We will decide: refugee and asylum policy during the Howard era before Tampa

Abstract

This essay critically examines the Howard Government’s responses to refugees and asylum seekers during its first and second terms (between 1996 and 2001). In doing so, it challenges common assumptions about the significance of the 2001 Tampa affair, which is often regarded as the catalyst for a new and more draconian era in Australia’s refugee history. By examining the way the Government reshaped the migration program, retreated from both multiculturalism and multilateralism, and responded to a new wave of asylum seekers in the context Hansonism, this essay shows that Howard’s message to the Tampa refugees, ‘we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’, was consistent with his government’s policies from the moment it took office.