ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 in this volume shows how the Labor and Coalition governments stopped the boats and introduced a new border era. Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s last-minute Refugee Resettlement Agreement guaranteed that after July 2013 boatpeople would never be allowed to settle in Australia. This led to a dramatic fall in the number of arrivals. However, Tony Abbott harnessed the political force of boat stopping to win the September 2013 election. Once in power, he controversially reintroduced Temporary Protection Visas, sought to deter boat arrivals by extending Australia’s border regime into the Asia-Pacific, and militarized the country’s asylum policy through Operation Sovereign Borders and the Australian Border Force.
