Whose island home? : art and Australian refugee law

It is a truth too rarely acknowledged that there is no evidence to support the claim that refugees are a national security threat if they arrive by boat to seek asylum. Asylum seekers entering the Australian migration zone by boat are not an invading force, nor are they 'preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of a terrorist act'. Seeking asylum is a human right. In Australia, accounts of how refugees came to be falsely conflated with national security typically begin with the 2001 'Tampa Affair'. We argue that a longer timeframe reveals socio-cultural norms, founded in British colonialism and Australian coloniality, that offer a fuller explanation for the bipartisan support of indefinite offshore detention.