"[A]ny softening of approach by the government in relation to unauthorised arrivals in this country, including their custody, will be an invitation to persons without genuine claims to pursue the same route."
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This warning against boat people echoes the politics of Tony Abbott's "stop the boats" campaigns of 2010 and 2013, and the so-called "Tampa" election of 2001, won by John Howard after his government tried to stop a boatload of refugees from reaching the Australian mainland.
Yet the words belonged to then Labor immigration minister Gerry Hand in April 1992, who implored his cabinet colleagues to introduce mandatory detention of asylum seekers who arrived by boat.
Newly released cabinet archives show that Mr Hand, from Labor's Left faction, also warned that, if the government failed to "maintain strict border controls and regulate who is allowed into the ... community, there is a grave potential for Australia to become an easy target for spontaneous mass movement".
The "crisis" of 1992 that led to mandatory detention was prompted by nine boats carrying 438 mostly Indochinese asylum seekers, who had reached Australia over the preceding 26 months. Most were from Cambodia.
By comparison, almost 38,000 boat people arrived in 2012 and 2013 alone.
A small group of boat people during the early 1990s had challenged a decision to deny them refugee status. Fearing how the courts might react, Mr Hand told cabinet that detention was necessary while asylum seekers' claims were checked.
"Once these people have entered the communities of the host country and have stayed there for several years, their claims to remain permanently are influenced by factors unrelated to the original claims for refugee status such as marriage and other compassionate or humanitarian grounds," his cabinet proposal reads.
His policy, eventually adopted, also allowed the government to detain any asylum seeker who had arrived in the previous two years. However, Mr Hand said he would limit detention to nine months and ensure that refugee claims were processed more quickly.
The released cabinet minute does not document how individual ministers reacted to the proposal, which was highly controversial among human rights and some legal groups.
However, it had the support of the departments of Attorney-General's, Foreign Affairs, Treasury and Finance.
The Attorney-General's Department's main concern was how to sell the policy to the public. It said it was "essential that at the time the legislation is introduced careful consideration be given to explaining the need and justification for this legislation".
The only hint of public service criticism appeared to come from prime minister Paul Keating's department.
It warned that laws "designed to deprive a person of a right to challenge the legality of his or her continued detention should be a measure of last resort and only used in circumstances that can be justified on clear public policy grounds".
"While the department is sympathetic to the minister's situation, it is clear that any government action motivated by a desire to facilitate the proper processes will be the subject of intense public scrutiny and criticism.
"Whatever the real reasons, there exists a public perception that the current situation of the boat people (some of whom have been in detention for over two years) has resulted from government inaction."
Public debate has moved on in the 25 years since. Mandatory detention of asylum seekers is now relatively uncontroversial in Australia, which sends all boat-borne refugees to other countries.
