Australia’s ongoing border wars

This article examines developments in Australian border policing policy since the election of a Labor government in November 2007. It argues that despite the formal cessation of the ‘Pacific Solution’, there are fundamental continuities in policy that ensure systemic human rights abuses by the Australian state against unauthorised refugees. In particular, attempts by the Labor government to forge a ‘regional solution’ have increased the risks of travel for unauthorised refugees, exacerbated abuses within Australian and regional detention facilities and diminished the long-term prospects of resettlement for this cohort. Inevitably, this has laid the basis for a revised version of the Pacific Solution.