Asylum by Boat Origins of Australia's Refugee Policy

In the late 1970s, 2000 Vietnamese arrived in Australia by boat, fleeing persecution. Their arrival presented a challenge to politicians, but the way the Fraser government handled it, and the resettlement of tens of thousands more Indochinese refugees, marked a turning point in Australia’s immigration history. Turn-backs and detention were proposed, and rejected. Claire Higgins’ important book recounts these extraordinary events. It is driven by the question of how we moved from a humanitarian approach to policies of mandatory detention − including on remote islands − and boat turn-backs.

Dr Claire Higgins is an historian and a senior research associate at the Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW. Claire is a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar, and previously completed doctoral study in History as a Clarendon Scholar at Merton College, the University of Oxford, writing on the development of Australian refugee policy.