Robert Manne | Integrity 20’16
Seeking asylum – Part 1
Integrity 20’16 |
Length 0:22:05
Filmed 25 Oct 2016
Venue Conservatorium Theatre
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
South Bank, Brisbane
Length 0:22:05
Filmed 25 Oct 2016
Venue Conservatorium Theatre
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
South Bank, Brisbane
How can Australia’s uniquely harsh asylum seeker policies be explained?
“Thirty years ago if you had been told that Australia would create the least asylum seeker friendly institutional arrangements in the world you would not have been believed. Yet since that time we have introduced a system of indefinite mandatory detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat and have accepted the idea that certain categories of refugees and asylum seekers can be imprisoned indefinitely; that those who are intercepted by our navy should be forcibly returned to the point of departure; that those who haven’t been able to be forcibly returned should be imprisoned on remote Pacific Islands; and that those marooned on these island camps should never be allowed to settle in Australia even after several years. How then has it come to pass?”
– Robert Manne
“Thirty years ago if you had been told that Australia would create the least asylum seeker friendly institutional arrangements in the world you would not have been believed. Yet since that time we have introduced a system of indefinite mandatory detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat and have accepted the idea that certain categories of refugees and asylum seekers can be imprisoned indefinitely; that those who are intercepted by our navy should be forcibly returned to the point of departure; that those who haven’t been able to be forcibly returned should be imprisoned on remote Pacific Islands; and that those marooned on these island camps should never be allowed to settle in Australia even after several years. How then has it come to pass?”
– Robert Manne
Robert Manne is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and at Oxford University. Manne wrote regular columns on public affairs between 1987 and 2005 for the Melbourne Herald, The Age, The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald and has been a commentator on the ABC for many years. He is a regular writer for I magazine.
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