Communication (Journalism) Honours Thesis at Deakin University, Australia Faculty of Arts and Education June

The Daily Telegraph
a 
‘Hellhole Solution’ (‘Refugees ignoring the threat of hellhole’, July 24, 
2013). During this time, the number of Iranian refugees increased. In 2012-13, Australia 
received 4,382 asylum claims from Iranians who had arrived by boat (Asylum Insight, Facts & 
Analysis, 
‘Iran’, last updated October 2017) and Behrouz Boochani was one of them. They 
were all transferred immediately to Nauru and Manus Island (Boochani 2018). During this 
period, journalists were forbidden to go inside the camps to report on what was happening. 
‘Foreign journalists have been banned from visiting Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island until 
further notice
’ ( Hall B 2012, Media barred from Manus Island, The Sunday Morning Herald 
August 28). 
For more than five years, Nauru and Papua New Guinea have refused most media requests for 
a visa in order for people 
to report on Australia’s immigration detention system. When 
questioned, the Australian government said that it has no involvement in these decisions 
(Davidson H 2018, Australia jointly responsible for Nauru's draconian media policy, The 
Guardian, 4 Oct).

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Nevertheless, human rights and social activists in Australia do not remain silent, and they 
protest in different ways including street demonstrations (Specia M, 2018 The New York 
Times, 
‘Australians Protest Five Years of Offshore Detention Policies’, July 21), massive 
social media campaigns (such as #ARoofOverMyHead, #KidsOffNauru,#LetThemStay and 
#5YearsTooMany), as well as publishing articles in social media, the mainstream press, and 
academia.
Eventually, the Australian government was forced to shut down both camps in Nauru and 
Manus Island under domestic and international pressure and finally with a judicial order of a 
decision by the PNG Supreme Court in November 2017. However, this was not the end of the 
story. Almost about 700 refugees inside the camps refused to leave without a clear plan for 
their visas. 
(Davidson H, 2017, The Guardian, ‘Manus Island: dark chapter of Austrlian 
immigration poised to close
’, October 30)
 
According to the agreement between Australia and PNG, refugees would be moved to three 
other transit centres on the island without any progress in their visa status. Seven hundred forty-
two refugees refused the order and, although all camp services were discontinued, they still 
stayed inside the camp for 23 days (SBS News, 2017, A 
‘history of Manus Island and what's 
next for refugees
’, October 31). Behrouz Boochani was one of them. These refugees believed 
that leaving the camp left them unsafe because local people would harass them as had happened 
many times before (for example The Guardian 
2017, ‘Manus Island refugees seriously injured 
in machete attack
’”, 31 Jul; The Guardian, 2018, ‘Iranian refugee on Manus Island violently 
assaulte
’”, October 21).
To sum up, after World War II, Australia was generally a safe haven for white European asylum 
seekers. However, after the arrival of Vietnamese asylum seekers in the 1970s, and then the 
rise of asylum seekers from the Middle East in the 1990s, Australian governments eventually 
turned the asylum seekers issue into a political, economic, and cultural debate. It was in the 
2000s when the Australian government introduced offshore detention programs to deter asylum 
seekers and it was 2013 when the Papua New Guinea Solution (the PNG Solution) was 
introduced. Under the PNG Solution, boat asylum seekers would be kept on Manus Island and 
Nauru to proceed with their refugee cases. Since then, hundreds of asylum seekers have been 
waiting on the islands for the Australian Government's decision about their re-location. During 
this period, massive protests by human rights activists and organisations have taken place 
against Australia's anti-refugee policies, but few significant changes have happened so far. 

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