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211. Factsheet: Public Opinion Polls on Muslims and Islam in Australia

Author:
Bridge Initiative Team
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Public polling data in Australia (2007–2020) reveals that most Australians have little to no reported close contact with Muslims, significant negative feeling towards Muslims, and concerns about immigration from Muslim countries. The polls also show that Muslims report high levels of discrimination. Despite this, there is strong support for immigration and multiculturalism in Australia. Public opinion polls typically receive wide-spread coverage in Australia’s mainstream national media, and have been cited in outlets such as ABC News, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Guardian, and the Australian.
Topic:
Islam, Public Opinion, Polls, and Muslims
Political Geography:
Australia

212. Factsheet: Scott Morrison

Author:
Bridge Initiative Team
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Scott Morrison is the current prime minister of Australia. He has called for tightening Australia’s immigration policies, for Christian refugees to be prioritized over Muslim refugees and portrayed asylum seekers who arrive by boat as a health and security risk to Australians. As other countries condemned then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, Morrison described it as implementing an election promise.
Topic:
Refugees, Domestic Politics, Islamophobia, Immigration Policy, and Scott Morrison
Political Geography:
Australia

213. Factsheet: Andrew Bolt

Author:
Andrew Bolt
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University
Abstract:
Andrew Bolt is a leading Australian journalist, columnist, commentator, and political blogger. Bolt writes for the Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, and the Advertiser. In his pieces, Bolt has promoted anti-immigrant, anti-Aboriginal, and anti-Muslim views. He has often linked Islam with terrorism and called on Muslim leaders to reform Islam in order to ease Islamophobia in the wider Australian community. Bolt has also vilified the Burqa, halal food licensing, the National Mosque Open Day, and Australia’s immigration policy.
Topic:
Media, Conservatism, Islamophobia, and Muslims
Political Geography:
Australia

214. Cruel, costly and ineffective: The failure of offshore processing in Australia

Author:
Madeline Gleeson and Natasha Yacoub
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney
Abstract:
‘Offshore processing’ is a method of border control which involves forcibly transferring asylum seekers to third States to have their claims processed.1 It is not a new phenomenon. 2 However, whereas offshore processing was previously viewed as ‘a significant exception to the normal practice’,3 Australia’s development of the policy over the past two decades has generated significant political interest elsewhere, such that other countries are looking to replicate it. 4 In light of this development, this policy brief critically assesses Australia’s experience of offshore processing against its stated policy objectives and other indicators of success or failure, including its cost, lawfulness and impact on the people subject to it. For most of the past two decades, offshore processing has been a hallmark of Australia’s approach to deterring people from seeking asylum by boat. First established by a conservative Coalition government in 2001, the policy operated until 2008 when it was dismantled by the new Labor government as an abject policy failure. Despite that assessment, Labor re-established offshore processing in 2012 following an increase in the number of people trying to reach Australia by boat, and a political impasse in Parliament as to how this should be addressed. In its second iteration, offshore processing saw asylum seekers transferred to Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG) for two years, under shifting policy settings, before Australia ceased new transfers in 2014 and reoriented its border protection policies to maritime interception. While offshore processing formally remains part of Australia’s asylum policy in 2021, Australia has spent considerable effort and money since 2014 trying unsuccessfully to extract itself from its arrangements in Nauru and PNG. This policy brief explores the objectives and practice of offshore processing since 2012, highlighting four distinct phases of the policy. It analyses the failure of offshore processing to achieve its border protection, humanitarian and foreign policy aims. In particular, it finds that the Australian model of offshore processing: • does not deter irregular maritime migration, ‘stop the boats’ or ‘break the business model’ of people smuggling networks; • does not ‘save lives at sea’ or achieve any other humanitarian objective; and • suffers from other policy failures, including enormous financial costs for Australian taxpayers, violations of fundamental rules of international law, numerous legal challenges and systemic cruelty.
Topic:
Border Control, Offshoring, Migration Policy, and Asylum Seekers
Political Geography:
Australia

215. April 2020 Issue

Author:
Andrew Zammit, Jason Warner, Thomas Renard, and Tim Lister
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
It was one of the most ambitious and innovative international terror plots ever seen. In July 2017, Australian police arrested two brothers in Sydney who had attempted to get a bomb on board an Etihad plane flying from Sydney to Abu Dhabi carrying around 400 passengers and were separately planning to carry out a poison gas attack inside Australia with an improvised chemical dispersion device. The two brothers had been guided by Islamic State operatives in Syria, who successfully arranged for a partially constructed bomb to be air-mailed from Turkey to Australia. In our feature article, Andrew Zammit draws on “newly available information resulting from the successful prosecution of the Sydney-based plotters” to provide the most comprehensive account to date on how the plot developed and what it reveals about the evolution of the international terror threat posed by the Islamic State. Donald Yamamoto, the United States Ambassador to Somalia, is featured in our ongoing “A View from the CT Foxhole” series. The interview was conducted by Jason Warner in front of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Attacks in London in November 2019 and February 2020 by two convicted terrorists released from prison has created a surge of concern about terrorist recidivism. But Thomas Renard points out that academic research undertaken thus far suggests terrorists are unlikely to relapse into violent extremism. His review of the judiciary files of 557 jihadi terrorist convicts in Belgium, since 1990, finds that less than five percent reengaged in terrorist activities. Drawing on nearly a dozen reporting trips to Ukraine between 2014 and 2019, Tim Lister examines the nexus between far-right extremists in Ukraine and the United States. He writes: “In recent years, some Americans and Europeans drawn to various brands of far-right nationalism have looked to Ukraine as their field of dreams: a country with a well-established, trained, and equipped far-right militia … that has been actively engaged in the conflict against Russian-backed separatists.” He notes that in some instances, “U.S.-based individuals have spoken or written about how the training available in Ukraine might assist them and others in their paramilitary-style activities at home.”
Topic:
Diplomacy, Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, and Far Right
Political Geography:
Ukraine, Australia, Somalia, and United States of America

216. Emerging from COVID: Policy Responses to the Pandemic

Author:
Ben Bland, Alexandre Dayant, John Edwards, Stephen Grenville, Natasha Kassam, Herve Lemahieu, Alyssa Leng, Richard McGregor, Shane McLeod, Alex Oliver, Jonathan Pryke, Roland Rajah, Sam Roggeveen, and Sam Scott
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The fight against COVID-19 has been the greatest challenge the world has faced since the middle of last century. As countries have fought to control the disease, they have closed borders, quarantined their citizens, and shut down economies almost entirely. The ramifications will reverberate for years, if not decades, to come. In April 2020, the Lowy Institute published a digital feature in which twelve Institute experts examined the ways in which the COVID crisis would affect Australia, the region and the world. In this new feature, Lowy Institute experts provide policy recommendations for Australia to address issues that are critical to our nation’s — and the world’s — successful emergence from the pandemic. Countries have turned inwards in an attempt to fend off the threat of an infection that is oblivious to borders. Some have seen globalisation as the cause of the crisis, and have focused on solving problems without recourse to the international institutions of global security and prosperity, including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the G20. Yet global problems require international solutions. As the world emerges from the crisis, cooperation between nations will be more important than ever. Nation states cannot revive their economies purely through national solutions. They cannot address global threats, including the possibility of further pandemics, alone. Australia’s achievements in managing the COVID crisis have been exemplary. It has handled the health and economic emergency with great competence. But this is just the beginning of our crisis recovery. The challenges in our region, and the global problems that existed before COVID, have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Australia has already done much to address the domestic economic and health issues from the COVID crisis. But to shape a prosperous and secure future, it will also need to work in cooperation with other nations, large and small, allies and partners, on a much broader array of international issues ranging from the economic disruption across the region, pressure from China on trade, and development challenges in the Pacific, to increasingly competitive relations between the United States and China, the weakening of the World Health Organization, and the declining utility of the G20.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Economics, Health, World Health Organization, G20, Geopolitics, COVID-19, and International Order
Political Geography:
China, Indonesia, Australia, and United States of America

217. Keeping Indonesia's economy afloat through the COVID-19 pandemic

Author:
Roland Rajah and Stephen Grenville
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The principal economic problem facing Indonesia amid COVID-19 is financing the budget deficit needed to respond to a once-in-a-lifetime shock. In a world of self-help, Indonesia has been right to turn to Bank Indonesia, which could establish a clear policy of yield curve stabilisation as a basis for providing a readily scalable amount of deficit financing. Key bilateral partners, such as Australia, could complement this by providing a large standby loan facility to help reduce some of the inherent risks of Indonesia relying on its central bank.
Topic:
Economics, Budget, Banks, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Indonesia, Australia, and Southeast Asia

218. The Costs of Covid: Australia’s Economic Prospects in a Wounded World

Author:
John Edwards
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
Despite Victoria’s second wave of infection, Australia’s economic recovery from the coronavirus is underway. The bitter aftermath includes high and rising unemployment, vastly increased government debt, and a markedly less congenial global economy. Though formidable, the fiscal challenge is well within Australia’s means, especially if the Reserve Bank remains willing to acquire and hold Australian government debt. It may need to do so anyway to suppress an unwelcome appreciation of the Australian dollar in a world where major central banks are committed to low long term interest rates. Australia’s increasing integration into the East Asia economic community offsets the drag from the major advanced economies, but the US–China quarrel and the dislocation of global trading and investment relationships it threatens heightens the tension between Australia’s economic and security choices.
Topic:
Debt, Economy, Fiscal Policy, Unemployment, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Australia, North America, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

219. The Australia–India Strategic Partnership: Accelerating Security Cooperation in the Indo–Pacific

Author:
Dhruva Jaishankar
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
India and Australia have successfully managed to overcome prior inhibitions about security cooperation. Since 2000, the two countries have significantly improved their strategic coordination, military interoperability, and maritime cooperation, motivated by China’s rise and behaviour, faltering regional security institutions, and uncertainty about the United States’ role. Today, India–Australia security relations comprise regular military exercises, professional exchanges, operational coordination, and nascent defence technology cooperation. But the two countries’ different capabilities, priorities, and strategic circumstances will have to be overcome if relations are to deepen. Future priorities should include institutionalising bilateral and multilateral coordination mechanisms, improving military interoperability, deepening defence technology collaboration, and broadening relations to give ballast to the security relationship.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Cooperation, and Partnerships
Political Geography:
China, India, Australia, Asia-Pacific, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

220. Economic coercion: Boycotts and sanctions-preferred weapons of war

Author:
David Uren
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This report argues that the growing use of economic coercion by both China and the United States is an emerging risk for business and undermines the world trading system. Australian businesses that have in good faith taken up the opportunities offered by the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2015, now find themselves facing the potential loss of market access as the Chinese administration retaliates over Australian government policies on a coronavirus inquiry and the next generation internet network. Australian businesses are not the targets of US sanctions, but US extra-territorial reach means they are at risk of serious collateral damage if they even inadvertently transact with any individual or organisation that is. The report traces the growing use of trade as an economic weapon, particularly over the last three years as the global trade environment has become increasingly fractious amid rising protectionism. The World Trade Organisation has successfully been used in the past to push back against economic coercion and the report argues the Australian government should be ready to use the disputes mechanism of the World Trade Organisation to tackle Chinese trade barriers. Multilateral forums, including APEC, the G20, the OECD and the WTO should recognise the growing threat which economic coercion represents to the freedom of commerce.
Topic:
Sanctions, Economy, Trade Wars, Free Trade, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Australia, and United States of America