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In the lead up to recent federal elections held late in 2001 — during a campaign dominated by the events of September 11 — the Australian public sphere became embroiled in bitter national debate. News of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre had only just been preceded by the Australian government’s own controversial handling of what became known as ‘the Tampa affair’. A domestic and international drama ensued from the government’s decision to bar entry to Australian waters of a Norwegian vessel that had carried out the maritime rescue of a distressed boatload of asylum-seeking Afghanis and Iraqis. Having thus reasserted Australia’s territorial sovereignty, incumbent Prime Minister John Howard declared, in the dying hours of a campaign that would result in his government’s return to power: ‘We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come.’ Deploying to striking effect the personal pronouns of a collective national imaginary, John Howard’s statement encapsulated the popular — indeed populist — appeal of his government’s tough stance on the protection of Australia’s coastline against the incursions of uninvited others. Howard’s statement promised to allay persistent, recently heightened Australian fears of invasion — an invasion surreptitiously brought about by the uncontrolled immigration of racially foreign others. His words offered to many Australian voters, especially to those resentful of recent trends in multiculturalism and globalisation, the vision or fantasy of a restored national wholeness and the strengthening of explicit white control over the nation’s borders.
Approximate Word count = 870
Approximate Pages = 3.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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