This submission provides recommendations to the following questions:

In the global context, there are large numbers of people in need of resettlement and limited places available in Australia. What should Australia’s priorities be for accepting refugees and humanitarian entrants, including those in protracted situations?

What can the Australian Government do to encourage involvement from the private, educational and community sectors to assist humanitarian entrants to secure stable employment and achieve self-sufficiency?

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The Edmund Rice Centre has made a submission to the Senate Select Committee on Strengthening Multiculturalism. Our submission has a particular focus on:

• The impact of political leadership and media representation on the prevalence of vilification and other forms of exclusion and bigotry on the basis of 'race', colour, national or ethnic origin, culture or religious belief; and
• How to improve the expected standards of public discourse about matters of 'race', colour, national or ethnic origin, culture or religious belief. 

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This paper from University of Queensland student, Nina Evason, discusses Australian Indigenous Public Policy under the Howard Government from 1996-2007. 

This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in understanding why Australian Indigenous public policy has repeatedly failed to appropriately address Aboriginal disadvantage.

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Australia is well positioned to accept and accommodate refugees from the processing centres in Nauru and on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea (PNG).  However, accomodating such a large number of people in either Nauru or PNG presents insurmountable challenges.  

The Edmund Rice Centre's submisson calls for the closure of regional processing centres and an end to offshore processing and Operation Sovereign Borders. All asylum seekers and refugees be relocated to Australia to finalise their processing and the response of Australia to people who seek asylum in our country should be amended to reflect our international legal obligations.

We have also presented the Committee with an alternative plan to improve Australia’s current policy settings. Ultimately, Australia’s offshore processing regime is unsustainable. It is inevitable that sometime in the future a Government will launch a Royal Commission into

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The Edmund Rice Centre has joined with a broad national coalitions of organisations calling for action from Prime Minister Tony Abbott to end the deliberate misrepresentation of asylum seekers that is being perpetrated by Government Ministers and MP's.

The coalition of 138 not-for-profit organisations has called for Prime Minister Abbott to stop the Government’s characterisation of asylum seekers arriving by boat as “illegal maritime arrivals”.

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The following submission details the importance of the Sydney Basin in relation to the economy and the environment, and included examples internationally and domestically of urban agriculture and peri-agriculture.

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This paper is a summary of the work of Dr Chris McGrath examining the scientific evidence of the threat of climate change on coral reefs in the Pacific and the policy targets necessary to avoid severe impacts.

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The Edmund Rice Centre's Submission to the Review Board of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER): Time for a New Approach: Consultation and Non-Discrimination the Key. Policy should be based on good empirical evidence measured with well-known and agreed criteria. Thus far, there is a lack of both ood empirical evidence and good criteria in this context. 

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The Edmund Rice Centre made a submission to the Federal Parliament's Inquiry into Immigration Detention. The Inquiry which was called in June by Senator Evans, the Minster for Immigration is being conducted by Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Migration. In its submission the Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) argues that mandatory detention should be dropped immediately, presenting evidence of how it is in breach of Australia's legal commitments under the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees.

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