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Mandatory detention: A statute mandates that everyone lacking proper visa status is confined to an immigration detention centre. The administration has a duty to follow; it is compulsory.

Unlawful non-citizen – A legal designation in Australia for anyone who does not hold a visa. It includes people arriving by boat who are asylum seekers.

Offshore processing – Asylum seekers are transferred to offshore detention facilities (for example, Nauru or Manus) away from Australia where their refugee claims will be processed.

Rule of law – The principle that everyone is subject to the law and should be treated equally by it.

State of exception – When the government pauses normal rules and rights in the name of security.

Bare life – When people are left with only food and shelter, but no freedom or rights.

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Just imagine being told that you are not allowed to leave a compound that is locked up, in a place you have never been.

It hard to even think about a time when you don't know the next time you will see your family or be in a home or a safe place.

Put yourself into that position. People in these centres are not here because of a crime, but because of a law...

This is the reality for those detained in the offshore detention facilities located in Nauru and Manus Island, just off Australia.

They have fled war, violence or persecution and they don’t get a trial. They don’t know when, or if, they will be released. It could be months to years.....

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Mandatory detention laws in Australia began with the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) that provided the government with the right to detain any non-citizen (a lawbreaker) who was unlawful to Australia (s. 189).

This was later changed in 1992 to ensure that detention was mandatory to every person who entered Australia without a valid visa including asylum seekers who had fled persecution.

The government further extended this strategy in 2001 with the introduction of offshore processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island in the 'Pacific Solution'. Those who came by boat were offloaded, and put outside the legal jurisdiction of Australia.

This change brought to the fore the relationship between sovereignty and exclusion: individuals who sought asylum were no longer considered as individuals with rights, but as the problems they are managing at a distance (Balint, 2019).

After it was briefly dismantled in 2008, the Pacific Solution returned in 2012–2013, and by this time detention policy had become embedded in law and with the support of the two major political parties.

Despite a change of government, detention especially mandatory detention, remains a pillar of asylum law in Australia. If anything, the two legislative amendments made by the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Act 2025 (Cth), demonstrate the power of the legislative and political inclination to augment, rather than dismantle, border measures.

Detention is not an accident, it is politically-created legal "space of exception" in which the regular protections of law are suspended.

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The fundamental part in the mandatory detention is the Section 189 of Migration Act 1958 (Cth). This clause states that an officer has to detain any individual in Australia without an authentic visa. Notably the Act does not impose a time limit on the maximum period of time of detention. It implies that asylum seekers may be locked up indefinitely and it is only possible to release them in case they are granted a visa or deported out of Australia (Migration Act 1958, s. 189).

According to the law, individuals could be denied the right to liberty without trial and without any end, and this marked the beginning of the liberty being suspended on the border control grounds (Hawkins, 2015).

This has been upheld by Australian courts time and time again, so the law legitimates what would be illegal in a democratic country (Hawkins, 2015). Offshore processing makes it worse. By sending people to Nauru and Manus Island Australia exercises its sovereignty while limiting the rights and visibility of detainees. UNHCR reports (2016) document allegations of abuse, self harm and neglect in these centres, the human cost of policies that are legal in theory but suspend rights in practice.

The government has reiterated its commitment to mandatory detention with recent legislative reform, such as the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Act 2025 (Cth). Instead of abolishing its systems of border control, the reform enhances the powers afforded to border control, further evidencing how "law" is productive of spaces of exclusion, and sustains authority to exercise such power.

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Post 5: Real Human Experience: Lives Inside Detention

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Post 5: Real Human Experience: Lives Inside Detention

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Offshore detention can be understood or felt as hopeless and unbearable. Former detainee, Ethiopian asylum seeker Betelhem Tibebu, was sent to Nauru in 2013, where she lived in a tent for 15 months.

"The impact that I got from Nauru offshore detention was mentally and physically, sickness, that I cannot recover," she said.

"I'm traumatised. Mentally, I'm dead."

The suffering generated by incarceration for someone who has not committed a crime, with no end in sight and no idea when or if they are to be released.

People who are detained in offshore centres are 20 times more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms than refugees who did not receive this time of punitive detention with no voice (University of New South Wales [UNSW], 2024).

Detention health care has too been criticised. Amnesty International (2019) note that people with severe conditions had long waiting times to receive adequate treatment and in some cases it was life threatening. Likewise, children and families tended to have poorer mental health. There are frequent cases of self-harm that directly relate to the trauma of confinement and being locked up in these centres (ABC News, 2024).

The lived experiences of people who have lived in these centres are so crucial to understanding the true nature of these places. Being stripped back to bare-life, where people are deprived of dignity, rights and recognition (Balint, 2019).

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Post 6: Then vs Now: Immigration in 1958

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Post 6: Then vs Now: Immigration in 1958

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In 1958, the Department of Immigration issued a newsletter named The Good Neighbour (Museums Victoria, 1958). It aimed at assisting new migrants to settle in Australia and to foster the concept of being 'good neighbours'.

This was a very different time than today. Migration was regarded as something that should be promoted and governmental materials were here to help people to adapt to Australian life, making it easier for them.

Until the harsh border control policies that would follow, such as mandatory detention (introduced in 1992) or offshore detention (2001).

When this history is compared to the now, we can see how immigration thoughts and law has evolved. The law now wants less and less immigration, Australia in everyday and in the law is much less accommodating of migrants than a few decades ago.

This history teaches us that the law of immigration is not static, but it changes with time as governments determine who is a part of the community and who is not.

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The detention policy in Australia demonstrates that the law may at times be employed to deprive rather than safeguard rights.

• Migration Act 1958 (Cth) made detention compulsory.

• Offshore processing established areas of exception in which rights are suspended.

• Real human stories of Nauru and Manus show how individuals are degraded to bare life.

• The recent changes (Home Affairs Legislation Amendment 2025) demonstrate that detention is not a temporary process anymore, it has become a part of the daily law.

Young people, you are the future voters, leaders and change agents. Knowing the way these laws operate makes us pose the question: Do we desire a society in which human beings are left in limbo?

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Strangers in Paradise: Australia’s offshore detainees

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We travel to remote Manus Island in Papua New Guinea to investigate Australia’s refugee detention programme.

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ABC News. (2024, July 19). Nauru detainee speaks out as new boat arrivals near 100. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-19/nauru-detainee-speaks-as-new-boat-arrivals-near-100/104114852

Al Jazeera. (2016, May 30). Nauru’s detention centre: “Many of us think of suicide”. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/5/30/naurus-detention-centre-many-of-us-think-of-suicide

Amnesty International Australia. (2019, August 2). Unsafe offshore detention facilities mean asylum seekers must be processed in Australia. https://www.amnesty.org.au/unsafe-offshore-detention-facilities-mean-asylum-seekers-must-be-processed-in-australia/

Balint, J. (2019). Prosecuting and partnering for social change: Law, social movements and Australia’s mandatory detention for refugees and asylum seekers. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, 79, 169–189. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720190000079010

Hawkins, A. (2015). Australian asylum law. Voices in Bioethics, 1. https://doi.org/10.7916/vib.v1i.5939

Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (2025 Measures No. 1) Act 2025 (Cth). (2025). https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2025A00042/latest

Migration Act 1958 (Cth) s 189. (1958). https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C1958A00062

Museums Victoria Collections. (1958, August). The Good Neighbour: Department of Immigration, No. 55 [Newsletter]. Museums Victoria. https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1252425

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Australia. (2016). Submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee: Serious allegations of abuse, self-harm and neglect of asylum seekers in relation to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre, and any like allegations in relation to the Manus Regional Processing Centre. https://www.unhcr.org/au/media/submission-senate-legal-and-constitutional-affairs-committee-serious-allegations-abuse-self

University of New South Wales. (2024, October 25). Risk of PTSD 20 times higher for people held in offshore detention: Study. UNSW Newsroom. https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/10/risk-ptsd-higher-offshore-detention