Amy Nethery

Australia–Indonesia cooperation on asylum-seekers: a case of ‘incentivised policy transfer’

Australia and Indonesia have engaged in cooperation on asylum policy since the late 1990s, bilaterally on immigration detention and people-smuggling agreements, and multilaterally through the Bali Process. Seen from a global perspective, this form of cooperation is one of many such bilateral and multilateral agreements that stymie the ability of asylum-seekers to gain effective and durable protection. This article argues that policy transfer theory can explain how these agreements are achieved, their political implications, and their outcome for the refugee regime and the asylum-seekers reliant on the regime for protection. In the case study of Australia and Indonesia, the authors argue that the cooperation is best understood as a form of ‘incentivised policy transfer’, whereby Australia has provided substantial financial and diplomatic incentives to Indonesia to adopt policies consistent with Australias own. The implications for asylum-seekers in the Asia-Pacific region are substantial, and include an increase in the use of immigration detention in Indonesia and the introduction of border security measures that restrict the ability of asylum-seekers to reach territory where they may claim protection under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

‘Taking our Houses’: Perceptions of the Impact of Asylum Seekers, Refugees and New Migrants on Housing Assistance in Melbourne

The pressing issue of homelessness in Australia is largely caused by a shortage of affordable accommodation. Unexpected results from a study into the experiences of homeless families, however, revealed that many people held the perception that asylum seekers, refugees and migrants are given greater priority by welfare agencies for housing assistance. Analysis of the interview data is used to illustrate how public and political discourses circulating at the time of the interviews may have contributed to these views. The article also discusses the extent to which xenophobia in the Australian community has links with feelings of economic insecurity.

An early career academic network: what worked and what didn’t

This article documents the experiences of three early career academics trying to establish a network of early career academics (ECAs) in a middle-ranked university in Australia. The changing context of academia means that ECAs face considerable challenges in understanding and negotiating effective career paths. Some of the issues encountered include insecure employment arrangements; unclear and shifting expectations; heavy workloads and competing demands; and conflicting experiences around the collegiate culture of academia. As research and teaching institutions, universities must ensure the ongoing development of new academics. While there is a growing interest in exploring the issues confronted by new academics, much remains to be done to better understand, and improve, the pathways of academic development. To this end we reflect on our efforts to establish an ECA network that aimed to enhance professional development, facilitate an improved research culture and establish an informal peer support network. We did so through establishing an online presence for sharing information, hosting a series of professional development seminars and hosting a 2.5 day writing retreat. Our experiences suggest that, while efforts to enhance the capacity of ECAs are worthwhile, the very same pressures that our network was attempting to address were simultaneously creating barriers to ECA involvement in the network and its activities.

Truth-telling at the border: An audience appraisal of border security

Since its initial broadcast in October 2004, Border Security: Australias Front Line has enjoyed sustained high ratings on Australian television. This article examines the key theme of ‘truth-telling’ in Border Security. Drawing on interviews with audiences and the programs executive producer, the article argues that the way truth-telling shapes the storytelling in Border Security taps into contemporary social and political ideas about how and why Australian borders should be managed. As a diagnostic tool for identifying authenticity, truth-telling is the key condition, or ‘rule’, that newcomers must follow if they want to enter the country. But audiences also apply the rule of truth-telling to the program itself, and disengage when they feel like they are being manipulated. Truth-telling at the border – by people wanting to enter the country and by the program production itself – contributes to the continued popularity of the program with Australian audiences, and also explains when and why audiences disengage with the program.

Self-represented witnessing: the use of social media by asylum seekers in Australia’s offshore immigration detention centres:

The act of witnessing connects audiences with distant suffering. But what happens when bearing witness becomes severely restricted? External parties, including the mainstream news media, are constrained from accessing Australia’s offshore immigration detention centres. The effect is that people seeking asylum are hidden from the public and excluded from national debates. Some detainees have adopted social media as a platform to communicate their stories of flight, and their experiences of immigration detention, to a wider audience. This article examines the ways in which social media, and particularly Facebook, has facilitated what we call self-represented witnessing. We analyse two public Facebook pages to assess how detainees use such social media networks to document their experiences, and we observe the interaction between detainees, other social media users and mainstream media. Significantly, these social media networks enable detained asylum seekers to conduct an unmediated form of self-represented witnessing that exposes human rights abuses and documents justice claims.

Australia, ASEAN, and Forced Migration in Asia

The Asian region is host to the largest number of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people in the world, yet on the whole, the region is ill-equipped to respond effectively to this problem. One of the main difficulties is the absence of legal frameworks: most Asian states do not have specific refugee laws, and many continue to reject international refugee laws. The very act of crossing national boundaries means that forced migrants implicate at least two, and often many more, states in their plight, and so cooperation between states is needed to provide effective solutions. In the Asian region few bilateral or regional agreements on this issue exist. Consequently, forced migration has become a serious and protracted dilemma that impacts Southeast Asia politically, socially, and economically. For those people who have fled their homeland to seek asylum in the region, the journey can be a dangerous, expensive, and long process. ASEAN, as the overarching cooperative organization in Asia, is best placed to facilitate agreements in order to develop effective responses to forced migrants in the region. Historically ASEAN has not responded well to forced migration issues, but recent developments signal a greater awareness and the role it might play. This has coincided with a push by Australia to raise the profile of the issue in regional forums such as the Bali Process, and to create its own bilateral agreements and temporary solutions.