Cruel, costly and ineffective: the failure of offshore processing in Australia

UNSW Kaldor Centre

Australia’s multi-billion-dollar offshore processing system has demonstrably failed to stop boats, save lives or break the business model of people smugglers, according to a new policy brief from UNSW’s Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. Released at a pivotal moment when the policy is drawing political interest elsewhere as an ‘Australian model’, ‘Cruel, costly and ineffective: the failure of offshore processing in Australia’ marks nine years since Australia resumed its bipartisan policy of intercepting asylum seekers at sea and forcibly transferring them to the Pacific nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. For the first time, Kaldor Centre researchers Madeline Gleeson and Natasha Yacoub break down the common perception of offshore processing as a single policy, explaining how instead it has unfolded in four distinct phases since August 2012. Critically, they note that Australia has been caught up in the fourth and final phase – in which the government stopped transferring people offshore and has been trying to extricate itself from the arrangements – for more than seven years now. Read the policy brief: https://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/files/Policy_Brief_11_Offshore_Processing.pdf