Providing a 'Home for the Oppressed'? Australian responses to refugees from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s

The government and the Department of Immigration have repeatedly claimed that Australia's responses to refugees were generous in the past and continue to be generous in the present, and suggested that generosity can be measured numerically. Many refugee advocacy groups have repeatedly implied that Australia's responses to refugees in the past were generous, and that the current policies towards refugees and asylum seekers represent an aberration. They have also pointed out that refugees make good immigrants and that they have made a huge contribution to Australia.