Regulating Refugee Protection Through Social Welfare

This book analyses the use and abuse of social welfare as a means of border control for asylum seekers and refugees in Australia.

Offering an unparalleled critique of the regulation and deterrence of protection seekers via the denial or depletion of social welfare supports, the book includes contributions from legal scholars, social scientists, behavioural scientists, and philosophers, in tandem with the critical insights and knowledge supplied by refugees. It is organised in three parts, each framed by a commentary that serves as an introduction, as well as offering pertinent comparative perspectives from Europe. Part One comprises three chapters: a rights-based analysis of Australia’s ‘hostile environment’ for protection seekers; a searing critique of welfare policing of asylum seekers as ‘necropolitics’; and a unique philosophical perspective that grounds scrutiny of Australia’s policing of asylum seekers. Part Two contains five chapters that uncover and explore the lived experiences and adverse impacts of different social welfare restrictions for refugee protection seekers. Finally, the chapters in Part Three offer distinct views on human rights advocacy movements and methods, and the scope for resistance and change to the status quo.

This book will appeal to an international, as well as an Australian, readership with interests in the areas of human rights, immigration and refugee law, social welfare law/policy, social work, and public health.

Author Biography

Peter Billings is a Professor in the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland, Australia. He teaches Administrative Law and, Immigration and Refugee Law, and has published widely on public law, refugee law, human rights and ‘crimmigration’. He is the editor of Crimmigration in Australia: Law, Politics and Society (2019).