ABSTRACT
Australia’s political discourse on refugees and border control has been dominated in recent times by claims made about the efficacy of deterrent policies. The major parties are staking their political fortunes on the introduction of another version of the ‘Pacific Solution’ – offshore processing, interdiction, mandatory detention and versions of temporary protection. This, it claims, is the only way to ‘Stop the Boats’, maritime vessels arriving in Australia without authorization carrying asylum seekers from any of a variety of troubled countries. With a view to achieving this end, the Labor government is committed establishing regional processing centres, firm in the belief that deflecting asylum seekers to Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Manus Island will arrest the flow of irregular maritime arrivals. We have joined our voices to those of others railing against the assumptions made about cause and effect in irregular migration – in particular about the value of policies presumed to deter boat people. 3 A more worrying development is the decision by the conservative Canadian government to adopt Australian policies of mandatory immigration detention and temporary permits as deterrent measures aimed at undocumented arrivals. 4
