Advantages And Disadvantages Of Asylum Seekers

Australia is trapped between their own national interest and the moral obligation to human rights (Brennan 2016, p. 87). One of the biggest issues Australia faces in regard to national security, is the treatment of asylum seekers. Fear of asylum seekers and seeing them as a threat to the national security has endured since the Howard government, where ‘boat people’ are shown as a threat to “Australian security, sovereignty and national identity”. These claims have been embraced by the public and opposing labor leaders (McDonald 2011, p. 284-285). Asylum seekers who arrive by boat are called ‘queue jumpers’ who must not receive an advantage over those who are being processed in refugee camps (McKay 2013, p. 26). In response, Australia sends them to offshore

As an international community, states have a responsibility to protect those who have fled their own country, due to their human rights being exploited (Brennan 2016, p. 52). In this essay, I will discuss a brief history of the different governments policies made in regard to asylum seekers, I will then explain the issues of these policies in association with human rights violations, and finally I will demonstrate alternatives to balance national security concerns with a human rights agenda.

Australia is a country built on refugees and immigrants from all over the globe, which has formed this multicultural society today (Brennan 2016, p. 48). However, the idea that asylum seekers pose a threat is not a new phenomenon. Fear of invaders has been prominent over time, from the Germans in the first world war, to the Japanese during the second world war. Howards government leached onto these subconscious fears which are familiar to Australian ideologies (MacCallum 2010, p. 7). Since the first boat arrivals on Vietnamese refugees, tighter