What next for Australia's refugee policy?

After the federal government prevented the merchant vessel Tampa from landing rescued asylum seekers at Christmas Island in August last year, the rules of the refugee game in Australia were completely recast. As critics of the government continue to grapple with the immediate toll in human misery generated by the pre-existing policy of mandatory detention, it is easy to miss the bigger picture and fail to recognise the astounding breadth of what was done in the wake of the Tampa. With Labor’s support, the government passed a raft of legislation that fundamentally restricts the rights of asylum seekers, and dramatically expands the rights of those officials who intercept and deter them. The government even tinkered with our national sovereignty---the very thing it was supposedly protecting---by re-defining the concept of border, so that an asylum seeker who lands at the Australian territory of Christmas Island is no longer considered to be inside Australia for the purposes of the Migration Act.