Girt By Sea: Australia, Refugees and the Politics of Fear: Quarterly Essay 5

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In the first Quarterly Essay of 2002 Mungo MacCallum provides a devastating account of the Howard government's treatment of the refugees as well as delineating the factors in Australian history which have worked towards prejudice and those which have worked against it; ranging from Calwell's postwar immigration policy to the recent revelations  of beat-ups and distortions in the 2001 election campaign. This is a powerful account of how the government played on what was ultimately the race issue. In an essay which is, by terms, witty, dry and bitingly understated, Mungo MacCallum asks what epithets are appropriate for a prime minister who has brought us to this pass. He also raises the question of whether Australia's contemporary treatment of refugees has anything in common with the sane and decent policies that have characterised the better moments in our history.

'... it will take a long time to recover from the campaign of hate and fear which was deemed to be necessary to return the Howard government in the first year of the new millennium.' —Mungo Maccallum, Girt By Sea

'... this most cold-eyed of one time Canberra chroniclers brings to this story all his wit and dryness and power of mind. It's a sad tale...though it is everywhere enlivened by [Mungo] MacCallum's... tendency to suggest that spades really are bloody shovels at the end of the day.' —Peter Craven, Introduction