Nicole Conner

ABSTRACT

Recent history has witnessed an increase in global

conflict since the 1990s. This factor, along with natural

disasters, has resulted in the number of displaced

persons exceeding 50 million, unparalleled since World

War II. As the world frantically seeks to adjust to this

crisis of destitute and vulnerable people, Australia has

taken an increasingly austere approach to those seeking

asylum on its shores. This paper examines the harsh

attitudes and policies from an ideological perspective.

The ideologies that will be discussed includes banal

nationalism built on British-Anglo ideals, racism built

on fear of economic competition, national security ideals

built on political tactics that labeled asylum seekers as

a ‘threat’, and ideals formed through geographical

insularity evidenced by a disengagement from global

affairs. These ideologies have developed successfully

since European settlement because they have resonated

with society’s fear of the ‘others’ and been promoted

through political rhetoric and mass media. These

ideologies, formed amidst hardship and survival fears of

European settlers, are so deeply entrenched that they

often go unrecognised or are denied. In order for

Australia to address the complexity and plight of

traumatised asylum seekers from a responsible, global

position, it has to start by addressing the ideologies

that have shaped its current bellicose attitude and

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Nicole Conner policies towards those seeking refuge.

INTRODUCTION

In 2014 the humanitarian chief of the United Nations,

Valerie Amos, warned of an unprecedented global crisis as

millions of people are displaced by conflict or natural

disasters.1 In the midst of such vast and devastating

people migration, Australia has become more severe in its

attitude towards asylum seekers, especially those

arriving by boat. This project will seek to answer the

research question: ‘How have ideologies, shaped by

Nationalism, Racism, Insularity and National Security,

influenced current Australian attitude and policies

towards ‘Boat People’?’ It will discuss the current 1 ‘UN issues 2014 appeal to tackle global humanitarian crisis’, DW, 2014, http://www.dw.de/un-issues-2014-appeal-to-tackle-global-humanitarian-crisis/a-17338859, accessed 24 August 2014.

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Nicole Conner hostile attitude and policies towards boat arrivals and

examine how sentiments have been shaped by these four

embedded ideologies that have developed during the period

of European colonisation. Each ideology will be traced

historically and highlighted through events that played

catalyst to the current social climate and culture. A

brief explanation on how ideologies are developed in a

national context will serve as prelude into the

investigation of the effects of the four central

ideologies. This study will reveal how these four

embedded ideologies have shaped the Australian psyche

into one of antagonism and indifference to the desperate

and persecuted.

HOW IDEOLOGIES DEVELOP IN A NATIONAL CONTEXT

The term ‘ideology’ was first coined by Antoine Destutt

de Tracy, who used it to refer to an aspect of his

‘science of ideas’ of our ‘intellectual faculties, their

principal phenomena, and the most remarkable

circumstances of their activities.’2 He believed that the

soundness of ideas could be tested through the sensations

that produced them in the first place.3 Karl Marx applied

de Tracy’s concept of ideology to cultural determinants;

specifically how material and economic conditions can

impact ideas often resulting in false views of a supposed

2 Antoine Destutt de Tracy, Projet d'dl~ments d'iddologie, Paris, 1801, p. 4.3 Robert J. Richards, ‘Ideology and the History of Science’, Biology and Philosophy, 8, 1993, p. 103.

3

Nicole Conner reality.4 Over the years, the concept of ideology has been

fiercely debated and in the last several decades re-

emerged as a vital field of enquiry amongst students and

practitioners of social sciences. McLellan dubbed it ‘the

most elusive concept in the whole of social science.’5

Erikson & Tedin defined ideology as a ‘set of beliefs

about the proper order of society and how it can be

achieved.’6 Denzau and North highlight the importance of

social groups in their definition:

… ideologies are the shared framework of mental models that groups of individuals possess that provideboth an interpretation of the environment and a prescription as to how that environment should be structured.7

Shared ideologies communicate beliefs, opinions and

values of various social groups, societies or nations.

These ideologies shape worldviews by ‘making assertions

or assumptions about human nature, historical events,

present realities, and future possibilities.’8

Ideologies, which are a modern phenomenon, primarily

relate to the economic and political events of the

4 Ibid., p. 105.5 David McLellan, Ideology, Minneapolis, 1986, p. 1.6 Robert S. Erikson and Kent L. Tedin, American Public Opinion: Its Origins,

Content, and Impact, 6th edn, New York, 2003, p. 64. 7 Arthur T. Denzau and Douglass C. North, ‘Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions’, in Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice and the Bounds of Rationality, Arthur Lupia, Mathew D. McCubins and Samuel L. Popkin, eds, New York, 2000, p. 24.

8 John T. Jost, Christopher M. Federico and Jaime L. Napier, ‘Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions and Elective Affinities’, Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 2009, p. 309.

4

Nicole Conner nineteenth and twentieth century. They are a set of ideas

often held and used by hegemonic structures and

governments to communicate complex realities. For

ideologies to develop on a national level they must

resonate to some degree with people’s experience; they

must engage with the wants and desires that people

already have.9 Ideologies develop successfully, even when

absolutely false, if they contain important propositions

that communicate to the social reality of the audience.

What follows is the examination of four embedded

ideologies that have been part of, and progressed from,

the Australian colonising mentality, a mindset or

worldview shaped by fear, vulnerability, hardship and

scarcity of a convict culture seeking to survive in a

foreign and isolated country. The methodology of

examining the four ideologies involves defining each

ideology, the discussion of historical events and

evidence that demonstrate its development and progression

in the Australian social psyche, and the effect it had,

and continues to have, on asylum seekers. Some of the

main sources used to discuss ideologies of nationalism

includes Michael Billig on ‘Banal Nationalism’ and the

studies conducted by Pederson, Attwell and Aveli, that

explores at how false beliefs and nationalism have had a

negative effect on asylum seekers. Racist ideologies will

draw on Humphrey McQueen’s A New Britannia, where he argues

that racism is the most important component of Australian

9 Terry Eagelton, Ideology: An Introduction, London, 1991, p. 14.

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Nicole Conner nationalism. This argument will be bolstered by Phillips

and Boese’s study on the continued effect of the White

Australia Policy on the attitude towards asylum seekers.

Ideologies of national security will discuss Australia’s

invasion anxiety examined in the writings of Anthony

Burke. It will compare this to the studies of Trudy Hoad

and some of her unqualified statements surrounding

security threats and moral responsibility; rhetoric that

has been used by political leaders and created a negative

attitude towards asylum seekers. Lastly, some of the main

sources used to discuss Australia’s insular imagination

and the ideology shaped through these ideals is

Suvendrini Perera’s Australia and the Insular Imagination and

Joseph Pugliese’s paper discussing the myth of terra nullius.

THE EFFECT OF NATIONALISM ON THE TREATMENT OF

BOAT PEOPLE

Addressing the Anglican congregation of St Andrew’s in

Sydney in 1924, Rev. Arthur Garnsey warned that although

nationalism may be an influence for good, most often it

is one of evil. It is easy to forget, he said, that other

nations have the same rights as we do; nationalism often

reduces a nation to narrow hatred and unnecessary wars.10

However, Australian nationalism has been difficult to

define. Some would say there’s no real Australian

10 Arthur H. Garnsey, ‘Nationalism’, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 April 1924, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16132440, accessed 3June 2014.

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Nicole Conner identity, rather, a set of continuous evolving ideas used

most effectively by the ruling class.11 Anderson argues

that no nation could possibly know the ideologies and

practices of the majority of their fellow-members, and

therefore the whole idea of nationalism remains a

cultural construct, an ‘imagined political community’.12

Meaney agrees that nationalism is a socially constructed

idea or a ‘myth’ about a people and that it is based on

historically conditioned imagining. He contends that

‘Britishness’ is the dominant cultural myth that has

provided meaning to the people of Australia since

European settlement, even more pervasive in Australia

than Britain itself.13 He provides ample examples to

bolster his claim historically, including the oaths of

loyalty in public schools to the British Empire, the

celebration and centrality of Empire Day until 1958, and

the commemoration of ANZAC day as Australian Britons’

contribution to the Empire’s cause.14 The Nationality and

Citizenship Act of 1948 retained the concept of ‘aliens’ for

11 Richard White, ‘Inventing Australia Revisited’, in Creating Australia: changing Australian history, eds Wayne Hudson & Geoffrey Bolton, St Leonards, 1997, pp.12-22.

12 Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, revised and extended edn, London, 1991, p. 6.

13 Neville Meaney, ‘Britishness and Australian Identity: The Problem of Nationalism in Australian History and Historiography’, Australian Historical Studies, 32, 2001, pp. 76-90. Also see article from 1888 highlighting two types of interwoven nationalism; the one building patriotism in Australia, whilst the other holds allegiance to the British Empire. Anon, ‘Nationalism', Capricornian (Rockhampton, Qld:1875 - 1929), 11 August, 1888, p. 17, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65792899, accessed 1 July 2014.

14 Ibid.

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Nicole Conner all non-British subjects. All citizens were British

subjects and the idea of citizenship itself was built on

British law and tradition. Progressive changes were made

in the various amendments that followed, including

removing the idea of ‘Britishness’ as the heart of what

it means to be Australian. The concept of ‘alien’ was

finally removed in a 1986 amendment to the act.15

To this day the discourse about nationalism in Australia

remains somewhat fragmented.16 Ideologies that frame and

fashion a nation are often unnamed and therefore

unnoticed. Billig has introduced the term ‘banal’

nationalism to define the ideological habits that enable

established nations in the West to be reproduced. This

term underscores his claim that these ideological habits

that give definition to nationalism are not removed from

everyday life; rather, they are the endemic condition of

a nation. These ideologies are reinforced in simple

things such as a flag in a garden or a bumper sticker on

a vehicle.17 Ideologies that translate into national

identity are embodied in the habit of social life,

including thought process and language. It is a way of

talking about nationhood, about who ‘we’ are.18 Tajfel

15 ‘Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948’, Documenting a Democracy, http://foundingdocs.gov.au/ item-sdid-97.html, accessed 1 July 2014.

16 Stephen Castles, Mary Kalantzis, Bill Cope and Michael Morrissey, Mistaken Identity: Multiculturalism and the Demise of Nationalism in Australia, Sydney, 1988, p. 7.

17 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism, London, 1995, p. 8.18 Ibid., p. 78.

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Nicole Conner stresses that nationalism is a way of talking and

thinking about the first person plural. It defines ‘us’,

who ‘we’ are without ‘them’.19 In other words, nationalist

ideologies always create the ‘other’ by the sheer

practice of self-identification. Gunew argues that

Australian national identity is predicated on exclusion.20

Sexism and racism play integral roles in what it means to

be Australian. In seizing what was called empty land or

terra nullis, colonists refused to acknowledge the

traditional owners, ‘for white invaders, there was no

history before 1788.’21 Australian nationalism regarded

itself as part of the British Empire and the ‘British

race’.22 These nationalistic racist ideals continue to

linger to this day, recently reinforced by Prime Minister

Tony Abbott when he addressed the Australian-Melbourne

Institute of Economic and Social Outlook: ‘Our country is

unimaginable without foreign investment. I guess our

country owes its existence to a form of foreign

investment by the British government in the then

unsettled or, um, scarcely settled, Great South Land.’23 19 Henri Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology,

Cambridge, 1981, p. 254. 20 Sneja Gunew, Feminist Knowledge (RLE Feminist Theory): Critique and Construct,

London, 1990, p. 1.21 Castles et al., Mistaken Identity, p. 7. 22 Jens Lyng, Non-Britishers in Australia, Melbourne, 1935, p. 1. For

example: ‘…it may be said that to all intents and purposes, the history of the British in this country is the history of Australia.’ p. 2.

23 Patricia Karvelas, ‘Australia ‘unsettled’ before British arrived: Tony Abbott’, Australian, 4 July 2014, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/australia-unsettled-before-british-arrived-tony-abbott/story-fn9hm1pm-1226977438408?nk=132532c4c6799e420b82c4b7d5f1c9bd, accessed 5 July

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Nicole Conner In regards to sexism, White documents the ideal

Australian with an emphasis on ‘masculinity, masculine

friendships…or ‘mateship’…Women were excluded from the

image of the ‘Coming Man’, and the image of the

Australian type as well.’24 Not much has changed with the

current Prime Minister nominating himself as the Minister

for Women and appointing only one woman in a cabinet of

nineteen.25

Nationalist ideologies that are built on Anglo-Celtic,

racist and sexist ideals do not bode well for those

seeking asylum on Australian shores as they create

negative imagery of ‘otherness’. A study by Pedersen,

Atwell and Heveli reveals that the stronger an individual

identifies with the embedded ideals of a group or nation,

the greater influence these ideals will have on the

individual’s behaviour and belief towards those deemed

‘other’ by that group or nation.26 Pettigrew and Meertens

demonstrate a direct link between national pride and

blatant and subtle prejudice. Both blatant and subtle

prejudice is discriminatory, but subtle prejudice is more

pernicious as it can be expressed negatively whilst

2014.24 Richard White, Inventing Australia, Sydney, 1981, p. 83.25 Geoff Winestock, ‘Tony Abbott’s boys’ club’, Financial Review, 17

September 2013, http://www.afr.com/p/national/tony_abbott_boys_club_KQosOrhJfGhE8pUuCbrrxN, accessed 5 July 2014.

26 Anne Pedersen, Jon Attwell and Diana Heveli, ‘Predictions of negative attitudes towards Australian Asylum Seekers: False beliefs, Nationalism, and Self-esteem’, Australian Journal of Psychology, 57:3, 2005, p. 150.

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Nicole Conner remaining socially acceptable.27 In the Australian

setting, studies reveal that national identity and what

it means to be ‘an Australian’ have created prejudice

against Indigenous Australians.28 This study upholds the

position of Jones who discovered a relationship between

national identity and prejudice towards Indigenous

Australians, Lebanese Australians and Vietnamese

Australians.29 Pedersen, Atwell and Heveli constructed

their study from a Perth audience in order to determine

whether the negative attitude towards Indigenous

Australians, discovered in previous studies, would be

found with respect to asylum seekers using the same

method of data collection.30 The results were

discouraging.

Firstly, there was the discovery that a large proportion

of the Perth community expressed extremely negative

attitudes towards asylum seekers based on false beliefs.31

These included the belief that asylum seekers were ‘queue

jumpers’, without understanding that there are no

Australian consulates within or surrounding Afghanistan

and Iraq, or that they had neither the information nor

ability amidst persecution to find or join a ‘queue’. Dr

27 Thomas F. Pettigrew and Roel W. Meertens, ‘Subtle and Blatant Prejudice in Western Europe’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 1995, p. 68.

28 Pedersen et al., ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’, p. 150.29 Frank L. Jones, ‘Ethnic Diversity and National Identity’,

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 33, 1997, p. 301. 30 Pedersen et al., ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’, p. 153.31 Ibid., p. 158.

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Nicole Conner Samantha Thomas from Monash University did a similar

survey with 585 people. She also discovered that ‘queue

jumping’ emerged as the major irritant of respondents’

negative attitude towards asylum seekers.32 At the heart

of this reaction is a strong nationalistic ideology. Dr

Thomas said that the hostility towards people who are

seen to ‘sneak in’ as ‘a very Australian attitude’, which

has been bolstered by political rhetoric and media

reporting. Both the current Prime Minister and Minister

of Immigration still refer to asylum seekers as

‘illegals’ (despite the fact there is nothing illegal

about their actions), providing a good example of how

false beliefs are perpetuated by politicians and the

media. ‘What’s at the core of a lot of disquiet within

mainstream Australia is that unannounced boat people

violate people’s sense of sovereignty — that is, they’re

choosing us rather than we’re choosing them,’ argued the

Reader in Sociology at Monash University, Dr Birrell, of

the research.33 Another false belief was that asylum

seekers were ‘cashed up’ to pay people smugglers, without

understanding the dynamics of the sacrifice by extended

family to help those who are being persecuted.

Secondly, nationalism was found to play the most powerful

role in predicting negative attitudes towards asylum

32 Matthew Thompson, ‘Queue jumping’ the hot button for Australian thinking about asylum seekers’, Conversation, 26 October, 2011, http://theconversation.com/queue-jumping-the-hot-button-for-australian-thinking-about-asylum-seekers-4004, accessed 8 July 2014.

33 Ibid.

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Nicole Conner seekers.34 When it comes to political issues, group

identity is more salient than personal identity.

Nationalism, defined by Cullingford as a cultural and

political phenomenon, can create extreme aggression where

‘the other’ becomes ‘the enemy’.35 According to Hage, it

was Prime Minister John Howard that began to steer

Australia into a narcisstic, paranoid form of

fundamentalist nationalism, as he successfully positioned

Australian values as the cornerstone of Australian

political vision.36 With his notions of ‘the Australian

way’ and ‘a fair go’ he caught the fantasy of an

increasingly insecure society who were ‘hoping that their

national identity will be a passport to hope for them.’37

A hope built on ideologies of imagined nationalism that

have to be guarded with a paranoid vindictiveness,

resenting all ‘others’ who seek access to that hope of a

better life. The Tampa Affair of August 2001 highlights

this paranoid ideology and became a hinge factor for the

harsh treatment of asylum seekers in modern Australian

history.38 In response to the Tampa Affair, Howard ushered in 34 Pedersen et al., ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’, p. 158.35 Cedric Cullingford, Prejudice: From individual identity to nationalism in young

people, London, 2000, p. 212.36 Ghassan Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking

Society, Sydney, 2003, p. 43. 37 Ibid., p. 21.38 Peter D. Fox, ‘International Asylum and Boat People: The Tampa

Affair and Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’, Maryland Journal of International Law, 25, 2010, p. 356, http://digitalcommons.law. umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1529&context=mjil, accessed 9 July 2014. On 26 August 2001, 433 ‘boat people’ from war-torn Afghanistan were rescued by the Norwegian cargo ship, MV Tampa, when their vessel became distressed. The Australian government denied access to Australian shores when requested by

13

Nicole Conner a Border Protection Bill into the House of

Representatives on 29 August 2001, which became a turning

point for Australia’s history and law, with the view that

Australian sovereignty will ‘determine who will enter and

reside in Australia.’39 On 1 September 2001 the Pacific

Solution was implemented where asylum seekers arriving by

boat were sent to detention centers on Pacific Island

states for processing, rather than allowing them entry

into Australia.40 The events and policies surrounding the

Tampa Affair dramatically changed the discourse and

treatment of asylum seekers. They were now perceived as a

threat to Australian sovereignty and discussed in terms

of border protection and their legal relation to

Australian State.41 National imagining played the key

factor in changing the debate of the treatment of asylum

seekers in immigration detention to border protection;

they were no longer connected to Australia, but excluded

Captain Arne Rinnen, creating political tension with Norway and leaving refugees, many dehydrated and malnourished, at sea for weeks, before allowing them to be detained in Nauru.

39 ‘Border Protection (Validation and Enforcement Powers) Bill 2001’, Commonwealth of Australia Bills, 2001,

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/bill/bpaepb2001522/, accessed 10 July 2014; and, John Howard, Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Representatives, 27 August 2001, p. 30235.

40 Janet Phillips, ‘The Pacific Solution Revisited: A statistical guide to the Asylum Seeker caseloads on Nauru and Manus Islands’, 4 September 2012, http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament /Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/ PacificSolution# Toc334509636, accessed 10 July 2014.

41 J. Olaf Kleist, ‘Remembering for Refugees in Australia: Political Memories and Concepts of Democracy in Refugee Advocacy Post-Tampa’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 34:6, 29 January 2013, pp. 665– 683.

14

Nicole Conner as non-citizens.42 Rev. Garnsey was right, nationalism has

the ability to reduce a nation to narrow hatred, and, in

Australia’s case, to dehumanise the asylum-seeking

refugee.

THE EFFECT OF RACIST IDEOLOGIES ON THE TREATMENT OF

BOAT PEOPLE

It was the Marxist historian, Humphrey McQueen, who

created a storm of controversy when he dismissed Ward’s,

The Australian Legend, challenging the self-congratulatory tone

and optimistic national self-image of the book. He

accused Ward of politely ignoring key features of the

Australian historical landscape.43 Racism presented itself

as one of the disputed points that ensued from McQueen’s

publication and the bitter discourses that followed. Ward

saw racism as a legacy of the gold rush and ‘the great

influx of middle-class migrants’, whereas McQueen

contended that racism was the ‘most important single

component of Australian nationalism.’44 McQueen claimed

that at the heart of endemic Australian racism is fear of

economic competition manifested in the ‘destruction of

the Aborigines, the dominance of the Pacific, and the

42 Ibid.43 Frank Bongiorno, ‘Two Radical Legends: Russel Ward, Humphrey

McQueen and the New Left Challenge in Australian Historiography', Journal of Australian Colonial History, 10:2, 2008, pp. 201 - 222.

44 Russel Ward, The Australian Legend, Melbourne, 2nd edn, 1977, pp. 129 –133.

Humphrey McQueen, A New Britannia: An Argument Concerning the Social Origins of Australian Radicalism and Nationalism, Ringwood, Penguin, 1970, p. 42.

15

Nicole Conner fear of an Asiatic invasion.’45 This paper argues that it

is this fear of economic competition that continues to

shape Australia’s racist ideology, an ideology that has

contributed significantly to the current antagonistic

attitude towards asylum seekers.

Australia became a colony of Britain through the total

disregard of the Traditional Owners of the land.

Declaring the country terra nullius and dismissing the many

Aboriginal tribes as barbaric and entirely destitute of

even the rudest forms of civil policy, ‘that their

claims, whether sovereign or proprietors of the soil,

have been entirely disregarded.’46 Reynolds estimated that

at least 20,000 Aborigines died as a result of white

settler genocide. 47 The full degree of atrocities will

never be fully known. Ideologies shaped by racism towards

Indigenous Australians and naïve notions like that of

Keith Windshuttle, who asserted that the British colonies

in Australia were ‘civilised societies governed by

morality and laws that forbade the killings of the

innocent’, have etched their mark on the Australian

psyche.48 To this day the invasion of Australia is

celebrated on a day that continues to be a day of

45 Ibid., p. 31.46 British Parliamentary Papers, Vol. VII (425), 1837, p. 82, cited in

Michael Conner, The Invention of Terra Nullius, Sydney, 2005, p. 72.47 Henry Reynolds, The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the

European Invasion of Australia, Ringwood, 1982, p. 122.48 Keith Windshuttle, ‘The Fabrication of the Aboriginal Death

Toll’, Quadrant Online, November 2000, https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2000/10/myths-of-frontier-massacres/, accessed 25 August 2014.

16

Nicole Conner mourning for the Traditional Owners. Ideologies of racism

are so deep and blind that as a national collective

there’s no recognition that Australia Day is a

celebration of one race at the expense of another.49

Economic competition justified the murder of thousands of

Aboriginal Australians by settlers in the frontiers.

Surviving letters and journal entries describe the

frontier mood and the attitude towards Aboriginal

Australians. A settler from the Western District said new

pastoral stations could be won if ‘the conscience of the

party is sufficiently seared to enable him without

remorse to slaughter natives right and left.’50 Dominant

suppressive ideologies hardened after the 1850s, shifting

from ideas about difference as a result of environment to

explanations around race. These ideas were fuelled by a

sense of European superiority in establishing dominion

over Indigenous populations.51 This sense of superiority

and an imagining of a ‘British’ Australia did not bode

well for the influx of non-white immigrants in search for

gold and a better life from places such as China, Japan

and the Pacific Islands during the nineteenth century. It

did not take long for the dominant group to feel

49 Michael Mansell, ‘The Meaning of Australia Day for Aboriginal People’, Creative Spirits, http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australia-day-invasion-day#toc1, accessed 14 July 2014.

50 Niel Black, Journal of the first months spent in Australia 1839 - 1840, 9 December 1939, cited in Ian D. Clark, ‘Squatters’ Journals’, The La Trobe Journal, 43, 1989, http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/ latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-43/t1-g-t7.html, accessed 15 July 2014.

51 Andrew Markus, Australian Race Relations, Sydney, 1994, p. 4.

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Nicole Conner threatened by economic competition and to establish

measures to restrict non-Europeans from entering

Australia. First came the Chinese Immigration Act of 1855,

limiting the number of Chinese passengers on a vessel

bound to Australia to one for every ten tons.52 The Pacific

Island Labourers Act of 1901 allowed for the mass deportation

of Pacific Islanders working in Queensland and northern

New South Wales. Approximately 7,500 Pacific Islanders

were deported amidst this horrific act of racial

exclusion.53

In 1901, the new Federal Parliament passed the now

infamous Immigration Restriction Act, excluding all non-European

migrants. It became the foundation of the ‘White

Australia’ Policy.54 This policy would shape Australian

national imagination for the next six decades as it

sketched images of the ‘ideal’ Australian citizen that

would fit with Australia’s national character.55 The

rhetoric surrounding this policy incited fear of economic

competition as the possibility of an Asian ‘invasion’ was52 ‘Chinese Immigration Act 1855’, Documenting a Democracy,

http://foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-82.html, accessed 16 July, 2014.

53 ‘Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901’, Documenting a Democracy, http://foundingdocs.gov. au/item-did-15.html, accessed 20 July 2014; and, Kay Saunders ‘The Black Scourge’, in Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: a history of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination, Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders and Kathryn Cronin, Sydney, 1975, pp. 193-234.

54 ‘Immigration Restriction Act 1901’, Documenting a Democracy, http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/ item-did-16.html, accessed 16 July2014.

55 Melissa Phillips and Martina Boese, ‘Attitudes to Asylum Seekers: from White Australia to now’, SBS News, 21 June 2013, http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/06/21/attitudes-asylum-seekers-white-australia-now, accessed 16 July 2014.

18

Nicole Conner touted, referred to as the ‘yellow peril’.56 Even though

this policy was relaxed in the 1960s the fear lingered

and flourished into alarm with the direct arrival of

Vietnamese and Indo-Chinese refugees via boat. The term

‘boat people’ was coined as public awareness rose on the

plight of those fleeing persecution. Under the courageous

and flexible leadership of Malcolm Fraser over 200,000

Indo-Chinese refugees were resettled in Australia between

1976 and 1982. It became known as the ‘golden age’ of

asylum.57 This ‘golden age’ drew to a close after Bob

Hawke allowed 42,000 Chinese students to remain in

Australia after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

It was Paul Keating’s Labor government that first

introduced mandatory detention through a legislative

amendment on 5 May 1992.58 He was acting on the growing

public concern of ‘control crisis’ over a new wave of

Cambodian asylum seekers that had landed in the north and

the Coalition’s criticism of the government’s leniency

towards ‘individuals abusing Australian generosity’.59

McAllister contends that it was this angst over race and

immigration that took center stage in the 1996 election

and saw the return of the Liberal-National coalition to

office after thirteen years in opposition.60 Racism is a

56 Ibid.57 Ibid.58 Adele Garnier and Lloyd Cox, ‘Twenty years of mandatory

detention: the anatomy of a failed policy’, Australian Political Studies Association, 2012, Hobart, pp. 72 – 93.

59 Ibid.60 Ian McAllister, ‘The End of a Labor Era in Australian Politics’,

Government and Opposition, 31, July 1996, pp. 288 – 303.

19

Nicole Conner most effective political tool in that it enables the

material and intellectual fear and greed of dominant

groups.61 It found an effective ‘enabler’ in Pauline

Hanson and the One Nation Party, who resurrected the

ghost of the White Australia Policy and the century-old fear of

being ‘swamped’ by Asians.62 Her popularity and rise to

power in 1996, especially in North Queensland, was

staggering, dramatically changing the political landscape

in Queensland and across the nation, as she connected

with voter discontent and age-old fears of economic

competition. John Howard provided tacit support to her

racist comments with statements like, ‘I defend to the

death your right to say it because a lot of voters agree

with you.’63 Howard leveraged the moral panic created

through Hanson’s rhetoric because he understood that

‘economic liberalism on its own would not win

elections’.64 With yet another election quickly

approaching, Burnside argued that the Prime Minister’s

increasing tough stance on asylum seekers, as evidenced

in the Tampa Affair, was calculated:

A show of toughness against helpless refugees wouldbe electorally popular amongst the large number ofAustralians who had responded positively to aspects ofPauline Hanson’s unattractive (anti-immigration)

61 Markus, Australian Race Relations, p. 2. 62 Denise Phillips, ‘Wounded memory of Hazara refugees from

Afghanistan: Remembering and forgetting persecution’, History Australia,8:2, 2011, pp. 177 – 198.

63 Dalbir Ahlawat, ‘Reinventing Australian Identity’, International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3:11, June 2012, pp. 59 – 67.

64 Phil Griffiths, ‘Racism: Whitewash the class divide’, in Class andstruggle in Australia, Rick Kuhn, ed., Frenchs Forest, 2005, p. 169.

20

Nicole Conner platform.65

The racist rhetoric of Pauline Hanson resonated with a

nation that held a deep-seated racist ideology from its

settler inception. Howard seized the election opportunity

to fuel the fear of economic competition and fear of the

‘other’ by successfully dehumanising those seeking

refuge. This dehumanising exercise was executed to

perfection by creating slanderous lies of Middle Eastern

asylums seekers supposedly throwing their children

overboard in order to be towed to the safety of

Australian waters in October 2001. He said: ‘I don’t

want, in Australia, people who throw their children into

the sea.’66 Despite the warning of the falsehood of these

allegations by navy personnel, both Howard and the

Defense Minister, Peter Reith, stuck to this distorted

version until after the 2002 election.67 Hugh Mackay

observed that, ‘the ‘children overboard’ incident…shows

us how vulnerable Australians have become to political

spin.’68 This paper argues that the vulnerability of the

Australian society to racist spin is a direct result of

65 Julian Burnside, ‘Refugees: The Tampa Case’, Future Leaders, January 2002, http://www.futureleaders.com.au/pdf/Julian_Burnside.pdf, accessed 21 July 2014.

66 John Howard, ‘To Deter and Deny’, Four Corners, Murdochian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 April 2002, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s531993.htm, accessed 21 July 2014.

67 Scott Poynting, Greg Noble, Paul Tabar and Jock Collins, Bin Ladenin the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other, Sydney, 2004, p. 26.

68 Hugh Mackay, ‘Numbed voters take spin doctors’ orders’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16-17 February 2002, p. 31.

21

Nicole Conner racist conditioning and ideology, an ideology that

continues to shape the attitude and policies of both

sides of government in a race towards the bottom when it

comes to asylum seekers.

THE EFFECT OF IDEOLOGIES SURROUNDING NATIONAL SECURITY ON

BOAT PEOPLE

National security ideology and the attitude towards

asylum seekers hold a close connection in a country that

nurtures a fear of invasion and economic competition. In

a global context of economic and social mobility that has

laid waste to financial security, paranoid Australians

look to the government to protect them and provide

assurance. National security rhetoric therefore holds

appeal for any government seeking legitimacy and

approval.69 The terrorist attacks in New York and

Washington, D.C., on 11 September 2001, provided an

opportunity for the Howard government to not only suggest

that some who sought to come to Australia ‘illegally’ had

criminal records, but that terrorists might have been

smuggled on to the boats.70 Burke argues that although

racist ideology may have been a key factor in the Tampa

crisis, it is the intertwined ideas surrounding security 69 Robert Crawford, ‘Torture and the Ideology of National

Security’, Global Dialogue, 12(1), 2010, http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=454, accessed 23 July 2014.

70 Murray Goot, ‘Death penalties: The Ideological structuring of Australian attitudes to Asylum Seekers’, Macquarie University Research Online, 2004, http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/ vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:6428, accessed 23 July 2014.

22

Nicole Conner in these sorts of circumstances that robs people of

agency, choice and freedom. In cases like Tampa or the

World Trade Centre attack, citizens look to their leaders

for guidance and assurance, and if they believe their

security is at risk they will accede to ideologies based

in fear and prejudice.71 By alluding to asylum seekers as

security threats the government was, and is, able to

portray a defence of autonomy and sovereignty, whilst

turning society into pliable and passive subjects.72 For

the already homeless and traumatised asylum seeker, this

ideology now has a doubly dehumanising impact ‘within

traditional ontologies of national security and

identity.’73

In 2008, the incoming ALP government, under the

leadership of Kevin Rudd, showed early positive signs of

a more compassionate stance towards the needs of asylum

seekers, including the announcement that the detention

centres on Nauru and Manus Island would be closed,

temporary protection visas abolished, that children would

not be placed in detention centres and that detention

centres would be used as a last resort for the shortest

possible time.74 There is, however, no doubt that these

reforms by the Rudd government contributed to a sharp 71 Anthony Burke, Fear of Security: Australia’s Invasion Anxiety, Melbourne, 2008, p. 238. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid., p. 242. 74 Carolyn Fleay, ‘Australian Governments and Asylum Seekers:

Lessons to be Learned’, Refugee Conference UNSW 15, Sydney, June 2011, p. 4, http://info.humanrights.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/ Australia%20and%20asylum%20seekers.pdf, accessed 25 July 2014.

23

Nicole Conner increase in boat arrivals during the period of the

Rudd/Gillard governments. By Kevin Rudd’s second term as

prime minister, in June 2013, boat arrivals were reaching

3,300 per month.75 The dramatic increase of asylum seekers

created alarm and just before the September 2013 election

Rudd announced that no asylum seeker coming to Australia

by boat would receive refugee status, or be resettled in

Australia, instead they would be transferred to Papua New

Guinea or Nauru.76 The irony remained that amidst the boat

arrival panic, the security threat espoused by the

government, the ‘stop the boats’ slogans and obsessed

media, asylum seekers who arrived by plane on tourist or

temporary visas remained, and continue to remain,

somewhat unnoticed. Analysis of the statistics provided

by the Department of Immigration on Asylum Trends in Australia

2012-2013, indicated that decisions made on 5,274 of the

8,308 plane arrivals showed that 48.4% were given

protection visas. In comparison, the decisions made on

4,949 of the 18,119 boat arrivals revealed that 88% were

given refugee status.77 In other words, a higher

percentage of those arriving by boat were found to be

legitimate refugees compared to those entering the 75 Frank Brennan, ‘Is there a fair, just and effective policy

approach to Asylum Seekers?’ in Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Finding a better way, Bob Douglas and Jo Wodak, eds, Weston, 2013, p. 76.

76 John Menadue, ‘Election aftermath: Where to now on Asylum Seekers and Refugees?’ in Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Finding a better way, Bob Douglas and Jo Wodak, eds, Weston, 2013, p. 15.

77 Anon ‘What impact do asylum seekers have on Australia’s migration’, The Population Experts, 9 January 2014, http://blog.id.com.au/2014/population/australian-demographic-trends/what-impact-do-asylum-seekers-have-on-australias-migration-finished/, accessed 25 July 2014.

24

Nicole Conner country via plane. If national security proved to be

under genuine threat from those seeking asylum, instead

of a convenient ideology employed to bolster election

campaigns, a responsible government would draw attention

to the potential ‘danger’ of asylum seekers arriving by

plane.

Trudy Hoad argues that boat arrivals, especially from

Australia’s proposed arc of instability that includes a

chain of politically unstable nation states in the Asia-

Pacific region, represent a security threat not from a

conventional military context, rather, that they can

create internal instability in that their arrival can

affect or detract from the quality of life of the state’s

inhabitants.78 She claims that the complexities

surrounding ‘unauthorised immigrants’ is essentially one

of opposing ideologies: the ‘idealistic’ approach to

immigration by liberal-minded, altruistic members of the

community who ‘rely on the existence of a borderless

world’ and the ‘realistic’ approach, of which she no

doubt sees herself, who wish to assess immigration with

reference to national interest and the welfare of a state

as a ‘sovereign political, social and cultural unit.’79 It

is uncertain what research she has accessed to determine

that these two ideologies are both central, and

78 Trudy Hoad, ‘Australia’s unauthorised arrivals: Security Threat or Moral Responsibility?’, in Australia’s Arc of Instability: The Political and Cultural Dynamics of Regional Security, Dennis Rumley, Vivian Louise Forbes and Christopher Griffin, eds, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2006, p.49.

79 Ibid.

25

Nicole Conner accurately defined, when it comes to the debate

surrounding national security, yet the weight of her

claims rest on this idea. In her concluding remarks she

concedes that ‘unauthorised arrivals’ constitute a very

small proportion compared to those arriving to other

Western states. Yet, she argues, there remains no

credible justification for the implementation of policies

that would support further ‘unauthorised arrivals’ as the

cost of processing are prohibitive, especially in

relation to the very few people who would benefit.80 She

then turns some of her final arguments to breathtaking

vilification of those seeking asylum with no references

to her claims:

Conversely, of the vast majority of unauthorised

arrivals that have bypassed effective protection in one

or more states en route to Australia, most provide no

evidence to support their claims for asylum, some have

deliberately destroyed documents en route to Australia,

and (some) others have proceeded to make fraudulent

claims to further their case for asylum.81

Having vilified those seeking refuge, she then suggests

that they are responsible for promoting xenophobia and

racist ideas by arriving on Australian shores

‘illegally’. She also reasons that they create economic

hardship for receiving communities which, in turn, can

80 Ibid., p. 64. 81 Ibid.

26

Nicole Conner lead to political dissatisfaction and civil strive,

constituting revisionist ideas of security threat. Hoad’s

claims, and those holding similar notions, can be

strongly refuted by analysis of statistics available on

boat arrivals and a better understanding of the

conditions that people have fled their countries.82 Yet

her ideas are highlighted and bolstered through the

hyperbole of Australian political leaders who in turn

influence public opinion.

This paper argues that asylum seekers are seen as a

‘threat’ because of ideologies of national security that

have been constructed by Australian governments in a

calculated political act and widely circulated through

media, who due to limited access to detention facilities

and asylum seekers, are forced to rely exclusively on

official government versions.83 This is highlighted by the

Abbott government’s adoption of Rudd’s hard-line

policies, yet with harsher language and tighter

information control, under Operation Sovereign Borders. Secrecy

surrounds the dealings with asylum seekers and media are

82 There are various groups that analyse the information provided by the Department of Immigration on boat arrivals. The Refugee Council of Australia serves as an example: http://www. refugeecouncil.org.au/r/stat-as.php. The Australian Human Rights Commission also provides extensive information on asylum seekers: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/face-facts-2012/2012-face-facts-chapter-3. There is also a concerted effort underway toclarify some of the ideas and myths that are all to easily peddledcreating fear and suspicion.

83 Natascha Klocker and Kevin M. Dunn, ‘Who’s driving the Asylum Seeker debate? Newspaper and Government representations of Asylum seekers’, Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy; quarterly journal of media and resources, 109, 2003, pp.71 – 92.

27

Nicole Conner only briefed on ‘water operations’ if there’s a threat or

‘serious incidents’ occur.84 The term ‘threat’ was the

third most commonly used government description of asylum

seekers, following ‘illegitimate’ and ‘illegal’.85 It

includes the reference to violence in detention centres

and threats to border security. Fonteyne identifies this

description along with the term ‘problem’ as the worst

and most insidious form of stereotyping the vulnerable

and desperate.86 It attributes all the blame of negative

events to those seeking asylum and shields the government

from scrutiny of policies and treatment of asylum

seekers, as illustrated through Trudy Hoad’s deductions

above. It enables the government to convince the public

that these people are not entitled to protection and

justifies their ongoing detention. Constructing them as a

potential ‘threat’ to national security and a ‘problem’

heightens the negative attitude of Australians towards

these people who have now become ‘an anomaly requiring

specialised correctives and therapeutic interventions.’87

Perhaps national ideals are more fervent, and fears over

84 Tony Kevin, ‘Asylum seeker drownings on Australia’s border protection watch: An issue of national decency’, in Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Finding a better way, Bob Douglas and Jo Wodak, eds, Weston,2013, p. 37.

85 Klocker and Dunn, ‘Who’s driving the Asylum Seeker debate?’, p. 78. 86 Jean-Pierre Fonteyne, William Maley, Alan Dupont, Greg Fry,

James Jupp, Thuy Do, Refugees and the Myth of the Borderless World, Canberra, 2002, p. 19.

87 Don McMaster, Asylum Seekers: Australia’s Response to Refugees, Melbourne, 2001, p. 37.

28

Nicole Conner economic competition and invasion more acute, in a nation

‘girt by sea’.

THE EFFECT OF INSULARITY ON BOAT PEOPLE

In 1937, Arthur Henderson, a British Labour member of the

House of Commons, visited Australia and New Zealand. He

criticised how geographical insularity had created a

feeling amongst Australians that they were so far from

the rest of the world affairs that they need not bother

over them.88 A feeling that was somewhat shattered with

the outbreak of war and a recognition that whether they

like it or not, Australians need to shoulder their

responsibilities in maintaining world peace.89 Suvendrini

Perera probes the effect of geographical insularity on

Australian thought and identity, linking it directly to

historical violence in order to impose white insularity

and exclusivism: ‘The plotting of Australia as an insular

formation both expels the ‘foreign’ bodies around its

edges and encloses Indigenous peoples more closely within

88 ‘Australia’s Future: Insularity Criticised’, Western Australian, 11 November 1937, http://trove.nla. gov.au/ndp/del/article/41587879?searchTerm=insularity%20australia&searchLimits=l-availability=y|||l-australian=y, accessed 29 July 2014.

89 ‘Australia’s Insularity Gone Forever’, Argus (Melbourne), 25 July1944, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ ndp/del/article/11353575?searchTerm=insularity%20australia&searchLimits=l-availability=y|||l-australian=y, accessed 29 July 2014.

29

Nicole Conner clearly demarcated borders.’90 She forms a strong case to

demonstrate that it is ideas of insularity, sustained by

colonial myths of terra nullius and ‘Robinsonian fantasies’,

that undergird the violence, racism and exclusion that

are at work in events such as the Tampa crisis or the

brutality of detention centers.91 These embedded

Australian insularity ideals have heightened populist

discourse on the deterrence of asylum seekers and allowed

wedge politics to flourish.92 Howard’s tactical move in

tapping into the populist sentiment over the angst

surrounding immigration and asylum seekers, evidenced

through the rise of the One Nation party, forced the

‘wedged’ party (Rudd/Gillard government) to distance

itself from its more compassionate stance on asylum

seekers.93 The result is that over the last two decades

Australia has regressed to a culture of control with

‘control rhetoric, control solutions and control

90 Suvendrini Perera, Australia and the Insular Imagination, Melbourne, 2009,p. 27. 91 Joseph Pugliese, ‘Australia and the Insular Imagination:

Beaches, Borders, Boats and Bodies’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 25(01), 2011, pp. 134 –

137. 92 Jafa McKenzie and Reza Hasmath, ‘Deterring the ‘Boat People’:

Explaining the Australian government’s People swap response to asylum seekers’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 2013, p. 417, http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1080/. U41u3Bb1F4M, accessed 29 July 2014.

93 Ibid. Also see Shaun Wilson and Nick Turnbull, ‘Wedge Politics andWelfare Reform in Australia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 47(3),2001, pp. 384 – 402. They describe wedge politics as ‘a calculatedpolitical tactic aimed at using divisive social issues to gain political support, weaken opponents and strengthen control over the political agenda’ (p. 386), in doing so the ‘wedged’ party hasto ‘distance itself from unpopular causes or face political marginalisation’.

30

Nicole Conner failings’ featuring in the last several elections.

Australia’s isolated geographical location, unlike most

other nations in the Western world, makes it possible to

control who comes in and out of its territory.94 The

obsession with this control, enabled through insularity,

has made Australians uncomfortable with ‘any boat people

arriving on their shores.’95 This culture of control has

been embellished as ‘good immigration and refugee policy’

if borders are to be properly managed.96 With these ideas

in place, Arthur Henderson was quite correct in his

critique that Australians are so far removed from the

affairs of the world, specifically the global refugee

crisis of current times, that they feel they need not

bother with them.

There has been a significant increase in global conflict

since the start of the 1990s, and this, along with

natural disasters, has resulted in a refugee population

unparalleled since World War II.97 Yet, while faced with

this human sea of need and anguish, leading world nations

have been growing increasingly reluctant to honour their

94 Kathryn Cronin, ‘A Culture of Control: An overview of immigration policy-making’ in The Politics of Australian Immigration, James Jupp and Marie Kabala, eds, Canberra, 1993, p. 87.

95 David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, Dark Victory, Crows Nest, 2003, p. 30.96 David Palmer, ‘The values shaping Australian asylum policy: The

views of policy insiders’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 67, 2008, pp. 307 – 320.

97 Derrick Silove, ‘The Global Challenge of Asylum’, in Broken Spirits: The Treatment of traumatised

Asylum Seekers, Refugees, and War and Torture Victims, John P. Wilson and Boris Drozdek, eds,

New York, 2004, p. 13.

31

Nicole Conner commitment to human rights, amidst ‘war on terror’

rationalisations and policies of deterrence.98 Silove

contends that this reluctance is due to the ‘sheer scale

of the world problem of war and displacement’ and the

growing public fears of those deemed ‘other’, especially

from differing cultures and religions.99 Amongst the many

countries resorting to draconian policies in order to

deter asylum seekers, Australia would emerge as one

resorting to the harshest measures, whilst faring poorly

in its refugee intake compared to other Western

nations.100 Mark Raper, whose work amongst asylum seekers

has spanned over thirty years, blames fear as the key

factor in the dismal response to the global crisis, yet

warns that even a country as isolated and insular as

Australia will not remain exempt amidst globalisation of

travel and communication. He provides three strategies in

moving forward. Firstly, leadership that is able to act

courageously in times of perceived crisis. The leadership

that saw many Indo-Chinese resettled through the 1970s

and 1980s put policies in place that assisted asylum

seekers whilst changing social attitudes. Secondly, he is

emphatic that Australians come to know the people that

are so desperately seeking help, not through mass media

but in a personal and meaningful way. Thirdly, that the

98 Ibid.99 Ibid., p. 17.100 Ibid. Also see ‘Does Australia take the most refugees?’, Facts Fight

Back, 23 July, 2013, http://www.factsfightback.org.au/does-australia-take-the-most-refugees-check-the-facts/, accessed 30 July 2014.

32

Nicole Conner policies that are forged are both realistic and

compassionate.101 It is his second point that will

conclude this discussion on insularity by arguing that it

is not just the geographical insularity that enables

Australia to remain aloof to a global refugee crisis, but

the social insularity that most Australians experience

when it comes to actually knowing an asylum seeker

personally.

Detention centers have provided the various governments

the means to ensure that asylum seekers remain removed

from public scrutiny. In doing so, the government

continues to control social attitudes of prejudice and

fear, assisted by the media who have very limited direct

access to asylum seekers in detention. Australian society

is therefore not just shaped through geographical

insularity, but social insularity, in regards to actually

knowing asylum seekers. This social insularity creates

indifference towards those seen as ‘other’ and prevents

empathy developing. Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and

Nobel Laureate, addressed the temptation that

indifference offers:

Of course, indifference can be tempting — more thanthat, seductive. It is so much easier to look awayfrom victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude

interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. Itis, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved inanother person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person

101 Mark Raper, ‘Facing the Stranger’, (Address), Melbourne Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund, September 2004, http://www.erea.edu.au/docs/default-source/identity/other-identity-resources/12-facing-the-stranger---mark-raper-sj.pdf?sfvrsn=2, accessed 31 July 2014.

33

Nicole Conner who is indifferent, his or her neighbor is of noconsequence. And, therefore, their lives aremeaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is ofno interest. Indifference reduces the other to anabstraction.102

Have ideologies shaped through insularity, created an

Australian culture that is so narrow and intolerant to

those deemed ‘others’, that it has resulted in national

indifference towards some of the most vulnerable people

on the globe? This paper would argue that it is one of

the plausible arguments in understanding why over sixty

per cent of Australians want the Abbott government to

increase the severity of the treatment of asylum

seekers.103 It may also provide insight into the

relatively minimal protest at the government’s practice

to place minors in detention, despite evidence of

significant mental health issues amongst child

detainees.104 Insularity has bred indifference, which in

turn has become ‘injustices’ incubator’.105 The current

102 Elie Wiesel, ‘The Perils of Indifference’, (Speech: Millennium Lecture Series, 12 April 1999), The History Place, http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/wiesel.htm, accessed 31 July 2014.

103 Philip Dorling, ‘Australians want boat arrivals treated more harshly: poll’, Sydney Morning Herald Sun, 8 January 2014, http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australians-want-boat-arrivals-treated-more-harshly-poll-20140108-30g97.html, accessed 31 July 2014.

104 Rebecca Barrett and Karen Barlow, ‘Immigration detention inquiry:Government tried to cover up asylum seekers’ mental health problems, inquiry told’, ABC News, 31 July 2014, http://www.abc. net.au/news/2014-07-31/detention-centre-inquiry-hears-claims-of-immigration-cover-up/5637654, accessed 31 July, 2014.

105 Anon., ‘Indifference is injustice’s incubator’, Toronto Star, 28 November 2003, http://search.

34

Nicole Conner national inquiry into children in detention has heard of

government cover-up over the scale of mental health

issues amongst minors. It has heard that there has been

128 cases of children committing acts of self-harm in the

last fifteen months, not including Nauru, and, that

clinical decisions by medical doctors about the health of

these children were routinely altered and downgraded.106

There remains a hope that if Australians were to be

exposed to the lives of these desperate people and

confront the effect of this insidious ideology shaped

through insularity; it would result in a change of social

conscience. The television programme, ‘Go Back To Where

You Came From’, demonstrated how empathy could be

established following knowledge of what is really

occurring.107 Currently 659 young lives in detention, long

for that moment.

CONCLUSION

Ideologies shape a nation’s policies and worldview.

Modern day Australia has a constructed set of ideologies

still inherent of its convict past. These shared

ideologies have been shaped through hardship and survival

fears, and propagated through political rhetoric and mass

media. This project has endeavoured to answer the

proquest.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/docview/438643681?pq-origsite=summon, accessed 31 July 2014.

106 Barrett and Barlow, ‘Immigration detention inquiry’.107 ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’, SBS Documentary, Television

Programme, SBS Television, Sydney, broadcast 2011.

35

Nicole Conner research question of how the ideologies surrounding

nationalism, racism, national security and insularity

have influenced the current attitude and policies towards

‘boat people’. The ideologies of nationalism and racism

are imagined national ideals, forged from British roots.

They suggest who represents the ‘ideal’ Australian, and

they are white and male. They have directly affected

Australian attitudes towards race and a litany of

disastrous historical racial policies stand as a glaring

example to racist attitudes still lingering in modern

Australia. Asylum seekers do not fit into these

nationalist and racist ideologies, and the introduction

of mandatory detention in 1992, ensured that asylum

seekers and their children can be kept out of sight and

mind by placing them in detention indefinitely.108

Ideologies surrounding national security and insularity

heighten the century old angst of economic competition.

To ensure that asylum seekers remain on the outer and

continue to be perceived as the threatening ‘other’,

political rhetoric and campaigns like ‘Operation

Sovereign Borders’, have helped political powers to

isolate and detain those arriving by boat, whilst at the

same time a looming ‘National Interest Test’ will deny

asylum seekers ever receiving a permanent visa.109 Removed

108 Janet Phillips and Harriet Spinks, ‘Immigration detention in Australia’, Parliament of Australia, March 2013, http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/Detention#_Toc351535450, accessed 25 August 2014.

109 John Keane, Conversation, 5 July 2014, http://theconversation.com/operation-sovereign-borders-28831,

36

Nicole Conner from sight and social conscience, asylum seekers have

been reduced to an ‘issue’ or ‘threat’, and a majority of

the ‘lucky’ country’s population remain indifferent to

the suffering of the destitute, fed a set of ideologies

that have shaped and seared their conscience. This

research project has taken on the task of examining

attitudes and policies towards asylum seekers in light of

ideologies shaped through and from European colonisation.

Amidst the many excellent scholarly contributions on the

subject of asylum seekers like Don McMaster’s most cited

book on Asylum Seekers, to the studies conducted by

Pedersen et al. on attitudes towards asylum seekers, or Ajak

Butrus’s in-depth study on the affect on mental health of

those in detention, this project examines four ideologies

that are systemic to the current Australian attitude and

policies towards asylum seekers.110 It is therefore a

unique contribution in this area as it argues that

Australia is not ‘young or free’, in fact, it remains in

national delusion and escapism while bound to ideological

fallacies that cause it to abscond from its international

responsibilities.

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110 McMaster, Asylum Seekers; Pedersen et al, ‘Predictions of negative attitudes’; and, Ajak Butrus, Onshore Asylum Seekers Mental Health, Saarbrücken, 2013.

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Nicole Conner

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