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Deterring the ‘boat people’: Explaining the
Australian government’s People Swap response
to asylum seekers
JAFFA MCKENZIE
University of Melbourne
REZA HASMATH
University of Oxford
This article examines why Australia has taken a tough stance on ‘boat people’,
through an analysis of the Malaysian People Swap response. The findings
support the view that populism, wedge politics and a culture of control drive
Australia’s asylum-seeker policy agenda. The article further argues that these
political pressures hold numerous negative implications for the tone of
Australia’s political debate and the quality of policy formulation, as well as for
asylum seekers and refugees themselves.
Keywords: asylum seekers; Australia; People Swap
Introduction
Over the last two decades, the Australian government has taken an increasingly firm
stance towards asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat. One of the
most aggressive government responses to the increase in asylum seekers in recent
years was the Malaysian ‘People Swap’, formed through a bilateral agreement
signed on 25 July 2011 by Australia and Malaysia. Under this arrangement, the
first 800 asylum seekers to arrive in Australia by boat were to be transferred to
Malaysia, in return for Australia accepting 4000 refugees from Malaysia. The
People Swap faced many obstacles. In August 2011, the High Court of Australia
declared the policy unlawful –in a successful challenge launched on behalf of two
asylum seekers facing deportation under the arrangement –on the basis that Malaysia
was not legally bound to provide the asylum seeker the protections required under
Australian law.
1
In response, Julia Gillard’s Labor government twice attempted to
pass legislative amendments –in September 2011, and in June 2012 –to circumvent
Jaffa McKenzie is based in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
Reza Hasmath is a Lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford.
1
Plaintiff M70/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship;Plaintiff M106 of 2011 v Minister for
Immigration and Citizenship. (2011). HCA 32.
Australian Journal of Political Science, 2013
Vol. 48, No. 4, 417–430, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2013.841124
© 2013 Australian Political Studies Association
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the High Court ruling, and allow for the implementation of the People Swap. Despite
the concerted efforts of the government, on both occasions it was unsuccessful.
To contextualise the People Swap response, we can trace four waves of ‘boat
people’(or ‘irregular maritime arrivals’, as they are formally known). The first
‘wave’of arrivals, from 1976 to 1981, was a relatively small cohort who came
mainly from Vietnam. The Australian public initially received this wave with
empathy, but a negative public reaction to the small numbers of ‘boat people’soon
began to grow. As the number of arrivals increased from 1989 to 1998, a greater fre-
quency of detention over longer periods accompanied the second wave.
2
The issue of
boat arrivals heightened even further during the third wave (1999–2001), which saw a
significant increase in asylum seekers and was met with a stronger government
response, characterised by the Tampa affair and the subsequent Pacific Solution
(Betts 2001; Phillips and Spinks 2013).
The Tampa affair began in August 2001 when the Howard government refused the
Norwegian-registered MV Tampa permission to dock on the Australian territory of
Christmas Island after it rescued a sinking boat of asylum seekers at Australia’s
request. A standoff ensued over the following days, until the government
implemented a policy commonly known as the ‘Pacific Solution’. The Pacific Sol-
ution encompassed three key features.
First, the government excised certain territories –notably Christmas Island, Cocos
Island and Ashmore Reef –from Australia’s migration zone, so that asylum seekers
landing on these islands could not apply to Australia for refugee status. Second, the
government granted the navy to interdict asylum seekers heading to Australia by
boat. Third, it agreed with Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG) to establish deten-
tion centres for the processing of asylum seekers, thus establishing Australia’s system
of offshore processing. Furthermore, this period witnessed the introduction of tem-
porary protection visas (TPVs), granting up to three years for those ‘unauthorised’
asylum seekers who were found to be genuine refugees. After 2001, the number of
asylum seekers arriving by boat dropped dramatically, with one person arriving in
2002, and an average of 57 people each year until Kevin Rudd’s Labor government
was elected in 2007.
In 2008, the Rudd government honoured its election promise to take a more
humane approach to asylum seekers and dismantle the Pacific Solution and TPVs.
Another spike in asylum seekers followed, and the fourth wave (2009 to the
present) of arrivals commenced: 2726 people arrived on 60 boats in 2009, a record
6555 came on 134 boats in 2010 and 4565 arrived on 69 boats in 2011 (Phillips
and Spinks 2013).
3
This period provoked a clear toughening of Labor Party policy and political
discourse on asylum seekers, a shift on which this article focuses. Addressing
the relative rise in boat arrivals on Australia’s shores soon became a policy
imperative for parties on both sides of Australia’s politics, Labor as well as the
2
Under the Migration Amendment Act 1992 the Keating Labor government introduced mandatory immi-
gration detention for asylum seekers arriving by boat. Prior to this, unauthorised boat arrivals were held
in detention on a discretionary basis (Phillips and Spinks 2013: 12).
3
There is a correlation between the asylum-seeker boat arrivals and Australian government policy, but
the question of causation remains unclear. The debate over whether ‘push’or ‘pull’factors have driven
the number of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat is beyond the scope of this article.
418 J. MCKENZIE AND R. HASMATH
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Coalition.
4
In particular, deterring the ‘boat people’featured heavily in the 2010 elec-
tion, which was preceded by the ousting of Kevin Rudd as prime minister, delivered a
hung parliament and resulted in Julia Gillard leading a Labor minority government. In
a speech at the Lowy Institute, Gillard urged voters to ‘discuss the facts’on asylum
seekers, yet she also reassured the public that ‘it is wrong to label people who have
concerns about unauthorised arrivals as “rednecks”’, because ‘expressing a desire for
a clear and firm policy to deal with a very difficult problem does not make you a
racist’(Gillard 2010). Mimicking the Pacific Solution, Gillard announced plans to
open a ‘regional processing centre’in East Timor,
5
providing the justification that
East Timor was signatory to the Refugee Convention (Gillard 2010). As
Megalogenis states, ‘Labor governed by the conservative populist manual, [ …]
was cowed by Howard, and captured by the polls’(2010: 42).
Against this backdrop, and using qualitative and quantitative content analysis
6
, this
article analyses the main explanatory variables that influenced the formation of the
People Swap policy. We do so by categorising primary-source data into relevant emer-
gent themes or statements in order to identify explanations or themes that account for
government action. Where appropriate, we count words and concepts as a method to
identify patterns and trends. We gathered data until saturation was achieved, and we
used four primary sources: media releases, press conferences, House of Representa-
tives legislative debates and Question Time –from 7 May 2011, when the People
Swap was first announced, until 28 June 2012, with the government’sfinal attempt
to legislate the policy. The primary-source data include the transcripts of four govern-
ment media releases, 10 press conferences, 2 parliamentary debates (each lasting over
five hours) and 102 questions and responses relating to asylum seekers during Question
Time. In preview, we suggest that three factors influenced the formation of the People
Swap response: populist appeal; wedge politics and a culture of control.
Populist appeal
Populism is an elusive idea that has proved notoriously difficult to define, but at its
core populism involves vague appeals to ‘the people’and an ‘anti-elitist’sentiment
(Canovan 1981: 294). For Hindess and Sawer, populist public discourse in Australia
is constructed through a binary ‘us’and ‘them’framework, where ‘opposition to
elites (them) often goes together with a claim to speak for ordinary people (us)’
(2004: 1). As Johnson highlights (2004: 130–33), the Coalition’s 2001 election
catch-cry was indicative of this ‘us’and ‘them’construction: ‘we will decide who
comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’(Howard 2001).
4
The Coalition is a formal alliance between the Liberal Party of Australia and National Party of Austra-
lia. In this alliance, Liberal members have a numerical majority.
5
This policy was not implemented as it did not have East Timor’s support. The Australian government
discussed the proposal with East Timor’s president, but the Timorese parliament subsequently rejected
the plan (Allard and Coorey 2010).
6
We acknowledge that there are limitations in using this form of analysis to fully explain drivers of
policy, political decisions and motives. Details of such strategies are ‘seldom given accurately or detailed
publicly’(Wilson and Turnbull 2001: 385), but we viewed content analysis as the most effective tech-
nique to scrutinise the government’s justification for the policy and, in turn, to shed light on potential
factors influencing the policy. Furthermore, there is strong precedent in using this methodology. For
instance, McKay, Thomas, and Kneebone (2011) use thematic discourse analysis to better understand
why the Australian public may hold particular views on asylum seekers.
DETERRING THE ‘BOAT PEOPLE’419
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For the Coalition, anti-elitism has proved a powerful rhetorical source. The clearest
illustration of this was under John Howard, who sought to engage the non-elites who
were characterised as ‘ordinary Australians’and ‘Howard’s battlers’(Cahill 2004:
91). Cleavages were constructed, with the elites rejected as something outside of
the mainstream, while the ‘fears, resentments and insecurities’of ordinary Austra-
lians were nurtured (Sawer 2004: 41). As Clyne states, the elites were perceived as
‘demanding unfairly generous treatment for the unworthy’(2005: 190). With the
public suffering ‘compassion fatigue’, Howard’s politics fostered a popular backlash
against boat people, who were accused of trying to ‘exploit our compassion and gen-
erosity’(Hage 2003:7–8).
In much of the literature, national anxiety drives the populist backlash against boat
people. Some have argued that national concern over Australian identity and a fear of
invasion, grounded in the historical threat of being ‘swamped’by Australia’s Asian
northern neighbours, shaped the Howard government’s policies (Grewcock 2007:
178; McMaster 2001:38–39; Papastergiadis 2006). Building on this theme,
McKay, Thomas, and Kneebone (2011) argue that public opinion towards asylum
seekers has been influenced by the perceived threat they pose to the Australian
way of life, as well as the view that asylum seekers exploit Australia’s systems
and processes. For Burke, the Howard government’s rhetoric about protecting the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of Australia in the face of boat people represents
an image of an ‘insecure, vulnerable Australian subject under perpetual threat’(2001:
324). McNevin, who argues that the government’s tough policies are a counter-
balance to Australia’s neo-liberal trend towards economic openness in recent
decades, arrives at a similar conclusion: a ‘performance of political closure’(2007:
622) aimed to address national anxieties over porous national borders.
Our findings suggest a continued prevalence of populist rhetoric through the
Gillard government’s discourse on asylum seekers, although it was less overt than
the language of the Howard era. Under Gillard the people smugglers, rather than
asylum seekers, were demonised. People smuggling was not only framed by the gov-
ernment as being criminal, it was an ‘evil’business, with its perpetrators depicted as
predators, who ‘profit’,‘trade’and ‘prey’on ‘human misery’, and the ‘desperation of
others’. In order to deal with such ‘evil’, Gillard and the then-Immigration Minister
Chris Bowen adopted aggressive language. The most common phrases were to
‘smash’or ‘break’the people smuggler’s trade, with terms such as ‘eliminate’,
‘tackle’and ‘combat’also being popular. The government used this terminology in
media releases and press conferences during the reference period, but such language
was largely absent from parliamentary debates. This indicates the public was the
potential audience to which the demonisation of people smugglers was directed.
Interestingly, not only did the government use simplistic language in these forums,
it avoided the more elitist language associated with human rights and international
obligations. Gillard was not perceived as being as in touch with the views of ordinary
people as Howard, but her populist rhetoric may have been intended to align Gillard
with the prevailing public mood.
It is significant that the Gillard government had replaced asylum seekers with
people smugglers as the overtly demonised subject. This appears to have allowed
the government to channel negative sentiment towards boat arrivals, yet distinguish
Labor’s rhetoric from that of the Coalition. This was most evident in Gillard’s
language following the High Court’s circumvention of the People Swap. She was
careful to frame ‘boats’as the problem, rather than the asylum seekers:
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I believe it is very important, if we do see more boats, to separate in the commu-
nity’s mind, in all of our minds, the problem of seeing more boats from the
people who are on those boats. It is not in my mind a question of blaming the
people who are on those boats. (Gillard and Bowen 2011e)
Gillard, however, also attempted to appeal to mainstream Australia: ‘we are at a real
risk of seeing more boats, and I understand that will cause community anxiety’
(Gillard and Bowen 2011e). Statements such as this offer support to the view that
a national ‘anxiety’drives Australia’s negative response to boat people. Despite
Gillard’s qualification –that the boats, not the people on the boats, were the
problem –her choice to appeal to potential ‘community anxiety’served to legitimise
the view that boat arrivals were a threat or cause for fear.
The findings highlight some noteworthy distinctions between the characterisations
of asylum seekers during the Howard era and those under Gillard. The Labor govern-
ment’s rhetoric in relation to asylum seekers was, in part, more positive than a decade
prior. Asylum seekers were no longer presented as a threat to family values and the
Australian way of life, as Slattery (2003: 95) detected in her analysis of the ‘children
overboard’scandal. Rather, asylum seekers were commonly framed in a more sym-
pathetic light, as people who were ‘desperate’and the ‘victims’of people smugglers.
While no longer overtly demonised, asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat
nonetheless remained delegitimised through judgements made of their deservingness;
they were implicitly framed as a ‘problem’.
In all the primary sources we analysed, the Gillard government did not use the
derogatory term ‘queue jumpers’even once, but it often alluded to there being an
orderly queue that asylum seekers should join. Indeed, a trumpeted benefit of the
People Swap was that it sent the message: ‘if you arrive in Australian waters and
are taken to Malaysia you will go to the back of the queue’(Gillard and Bowen
2011a). They would also ‘take their place alongside 90,000 asylum seekers and
they will wait their turn’(Gillard 2011).
Despite there being no orderly queue, the government’s rhetoric resonated with
notions of fairness and, in turn, implied that asylum seekers who arrive by boat
were less deserving of protection or even concern. In contrast, those refugees
waiting in the ‘queue’were depicted as deserving. Unlike ‘boat people’, those refu-
gees in Malaysia had ‘waited often for many years to get a chance at a new life and a
new start in a country like Australia’(Gillard and Bowen 2011d). Appealing to the
Australian ethos of a ‘fair go’, the government’s suggestion that refugees were
‘jumping the queue’resonated with, and may have fed, populist resentment. This
is noteworthy as it demonstrated a continuation of the populist disapproval of boat
people that was evident under the Howard government.
The juxtaposition of the terms ‘genuine refugees’and ‘irregular arrivals’appeared
to further delegitimise asylum seekers who arrived by boat. Those arriving by boat
were termed ‘irregular’, but refugees waiting offshore were described as
‘genuine’.
7
This contrast depicted asylum seekers arriving by boat as less worthy,
which in turn may have encouraged populist antipathy to their cause.
7
We do not dispute that ‘genuine refugees’is a correct description of the 4000 people who would be
resettled in Australia under the People Swap; rather, the suggestion that asylum seekers who arrive
by boat are not genuine refugees is problematic.
DETERRING THE ‘BOAT PEOPLE’421
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In our data set of press conferences, media releases and Question Time, the phrase
‘genuine refugees’was mentioned 21 times during the reference period. These refer-
ences were in relation to the 4000 refugees to be transferred from Malaysia. Those
800 asylum seekers to be sent to Malaysia, however, were not once described as refu-
gees, let alone ‘genuine’ones. They were instead labelled ‘irregular’, a striking
contrast:
The arrangement provides for the transfer from Australia to Malaysia of up to 800
irregular maritime arrivals and formalises Australia’s commitment to accept 1,000
additional genuine refugees from Malaysia every year for the next four years.
(Gillard and Bowen 2011b)
It is debatable whether these terms were used to bolster support for increasing the
humanitarian intake (by emphasising that refugees chosen from Malaysia are
‘genuine’and therefore deserving), or to justify sending 800 asylum seekers to
Malaysia, or perhaps both. Gillard’s implicit judgement that boat people were less
deserving of Australia’s compassion potentially represented an attempt to separate
herself from those elites who ‘[demand] unfairly generous treatment for the
unworthy’(Clyne 2005: 190). As under Howard, populism continued to influence
the asylum-policy agenda.
Finally, it is important to note that the Gillard government’s populist direction on
asylum-seeker policy positioned Labor at odds with its previous stance on the issue.
Indeed, the Malaysian People Swap was the manifestation of two policy backflips:
first, on pursuing a policy of offshore processing and, second, doing so in a
country not signatory to the Refugee Convention.
The Coalition did not miss this point, as was evident throughout the legislative
debates we analysed.
8
Liberal MPs recalled how the introduction of the Pacific Sol-
ution and subsequent 2001 election drew accusations of ‘race baiting, that we were
rednecks [ …] that we were without hearts, that we were dog whistling and that
we were xenophobes or were playing xenophobic politics’(Hansard 2011:
11208). Ridiculing the government, Liberal MPs reminded Bowen of his previously
stated view, that ‘asylum seekers should be treated the same regardless of how they
land’(Hansard 2011: 11022). Similarly, former Immigration Minister Chris Evans
was reminded of when he described the day the Pacific Solution was formally dis-
mantled as his ‘proudest day in politics’(Hansard 2011: 11188).
This is particularly significant since it demonstrates the extent to which Labor shifted
its stance on asylum seekers under Gillard’s leadership. The consequence of this was
the convergence of Labor’s approach to ‘boat people’with that of the Coalition. For
the Australian government, deterrence seemingly became paramount –regardless of
which party was in power.
Wedge politics
Wedge politics is ‘a calculated political tactic aimed at using divisive social issues to
gain political support, weaken opponents and strengthen control over the political
8
During the Offshore Processing Bill debate, the opposition emphasised Labor’s backflip on offshore
processing; during the Bali Process Bill debate, the focus shifted to Labor’s backflip on the Refugee
Convention.
422 J. MCKENZIE AND R. HASMATH
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agenda’(Wilson and Turnbull 2001: 386). In doing so, wedge politics takes ‘advan-
tage of issues or policies that undermine the support base of a political opponent’
(Wilson and Turnbull 2001: 386, emphasis in original). Two key tactical advantages
arise from the strategy. First, by tapping into populist sentiment over a divisive social
issue, a political party can attract support from its opponent. Second, the ‘wedged’
party is consequently forced to either ‘distance itself from unpopular causes or
face political marginalisation’(Wilson and Turnbull 2001: 386).
The populist nature of the asylum-seeker debate has allowed wedge politics to
flourish. A likely corollary of this was the People Swap. The debate surrounding
the People Swap demonstrated not only how wedge politics could be used as an effec-
tive political strategy –in this instance by the Coalition –but also the impact that this
could have on the policies of the wedged political opponent, in this case the Gillard
government. The findings that provide some support to this contention are twofold.
First, analysis of the Coalition’s rhetoric and policies
9
suggests that wedge politics
may have been used against the government for political advantage. Second, the gov-
ernment’s reaction to the asylum debate may also support this view.
With the Gillard government’s political base divided over the issue, it seems the
People Swap was an attempt to balance the competing interests of its mainstream
and elitist constituencies. In the words of Rudd (2010), the People Swap was a mani-
festation of Labor’s‘lurch to the right’on the issue of asylum seekers, in a bid to rein
in its suburban working-class voters. The most persuasive evidence of this is found in
Labor’s two major policy backflips that surfaced during this period: first by introdu-
cing an offshore processing policy at all, then by doing so in a nation not signatory to
the Refugee Convention. Considering that this shift made Labor vulnerable to losing
its elitist progressive voters to the ‘left’–notably to parties such as the Greens –
Labor’s concurrent emphasis on the People Swap’s humanitarian benefits may indi-
cate a desire to appease such liberal voters.
Our findings suggest that the Coalition may have used the divisive issue of asylum
seekers to drive a ‘wedge’through Labor’s political support base. Deciphering pol-
itical intent is problematic and open to conjecture, but the opposition’s rhetoric and
contradictions suggest that the Coalition may have exploited the asylum-seeker
debate for political advantage. Wilson and Turnbull note that ‘resentments and antip-
athies towards minorities’(2001: 386), in this case asylum seekers, do not form in a
vacuum. Accordingly, the wedge politics at play over the People Swap should be
understood as a continuation of the political climate established under Howard.
Two key patterns emerge from the empirical evidence to support this claim. First,
Coalition MPs tended to criticise the People Swap for being a ‘five-for-one deal’.
Using a simplistic metaphor with populist overtones, Liberal MP Don Randall illus-
trated why offering protection to more refugees was a bad idea:
Walk through your shopping centres and ask anyone if they think the five-for-one
swap is a good deal. The government then said to Malaysia: ‘have we got a deal for
you. We’ll take 4,000 of yours at great expense, and at a great expense we’ll give
you 800 of ours and we’ll pay for the lot. Guess what? We think that’s a good deal’.
(Hansard 2011: 11202)
9
We limit our analysis of the Coalition’s rhetoric and policies to the discourses encompassed in the par-
liamentary debates and Question Time; the Coalition’s political strategies are beyond the scope of this
article.
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Abbott argued that swapping 800 people for 4000 was a ‘bad deal’and a ‘dud deal’,
as ‘no serious, self-respecting country would allow itself to be a dumping ground for
other countries’problems’(Hansard 2011: 11165). Such rhetoric fits with Wilson
and Turnbull’s observations that wedge politics involves ‘linking political
opponents’with the ‘unpopular or stigmatised social issues or groups’; in this
case, linking Labor with the ‘elitist fashion’of refugee protection (Wilson and
Turnbull 2001: 385).
A discernible shift occurred partway through the reference period. The ‘five-for-
one deal’line of attack was common among Coalition MPs in the months following
the initial policy announcement, but towards the end of the reference period they scar-
cely mentioned it.
10
Instead, the Coalition began to reject the People Swap for betray-
ing refugee rights, with the debate transforming into one where offshore processing
policies were contested on humanitarian grounds. Not only did these criticisms
expose the rift in Labor’s political base, the conflicting nature of the Coalition’s
objections suggests that they were the product of political tactics, rather than
principle.
Second, wedge politics was seemingly at play due to the use of the Refugee Con-
vention in political discourse. The question of whether offshore processing should be
permitted in nations that were signatory to the Refugee Convention was one that has
featured heavily across our sources. For instance, the Refugee Convention was men-
tioned 97 times during the Offshore Processing Bill debate, 102 times during the Bali
Process Bill debate and 89 times across the entire Question Time reference period.
Long before it signed the Refugee Convention, Nauru was a proud feature of the
Coalition’s Pacific Solution (Flynn and LaForgia 2002; Mathew 2002). As Abbott
boasted: ‘We invented offshore processing. We have the patent on offshore proces-
sing’(Hansard 2011: 11165). When Nauru acceded to the Refugee Convention in
June 2011, however, the terms of the asylum debate shifted dramatically
(Needham 2011; Packham 2011). The political debate could then be divided along
the lines of whether to send asylum seekers to a nation signatory to the Refugee Con-
vention, such as Nauru, or a nation that was not, such as Malaysia. In fact, both
amendments the Coalition proposed –to the Offshore Processing Bill in 2011 and
Bali Process Bill in 2012 –ensured that asylum seekers were sent to nations signatory
to the Refugee Convention (Hansard 2011,2012).
The Coalition’s seemingly delayed enthusiasm for the international treaty is impor-
tant to note because it suggests that political opportunism may have driven the oppo-
sition’s approach. Moreover, the Coalition’s other asylum policies indicate that the
opposition was not entirely motivated by sending refugees to non-signatory
nations. This was most pronounced with Abbott’s policy of ‘turn back the boats’,
which would involve the navy forcing boats to return to their port of origin –in
most cases, Indonesia (Wilson and Vasek 2012). As Labor MP Laurie Ferguson
said: ‘there are some in this House who say it is okay to send boats to Indonesia
with no protections negotiated, but it is not okay to send planes to Malaysia with pro-
tections negotiated’(Hansard 2011: 11248).
The Coalition’s full intent cannot be affirmed, but we argue that it may have used
the Refugee Convention to exacerbate the rift between the toughening of Labor
10
In the first two months after the policy announcement, the Coalition devoted almost a quarter of its
allotted questions during Question Time to dismissing the People Swap for being a ‘five-for-one
deal’, but Coalition MPs used this phrase just once in their 81 questions after this point.
424 J. MCKENZIE AND R. HASMATH
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policy, as encompassed in the People Swap, and the humanitarian concerns of
Labor’s liberal-left constituency. This, we posit, is theoretically interesting for the
understanding of wedge politics. It diverges from the common use of the political
tactic, where populist issues are used to gain political support by attracting votes
from an opponent’sbase(Ward2002:29–32; Wilson and Turnbull 2001: 386).
Instead, this form of wedge politics pursues policies that appeal to the more ideologi-
cally distant side of its opponent’s political base. This is unlikely to attract such voters –
although it may be possible –but rather exacerbates the wedge that has already been
established. Thus, it fits Wilson and Turnbull’sdefinition of the political strategy
insofar that it ‘weaken[s] opponents and strengthen[s] control over the political
agenda’(2001: 36). With the People Swap, Labor was cornered. Eager to take a
tough approach to asylum seekers, yet unwilling to adopt its conservative counterpart’s
exact policy of offshore processing on Nauru, Labor found itself continuing to pursue a
policy in spite of the High Court and Parliament rejecting it.
A Culture of control
We suggest that a ‘culture of control’partly drives Australian immigration policy,
and in turn, asylum-seeker policy. As Cronin (1993: 85) contends, ‘Australia is
truly the lucky country’in terms of its ability to manage its borders. Girt by sea
and isolated in the southern corner of the world, Australia’s geography has bestowed
on the nation the ability to control who comes in and out of its territory, and under
what circumstances. Subsequently, Australians are ‘uncomfortable with any [boat
people] arriving on their shores’(Marr and Wilkinson 2003: 30). The idea of
control has become a fixation of the electorate, where the government offers
‘control rhetoric and control solutions’, while the opposition points to the govern-
ment’s‘control failings’(Cronin 1993: 87).
It was not until the late 1980s, in the second wave of arrivals, that the government’s
ability to control borders came under threat, prompting sweeping changes to
Australia’s immigration policy.The objective of these changes was to establish effec-
tive legislative mechanisms for managing immigration, functioning to curtail the
increasing number of refugee claims and reduce judicial intervention.
On this point, Palmer (2008) has asked: ‘why and to what purpose the quest for
control?’Palmer highlighted the argument that maintaining a culture of control is
essential for ‘nation building’. As one minister argued:
I can understand people say there is a culture of control, but [ …] you can only
conduct good immigration policy and good refugee policy if you are able to
manage your borders. (quoted in Palmer 2008: 311)
More specifically, as the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat increases, this
produces a negative outcome for immigration policy as a whole, as ‘public support
for immigration of any kind is likely to fall’(Palmer 2008: 311).
This article argues that a culture of control is most pertinent when considering the
paradox encompassed in the policy design: swapping 800 potential refugees for 4000
refugees. The lopsided nature of the People Swap suggests it is not so much the refu-
gees that are the issue, but rather the circumstances by which they reach Australia.
Unlike offshore refugees, onshore refugees enter Australia through the ‘uncontrolled
door’, where the government cannot control the type of refugees it accepts, or the
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number who arrive (Lopez 2003: 53). As Crock (1998: 67) highlights: ‘asylum
seekers represent a direct threat to the orderly conduct of a migration programme
because they come uninvited and yet mandate consideration’, as a result of Australia
ratifying the Refugee Convention. The People Swap was an attempt to remedy this.
By using deportation to Malaysia as a deterrent, ‘control’could be restored to the
Australian government.
Labor MP David Bradbury adopted this argument in his speech about the Offshore
Processing Bill. He was one of few Labor MPs who alluded to a culture of control,
but his words provide an interesting insight. Defending the People Swap, he framed
the policy as in harmony with ‘Labor values’and the party’s‘history and tradition’.
Consistent with the logic of the People Swap, Bradbury drew comparisons with
Labor governments that welcomed large groups of immigrants, yet opposed any
uncontrolled arrivals of asylum seekers by sea:
That is why Gough Whitlam would, on the one hand, resist Vietnamese boat arri-
vals but, on the other, dismantle Australia’s White Australia Policy. That is why
Bob Hawke embraced thousands of Chinese students post-Tiananmen Square but
resisted boat arrivals from Cambodia. That is why the Keating government could
champion multiculturalism like no other government before it but, at the same
time, introduce mandatory detention. (Hansard 2011: 11253)
Australia was ‘prepared to embrace and welcome an extra 1000 refugees each year’,
but Bradbury said this was contingent on whether the government could ‘insist upon
the ability to exercise some control over the flow of people’(Hansard 2011: 11254).
Interestingly, Bradbury argued that control was necessary for maintaining the success
of Australian multiculturalism. At first glance, restricting certain groups of asylum
seekers from protection in Australia may seem to run counter to fostering multicul-
turalism. This logic, however, is consistent with that noted by Palmer (2008: 311),
who highlights a rationalisation as to why maintaining control is necessary –if
numbers of asylum seekers increase, public support for any type of immigration is
expected to decrease.
The People Swap seemed to be an attempt by the Gillard government to offer
‘control solutions’to perceived ‘control failings’, but the use of ‘control rhetoric’
was less apparent in the primary sources. This may suggest a desire on the part of
the government to differentiate itself from the Coalition’s talk of control, character-
ised by Howard’s(2001) election platform of ‘we will decide who comes to this
country and the circumstances in which they come’.
When the People Swap came under pressure following the High Court judgement,
however, the tone of the government’s rhetoric shifted significantly. In the first five
press conferences Gillard and Bowen delivered, border protection was mentioned
only once, with Gillard simply stating on 25 July 2011: ‘this agreement will better
secure our borders’.Inthefinal three press conferences (on 1 and 12 September and
13 October 2011, at both ends of the High Court challenge), however, border
control featured more frequently. For example, on 1 September, Gillard assured the
public ‘we’ve got more assets patrolling our border than we’ve ever had before’,
and ‘we’ll continue to do everything that we do to patrol and protect Australia’s
borders’. Gillard added that she was ‘concerned about what [the High Court case]
means in terms of boats trying to make their way to Australia’, before repeating
once more that the government will continue ‘patrolling and protecting our borders’
426 J. MCKENZIE AND R. HASMATH
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(Gillard and Bowen 2011c). On 12 September, Gillard referred to the Keating govern-
ment’s formal introduction of mandatory detention in 1992, framing border protection
as part of Labor’s legacy:
We are a political party that has always been prepared to take the steps necessary to
have border protection and to ensure that we had an orderly migration system. I
refer you in that regard to the creation of mandatory detention by Minister Gerry
Hand [ …] That is our heritage, that is who we are. (Gillard and Bowen 2011d)
Furthermore, Gillard suggested that ‘this is not about the politics’, but rather, it was
about restoring the proper state of affairs: ‘this is about Australia controlling our
immigration settings and particularly government controlling our immigration set-
tings’(Gillard and Bowen 2011d).
11
The timing was significant because it may have indicated that Gillard chose to
resort to border control rhetoric at a time when her government’s policy was under
heightened pressure. That the government opted to offer ‘control rhetoric’and
persist with its ‘control solution’, the People Swap, in spite of the High Court
ruling, supports the view that a culture of control remains influential on the direction
of asylum policy in Australia.
Discussion and conclusion
We argued that populism, wedge politics and a culture of control were all explanatory
factors behind the People Swap. The use of language shifted subtly when comparing
the Gillard era to that of Howard, but at its core the policy debate remained the same.
This has numerous, negative implications for the quality of Australia’s political
debate and policy formulation, as well as for asylum seekers and refugees themselves.
There is a nexus between populism, wedge politics and the increasing number of
asylum seekers coming to Australia. These three dimensions appear to be mutually
constitutive. As boatloads of asylum seekers increase, populist antipathy towards
asylum seekers expands, as well as resentment of the government. With populist sen-
timent flourishing, wedge politics comes into play. This left the Gillard government
politically weakened and lacking control over the political agenda in the case of the
People Swap.
The dominance of populism and shrewd wedge tactics have implications for the
quality of political debate in Australia. According to Wear, the ‘pragmatic business
of staying in power’debases political discourse, with politics portrayed as nothing
but ‘grubby business’(2008: 631). This was evident in relation to asylum seekers,
with both major parties guilty of hypocrisy in the People Swap case. Despite the cen-
trality of the Refugee Convention in parliamentary debates, it appeared to be nothing
but a political tool. Labor once treated the convention as a necessary condition, but
rejected the clause twice in Parliament. The Coalition only trumpeted the importance
of the Refugee Convention after Nauru became a signatory, an enthusiasm incompa-
tible with Abbott’s‘turn back the boats’policy. Indeed, it appears that the insidious
and pragmatic objective for both parties was electability, and in a populist climate this
11
This comment also relates to tensions between the executive and judiciary, a further dimension of the
‘culture of control’thesis.
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had consequences not only for the tenor of the debate, but also the quality of policies
pursued.
The prevalence of populism and wedge politics has consequences for asylum-
seeker policy too. First, it pushes governments to create ‘short-term and expedient
policy making’(Wear 2008: 631). Such pursuit of a ‘quick fix’was patently clear
inthePeopleSwap.Anadhoctrade,thePeopleSwapwasashort-sightedpolicy
that neglected the more critical policy question of addressing the source of people
movements. Second, with Labor matching the Coalition’s tough approach, Aus-
tralia has shifted to a trajectory where sending refugees offshore is the new
norm. Offshore processing in nations such as Nauru, PNG or East Timor, its
variant offshore ‘dumping’, and policies such as the People Swap or turning
boats back to Indonesia, raises the question of whether Australia is doing its
fair share to deal with what has become a global problem (Bailliet 2003;
Brennan 2007:13–16; Mares 2002:4).
The culture of control may continue to influence Australia’s response to asylum
seekers, which has implications for asylum policy. First, the pervasive culture of
control illustrates how control imperatives can trump economic and humanitarian con-
cerns. A false expectation has emerged that the government can, and should, control all
movements of people across Australia’s borders. It is here that links emerge between a
culture of control and populism in their influence on asylum policy. Asylum seekers
challenge the view that the government controls exactly who may enter the nation,
and by arriving by boat they do so in a visible way that can fuel public debate over
the issue. An unfortunate consequence of this approach seems to have been the
People Swap, a knee-jerk short-term policy response which, in the government’s
quest for control, pushed matters of refugee protection to the periphery.
Finally, in potentially influencing policies such as the People Swap, the explana-
tory factors of populism, wedge politics and a culture of control have stark conse-
quences for asylum seekers and refugees themselves. There were substantial
humanitarian benefits encompassed in the People Swap, notably that an additional
4000 refugees would be granted temporary protection. Yet what of those unlucky
800 would-be refugees sent to Malaysia to be an example? The Gillard government
maintained that its arrangement with Malaysia would ensure that basic human rights
standards were met, but the lack of any legal basis underpinning the deal detracted
from the government’s ability to make such guarantees. Reports highlighting the
human rights abuses of non-citizens in Malaysia exacerbated this concern. Was
this proposed trade-off worthwhile? For those asylum seekers attempting to reach
Australia by boat, almost certainly the answer was ‘no’.
The rationale for this harsh trade-off for some politicians seems to have been their
electoral prospects. On this point, it is intriguing that on 6 July 2013, the newly
appointed immigration minister, Tony Burke, admitted that the People Swap was
not workable in its current form, and should be ‘more comprehensive to cope with
the challenge of people smuggling’(cited in ABC 2013a). On 19 July, newly
reinstated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his self-proclaimed ‘hardline’
deterrence policy. Under this arrangement, all asylum seekers who attempt to
arrive in Australia by boat would be sent to PNG for processing and, if found to
be a refugee, remain in PNG for resettlement; an effective bypassing of Australia
(ABC 2013b). In the current political climate, it is hoped that the human rights of
asylum seekers are not forsaken, notably on the eve of an election campaign.
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