Australia's Current Procedure for Processing Asylum Seekers

After Tampa, the Coalition government, with support from the opposition, implemented the so-called ‘Pacific Solution’. Under this policy, asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat were to be detained in Nauru and Papua New Guinea while their claims were processed. The Rudd government briefly dismantled the system in 2008, but it was reintroduced by the Gillard government in 2012.

In his response to Ditchburn’s cartoon, Behrouz Boochani considers how the cartoonist uses imagery to tell a story:

Australia’s policy towards refugees … has been based on a colonialist mentality and the history of colonialism in Papua New Guinea. It has been using Manus Island and Nauru as a cage and land of exile. This policy shows the perspective of Australia towards Pacific nations. I feel they look at those nations as a rubbish bins. In this context, they look at refugees as rubbish and on those islands as a place to hide this rubbish. It is the true mentality of politicians and of the people who support this ‘exile’ policy. I think INKCINCT’s work pictures this attitude very well. It is sad, harsh and inhuman, but it is reality. Using a map to show this colonialist mentality probably is the cartoonist’s strongest tool.