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Refuge Australia: Australia's Humanitarian Record.

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Refuge Australia: Australia's Humanitarian Record Klaus Neumann University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004, 128 pp.

It is rare these to read the words "Australia" and humanitarian in the same sentence. Outside of government documents (where Australia's refugee program is by title and definition "humanitarian"), on the rare occasion when they are read together, the following quote is typical: "Bit by bit, Australia is detaching itself from or is increasingly willing to reject elements of human rights and humanitarian law that it no longer considers useful" (1) Klaus Neumann's new book addresses the current detachment of Australia from humanitarianism while questioning whether there was any time when this was not the case. In an account that is as intriguing as it is unsettling, he shows that the current detachment of Australian refugee policy from humanitarianism has a wholly ambiguous past.

Although it may seem surprising, in the context of the current bifurcated debate over Australian refugee policy, the demonstration of such ambiguity is a valuable contribution. As Neumann acknowledges, the purported humanitarianism of Australia's past has been exaggerated by both proponents and opponents of the current policies. (2) Neumann shows that the current policy is neither the inevitable extension of a longer historical indifference nor a complete departure from Australia's earlier (relatively) generous policies in the middle years of the last century. Neumann explicitly avoids the Manichean fallacy in his account of Australia's policies towards and treatment of refugees from 1930 to the early 1970. In Neumann's view Australia's past policies towards refugees were neither born of completely pure motives nor did they entail only self-serving consequences. Instead, Australia's "humanitarian" past was born of self-interest as much as altruism and was influenced by both the immigration needs of the country and competing forces within its immigration bureaucracy.

Divided into seven historical periods, the book canvasses the treatment of refugees in Australia from the early 1930's to the early 1970's. Cutting across these historical periods are three overarching myths about Australia's past disputed by Neumann: (i) that Australia has always been generous towards refugees; (ii) that onshore asylum seekers are a relatively new phenomenon for Australia; and, (iii) that Australia has always followed international law and supported international organizations concerning refugees. The corollary of these disputed myths is that the current policies of the Howard government are a unique development in response to new developments. Not surprisingly, it with this last proposition which Neumann takes greatest issue.

The book is part of the "Briefings" series of the University of New South Wales Press. As is appropriate given the importance of refugee policies in current Australian popular discourse, a growing number of the "Briefings" books address refugee issues, including Australia's refugee resettlement practices (3), its offshore refugee status determination process known as the "Pacific...

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