“Don’t be sorry campaign”
The Australian Government
The department of immigration and citizenship
CONTEXT
The term ‘boat people’ entered Australia in the 1970’s with the arrival of boats seeking asylum after the Vietnam war when over half of the Vietnamese population we displaced, and fled to nearby Asian countries or across the oceans to Australia. Over the next 5 years there were a total of 2059 Vietnamese boats seeking asylum and an estimate rate of 300/annum every year.
There is of course a difference between a refugee, an asylum seeker and an internationally displaced person, although they are all still global concerns. These are:
“A refugee is an individual, generally from African or Asian countries, that are classified as ‘temporarily protected’ on behalf of the Australian government”
“An asylum seeker is an individual who seeks international protection and whose clams for a refugee status has not yet been determined”
“An internally displaced person is an individual or group who have been forced to leave their homes or places of habitual recondense, in particular as a result of, or in order to avoid the effect of armed conflict, situations in general violence, violations of human rights or natural or man-mad disasters and who have not crossed international boarders” (Found on the Australian parliament house website, the socially policy section, by Janet Phillips and Harriet Spinks)
The opposition of boat arrivals have increase steadily over the last 4 decades where as in the first couple of years, Australians sympathised for the ‘boat people’ but continual arrivals quickly became a matter of concern.
ISSUE
The issue this has caused for the Australian population is that there has been an increase in employability since the arrival of the first boat seeking asylum. Since the numbers of arriving boats grew, opposition grew with it as well as a concern for the lack of control of Australia’s boarders. It has became an issue that people were not sure who was a legitimate refugee or just an asylum seeker, with some claiming they were pirates, rich businessman, drug runners and communists.
When the Howard government released the act of mandatory immigration detention centres, it had been heavily criticized as poor treatment; however the numbers of arrivals began to drop significantly. Instead, he granted all illegally entered asylums a ‘temporary protection visa’ which entitles them to free medical and welfare services. When Kevin Rudd came into parliament, he issued a ‘permanent protection visa’ to all asylums which then pushed forward a flood of more ‘boat people’ entering the country illegally. From this the Australian citizens became outraged by the handouts given to the illegally entering boats to which some believed they didn’t deserve.
THE ISSUE STATED IN THIS IMAGE
The issue in this image is exactly the rush of illegally entering immigrants damaging this countries boarders and therefore politely asks all possible countries who some may plan on seeking asylum into Australia, to enter the right way. It is hence shown to the viewers through the use of Visual convention; symbolic written and technical.
ANALYSED
Symbolic
The boat:
Vessel for carrying people;
Vessel to a new life;
Dark shadows of people on boat – the faceless but never ending stream of boat people illegally entering Australia.
The cover on the boat – looks worn, so really only for appearances like the Captains in their appearance of care to secure the berth for the passengers.
The rocks:
The rocks are placed in the foreground to symbolically represent danger. In reality