sensible-policy-solution-on-asylum-seekers/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/big-ideas-a-sensible-policy-solution-on-asylum-seekers/#item4867 Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:39:42 +0000 Kate Gauthier | Author bios | The Punch