‘I Feel Like a Beggar’: Asylum Seekers Living in the Australian Community Without the Right to Work

While numbers of asylum seekers received by Australia are small compared to global figures, a range of deterrence measures have been implemented in response to increasing numbers arriving by boat in recent years. One of the more recent measures was denying asylum seekers who arrived by boat after 13 August 2012 the right to work upon their release from immigration detention into the community. There are around 26,000 asylum seekers who have been subject to this policy with most still waiting for their initial interview for refugee status and none have had their refugee claims resolved. This paper examines the findings of a study that explored the implications of this policy for asylum seekers. It draws on 29 semi-structured interviews with asylum seekers and highlights the distress and fear that many are enduring, caused by the denial of the right to work and ongoing uncertainty about their refugee claims. The study’s findings provide support for the conclusions of earlier research that highlight the importance of the right to work and securing employment for the mental health of asylum seekers, as well as studies that found there were negative mental health consequences of forcing asylum seekers to live for long periods with uncertainty around their protection claims

Crimmigration and Refugees: Bridging Visas, Criminal Cancellations and ‘Living in the Community’ as Punishment and Deterrence

Australia’s status as the only state with a policy of mandatory indefinite detention of all unlawful non-citizens, including asylum seekers, who are within Australian territory is a fact that is both well-known and frequently cited. From its inception, mandatory immigration detention was touted as ‘the method of deterrence for those seeking asylum onshore’ and since then ‘mandatory detention has been at the forefront of a deterrence as control and control as deterrence discourse’2. The imagined subjects of deterrence are frequently asylum seekers presented as ‘bogus’ or as economic migrants, and the sites for control are Australia’s ‘immigration program’ and borders. While these dual factors have animated the implementation and continuation of the policy for over 25 years, the contemporary practice and enforcement of detention in Australia presents a much more complex picture

False Beliefs About Asylum Seekers to Australia: The Role of Confidence in Such Beliefs, Prejudice, and the Third Person Effect

There has been much controversy about the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia in recent years, with the Australian Government continuing to enforce a very hard-line stance on asylum seekers who arrive to Australia by boat. The present study examined attitudes towards asylum seekers using 164 Australian community members during June 2015 by way of questionnaire. Our primary research question involved how five variables predicted false beliefs about asylum seekers. Specifically, we measured prejudice, the third-person effect, and confidence in the answers given to false beliefs about asylum seekers. Regression results indicated that the main predictors of false beliefs were right-wing political orientation, prejudice, confidence in espousing false beliefs, and the third-person effect (politicians). Furthermore, most of our community participants accepted a large number of false beliefs as being true, with approximately two-thirds of our participants scoring above the midpoint. This reflects similar findings over the last decade or so. Our results indicate that, if one believes in bottom-up change, a more nuanced approach needs to be undertaken with community anti-prejudice interventions

“The situation is hopeless; we must take the next step”: Reflecting on social action by academics in asylum seeker policy debate

In this article, we reflect on the involvement of academics in the asylum seeker rights movement in Australia by documenting a collective action that was driven by the authors of this paper. This action was an open letter signed by 204 academics from a range of disciplines which voiced opposition to a number asylum seeker policies proposed by the two major political parties in mid-2012. Despite the noteworthy number of academic signatories to the letter, the question of whether academics have the responsibility to voice their concerns about social injustices remains a contentious issue. This is particularly so within mainstream psychology. In the first part of this paper, we draw on the foundations of community psychology to argue that academics that bear witness to the negative impact of asylum seeker policy have an ethical responsibility to engage in social actions outside of academia in response to what they witness. We also argue that this responsibility should be coupled with a reflection on the impacts of such social action. As such, in the second part of this paper, we critically reflect on the outcomes of the open letter action as part of bearing witness and consider why members of the asylum seeker rights movement keep going on in the face of very challenging political circumstances

Despair as a governing strategy: Australia and the offshore processing of asylum-seekers on Nauru

As part of its efforts to deter the arrival of asylum-seekers by boat to Australia in 2001, Prime Minister John Howard’s Coalition Government established the offshore processing of refugee claims. Known as the Pacific Solution, this policy included an agreement with Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island for asylum-seekers arriving to Australia by boat to be transported to either of these islands where they would wait in camps while their refugee claims were processed. The majority of the asylum-seekers subjected to offshore processing at this time were held on Nauru, and most had fled Afghanistan. Governmentality, as introduced by Michel Foucault and developed by later scholars, provides insight into the institutions, methods, techniques, strategies, and tactics used by governments to achieve its ends. This article explores Australian Government policy and the experience of Afghan asylum-seekers held on Nauru from 2001 using a governmentality approach. Given that people seeking asylum in Australia are once again being transported to Nauru and Papua New Guinea, this time initiated by a Labor Government and continued by the current Coalition Government, this article’s findings are pertinent for insight into under- standing current Australian policy

People seeking asylum in Australia: Access and support in higher education

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France, the Indo-China war and the European Defence Community

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3597.96682(no 19) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo