From “Queue Jumpers” to “Absolute Scum of the Earth”: Refugee and Organised Criminal Deviance in Australian Asylum Policy

The arrival of asylum seekers by boat in Australia is no longer represented as a threat by the Australian government because of characteristics of asylum seekers themselves, but is instead predominantly represented as threatening because of the involvement of transnational organised crime in the form of people smugglers. This progression, which is demonstrated by comparison of the approach of the Howard coalition government with that of the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, is best understood by reference to conventional understandings of organised crime and irregular migration, and critical accounts of both phenomena. Understood in this way, organised crime and people‐smuggling discourses serve to externalise the asylum seeker “problem” and maintain punitive policies, inhibiting the development of effective regional responses to the issue.     

The Politics of National Recognition: Honouring Australians in a Post‐Imperial World

The announcement in January 2015 that Prince Philip had been chosen to receive an Australian knighthood (an honour which itself had been controversially revived the previous year) sparked a fury of debate about honours, and about the continuance of a British connection in Australia's national life. Such debates were not new, echoing earlier arguments about honours as a national or imperial symbol. Through two related case studies — the Australian honours system and the Australian of the Year award — this article explores the politics of national recognition in 1970s and 1980s Australia. We consider both the politics involved in the creation and alteration of awards by which individual achievement and service are recognised by the nation, and the politics involved in imagining and recognising an Australian nation as expressed in those awards. We argue that these two institutions were more than a means to acknowledge hard work or sacrifice; they were also significant sites for contests over the nature of Australia's post‐imperial identity.     

The Country of Sexualised Children: Whiteness,Innocence, and the “Sexualisation of Childhood”

This article argues that the sexualisation of childhood discourses have a distinct history in Australia. To advance this argument, I will explore the similarities between these discourses and discourses surrounding the iconic Australian “lost child”. In all of these discourses, a white child (here a symbol of White Australia’s future and past) becomes lost in an unforgiving and dangerous environment. This child is assumed to be asexual, though with the likelihood that they will mature into reproductive heterosexuality. This latter point will be illuminated in the final section of the article, which will focus specifically on the 2016 criticisms of the Safe Schools Coalition Australia. These criticisms are the most recent examples of anti-sexualisation discourses in Australia.     

“This country is rotten”: Australian Nurses in India during the First World War and Their Encounters with Race and Nationhood

This article examines the writings of the nurses of the Australian Army Nursing Services, who served in hospitals in India between 1916 and 1919. Their writings show that they practised differences along three lines: colour, culture, and space. The article reveals the plurality of female engagements with empire, highlighting the inherent irony in the imperialist machinations of white women from the dominion nation of Australia. It also demonstrates how these nurses make a “grave” and basic mistake — as expounded by Ernest Renan in his 1882 Sorbonne lecture — by confusing race with nation. It ultimately argues that the Australian nurses in India during the First World War had been set as pawns by their own government in the greater game of colonial power, by analysing one instance of sexual control, a “scandal” which was censored by the Australian government, but which demonstrated how the latter used gender inequalities as an essential instrument for the perpetration of colonial racism and imperial authority.     

The Second AIF and the End of Empires: Soldiers' Attitudes Toward a “Free Asia”

Largely neglected within studies of Australian attitudes — and changing Australian attitudes — toward Asia throughout the twentieth century are the diverse views expressed by the single major group of Australians to encounter the region, namely the servicemen and women of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) who served the nation during the Pacific War 1941–1945. Within forums offered by soldier publications such as Salt, Australian troops were engaged in discussions about why the war had been fought (often with reference to the merits and ideals outlined within the Atlantic Charter, Declaration by United Nations and United Nations Charter). Central to such discussions were attitudes toward race, colonialism and Australia's role and future role in regional and world affairs. Importantly, well‐informed understandings of Asian affairs were crucial to discussions.     

“We are Human Beings,and have a Past”: The “Adjustment” of Migrants and the Australian Assimilation Policies of the 1950s

This article argues that the assimilation policy adopted by the Australian government during the 1950s was based on a denial of a migrant's past. The assumption that the migrant would readily merge into Australian cultural life ignored the ways in which past stories and memories shape the self. Through an analysis of the Good Neighbour Councils I explore the nature of assimilation that was based on a neglect of collective war memories of immigrant groups. This perspective is distinguished from that adopted by several theorists of the day such as W.D. Borrie and Jean Martin whose studies were less crude and one‐dimensional. The experiences of Greek migrants are examined to consider how Greek war stories could not often find expression or recognition in the assimilationist climate of the post‐war period.     

Neutralising Punitive Asylum Seeker Policies: An Analysis of Australian News Media During the 2013 Federal Election Campaign

ABSTRACT

For almost two decades, negative portrayals of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat have been dominant within political and media discourses. In particular, asylum seekers have been portrayed as a “dangerous other”—as an illegal group that the public ought to fear and from which they require protection—rather than as a vulnerable group who require protection themselves. This article examines some of the ways in which these discourses make possible public support for punitive policies relating to the treatment of asylum seekers (particularly boat arrivals)—policies that violate many of the human rights instruments to which Australia is a signatory. Specifically, this paper uses Sykes and Matza’s (1957) work on “Techniques of Neutralisation”, which considers the way in which those who knowingly commit illegal, immoral, or harmful acts neutralise their behaviour and disavow its harmful effects, to analyse these dynamics. In particular, it focuses on the political and media discourses regarding asylum seeking produced during the 2013 Australian federal election campaign. The paper argues that these theoretical tools can be effectively applied to this case study and provide some insight into the ongoing punitive treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.     

From “Endemically Pro‐Israel” to Unsympathetic: Australia's Middle East Policy, 1967–1972

The hardening of Australian Middle East policy toward Israel in the early 1970s is often attributed to the election of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister. Whitlam's December 1972 victory may well have opened a new, problematic chapter. But the evidence suggests that a deterioration in Australia‐Israel relations occurred gradually in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. This deterioration reflected changes in Australia's political leadership and change at the top of the Department of External Affairs (renamed Foreign Affairs in 1970). Individual decision‐makers such as Whitlam did play a significant role in determining Australian Middle East policy. As Prime Minister, Sir John Gorton was willing to put aside advice from External Affairs not to antagonise and risk disrupting trade relations with Arab states, and to offer heartfelt support for Israel. His successor Sir William McMahon vacillated under opposing influences of a department determined to secure Australia's trade interests on the one hand, and Australian Jewish leaders and Israel's envoys in Australia on the other. With the support of the Australian Jewish community, Israel sought to influence Australian political leaders — especially within the ALP — from turning away from Israel.     

Security as Socio‐Technical Practice: Predictive Policing and (Non‐)Automation

Predictive policing is among the most prevalent new technological tools for law enforcement. Understanding how the police produce knowledge about crime and society in technologically mediated ways is important vis‐a‐vis practices of social ordering. In this paper, I suggest to draw on literature from Science and Technology Studies (STS) in order to understand the impact of technology not as analytically isolated artefact, but as embedded in socio‐technical relations that define how it comes to matter in everyday practice. In order to demonstrate what it means to think about technology in socio‐technical terms, I engage the discrepancy between the technical capacities of predictive policing applications and the ways in which they actually become part of police work on a daily basis. Specifically, I investigate how claims about the automation of crime analysis in predictive policing are reconfigured through the interplay of social and technical elements in police work.     

John Howard's “Nation”: Multiculturalism,Citizenship, and Identity

This article identifies the specific concept of “nation” that informed John Howard's politics from his time as Liberal Party leader in the second half of the 1980s to the final years of his 1996–2007 prime ministership. It compares and contrasts the constitutive, procedural and multicultural models of nation to show Howard's continuing commitment to a constitutive understanding of the Australian nation. He endeavoured to give this understanding expression at the policy level by explicitly moving against the multicultural concept of nation that had informed Australian policy from the late 1970s. The Citizenship Test, introduced in his final year of office, is presented as the final move in this departure from multiculturalism.     

Re‐evaluating Australia's “Cooperative Security” in Cambodia

Australia's role in resolving the conflict in Cambodia has been described as a triumph of cooperative security that achieved a balance between principles and pragmatism. The pursuit of cooperative security is a familiar theme in discussions of Australian diplomacy during the 1990s, yet there has been little scholarly consideration of whether this accurately captures the nature of Australian foreign policy at the time. This article explains Australia's conflict resolution role in Cambodia using an alternative, neoclassical realist framework. Specifically I demonstrate that expectations of reciprocity meant that Australia, when negotiating for peace in Cambodia, preferred bilateral over multilateral diplomacy. Secondly, Australia actively sought to lead the Cambodian peace‐keeping operation to enhance its regional security credentials. Finally, building closer ties with Vietnam was an important, often overlooked policy outcome.     

The Asian Rejection?: International Refugee Law in Asia*

The majority of Asian states have not signed onto the major international refugee law instruments which promote refugee recognition and protection. Yet, second to Africa, the Asian region has had the highest number of refugees since the Second World War. Three explanations are usually offered to explain this puzzle —“good neighbourliness”, “economic costs” and “social disruption”. In this article I argue that each is flawed in important ways and then develop an alternative by explaining how limited Asian involvement in the drafting of international refugee law has led Asian states to reject Eurocentric refugee recognition practices.     

The “Thin Dividing Line”: Prime Ministers and the Problem of Australian Nationalism, 1972–1996

This paper is concerned with the way in which Australian prime ministers gave expression to an idea of “national community” in the post–1972 era. With the declining relevance of the British connection, the departure of “great and powerful” friends from the region, the imperative of engagement with Asia and the emerging concept of Australia as a “multicultural” society, one of the central challenges for these leaders has been whether or not they could offer an alternative myth of community which would preserve social cohesion in the new times. This raises an important historical question concerning Australian political culture at this time — what happened to the need for nationalism? By examining the speeches of Prime Ministers Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating, it can be seen that far from asserting an old–style, exclusive Australian nationalism, in most cases these leaders expressed great caution and hesitation towards the idea of nationalism itself.     

“I feel I am at the stage now of really learning something”: Esma Banner,Post‐Second World War Migration Worker and Photographer

Australian woman Esma Banner (1910–2001) was a keen amateur photographer who worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) between 1945 and 1951. While posted in Germany, Banner kept a diary, wrote over 100 letters to her family, kept official reports, took photographs and collected art and craft by Displaced Persons (DP). In particular, photography and family were important to her. She said in a letter home: “You are all always in my thoughts – every picture I take is for you”. This article primarily focuses on visual materials in Esma Banner's personal papers. Banner's collection substantially documents her professional relief work with UNRRA and the IRO, and through this, her interactions with other relief workers as well as displaced children and adults can be seen. Here Banner's photographs and albums are read alongside published materials, letters and diaries to reveal a range of political, personal and gendered understandings of post‐Second World War reconstruction work. The material also provides some insights into the experiences of forcibly displaced children and adults. Banner's photographs are used to reflect upon the place of visual and personal sources in writing histories of post‐Second World War reconstruction.     

Soviet Repatriation Efforts among “Displaced Persons” Resettled in Australia, 1950–53

In the early 1950s, the Soviet Union made great efforts to persuade its former citizens among the “displaced persons” (DPs) resettled in Australia after the war to repatriate. They sent two undercover military intelligence men to Canberra to identify DPs who might be interested in returning, offer them free passages, and organize the repatriation. The result was a paltry dozen repatriations, out of the estimated 50,000 eligible DPs resettled in Australia. This strange story — hitherto completely unknown and reconstructed on the basis of recently opened Soviet classified material in the State Archive of the Russian Federation and ASIO files in the National Archives of Australia — adds a new angle to our understanding of Soviet‐Australian (and, in general, Soviet‐Western) relations at the height of the Cold War.     

A Country Once Great? Asylum Seekers,Historical Imagination,and the Moral Privilege of Whiteness

ABSTRACT

The current public debate on asylum seekers arriving to Australia by boat is profoundly emotional and divisive. Its emotional nature must not only be considered in the present context but also understood from a historical perspective. This article argues that often the asylum seeker debate has been structured as an emotional dispute about the morality of the Australian nation; and that one of the main functions of such a dispute is to reinstate the moral privilege of whiteness. This has weakened the ability of human rights activists to advocate for the ending of current policies, and has instead reinforced an insular, exclusionary and rhetorical understanding of Australian history. On both sides of the debate, historical amnesia and the rhetorical celebration of the past have at times worked hand in hand with allegedly pragmatic approaches to the “boat people” crisis. Yet it is only in addressing the repressed and haunting memories of the past that Australians might find critical and creative antidotes to the merciless dictates of pragmatic politics.     

“In the Corridors of Power”: How the Animal Movement Changed Australian Politics, 1979–1991

Foreshadowed by the anti‐war cause, women's and gay liberation struggles, and the conservation movement, and inspired by Peter Singer's 1975 book Animal Liberation, a fresh wave of animal activism emerged in Australia in the mid‐seventies. In the struggle for animal rights, campaigners used a range of methods, but what characterised the eighties was their lobbying. They engaged politicians, built alliances, and participated in the state. By doing so, they changed Australian politics: they extended the political agenda; influenced public policy; and reshaped the state bureaucracy to include new avenues for addressing animal protection. At the same time, their outcomes were limited, sometimes founded on compromise and failure. The property status of animals was a fundamental constraint that produced differentiated and contradictory policy outcomes. The degree to which the animal movement succeeded in reducing animal suffering is a contentious matter that divides minimalist and maximalist accounts. Ultimately, however, animal advocates were instrumental in advancing the basic animal protection framework evident in Australia today.     

The Fraser Government's “Uranium Decision” and the Foundations of Australian Non‐Proliferation Policy: A Reappraisal*

The Fraser era represents a defining moment in Australia's approach to the issues of uranium exports and non‐proliferation policy. In contrast to some well‐established positions in the literature, this essay argues that the Fraser government's August 1977 decision to approve the export of uranium was framed not only by domestic political considerations stemming from the Ranger Environmental Inquiry but also by important international factors. In particular, I argue that the non‐proliferation initiatives of the Carter administration presented the Fraser government with an opportunity to portray the export of Australian uranium as means to strengthen the non‐proliferation regime and enhance Australia's influence.     

The Campaign for Japanese‐Australian Children to enter Australia, 1957–1968: A History of Post‐War Humanitarianism

Between 1957 and 1968, the Prime Minister Robert Menzies and several of his ministers, including Alexander Downer, the Minister for Immigration from 1958 to 1963, were inundated with hundreds of letters of protest demanding that action be taken to assist Japanese children fathered by Australian soldiers who had been stationed in Japan during the Allied occupation and beyond it between 1946 and 1956. The response from the Australian public forms the basis of this article to consider how attempts for the transnational movement of children in the postwar period point to understandings of humanitarianism at this time. The response to the predicament of the Japanese‐Australian children offers, I argue, an intriguing narrative of postwar humanitarianism that articulates the beginning of several historic shifts. The incident points to the growing challenge to the White Australia Policy, paradoxically on racialised and paternalistic grounds to bring white Australian children to Australia. The government shifted the discussion from one of immigration to foreign aid as a way of diffusing the public response and in doing so positioned itself in the new narrative about supporting rehabilitation and development. The media was crucial in evoking a response that depoliticized the issue of responsibility by reducing it to an emotional reaction.     

The Electoral Poetics of James Scullin's Campaign against Alfred Deakin, 1906: Anticipating “Fusion”

In the 1906 federal election James Scullin, then an unknown grocer, challenged the sitting Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin, for his seat of Ballaarat. This article examines this important event in Scullin's under‐researched life story to consider the “electoral poetics” of electioneering in the early federation. Scullin's challenge to Deakin prefigured the defining realignment of Australian politics to come, the “Fusion” of 1909, and is indicative of Labor's new self‐conceptualisation as a potential government with a mission to fundamentally restructure Australian democracy. This article explores Scullin's work as an expositor of this mission, and its significance for his political life.