Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/952

Download PDF (Published version) (Adobe Acrobat PDF, -1 bytes)

Title

Providing a 'home for the oppressed'? Historical perspectives on Australian responses to refugees

Author(s)

Neumann, Klaus

Abstract

The current Australian Government and many refugee advocates claim that Australia’s response to refugees was traditionally generous. The paper examines this claim by analysing five cases: the Government’s response to German sailors jumping ship in the late 1930s; the admission of displaced persons in the late 1940s; the recruitment of migrants in Trieste in the mid-1950s; the so-called Portuguese deserters case in 1961-62; and the Australian response to West Papuans seeking asylum in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea in the 1960s. The paper suggests that it is useful to juxtapose past and present Australian responses to refugees and asylum seekers. It argues that the humanitarian argument (rather than utilitarian reasoning) ought to be the key argument in the debate about Australia’s response to refugees. But since that argument is no longer endorsed by the Government, appeals to the citizens’ personal sense of responsibility have become more effective than appeals to the policy makers’ or Australia’s collective conscience.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Institute for Social Research

Source

Australian Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 9, no. 2 (2003), pp. 1-26

Publication year

2003

FOR Code(s)

1801 Law

Keyword(s)

20th century history;  Australia;  Government policy;  Human rights;  Refugees

Publisher

Lexis Nexis Butterworths

ISSN

1323-238X

Publisher URL

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AJHR/2003/14.html

Copyright

Copyright © 2003 LexisNexis and Klaus Neumann. Published version of the paper reproduced here with the kind permission of the publisher.

Full text

Peer reviewed