Sending Them Home

Refugees and the new politics of indifference

Robert Manne Sending Them Home

In Sending Them Home, Robert Manne tells the stories of individual asylum seekers and finds in their experience the seeds of a devastating critique. Balancing sorrow and pity with a controlled anger, Manne develops a sustained argument about what could, and should, be done for the nine thousand refugees who remain in limbo on temporary protection visas.

Sending Them Home also contains a groundbreaking account of conditions in the offshore processing camps on Nauru, whose operations have until now been shrouded in secrecy, and a damning forensic investigation of the recent efforts to return – frequently against their will – many of those who sought our protection and whose countries remain in turmoil.

Combining ethical reflection and acute political analysis, this essay initiates a new phase in the refugee debate.

Correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 13, Sending Them Home:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr David Corlett has worked with refugees and asylum seekers for about two decades as a case worker, researcher and advisor. He is the co-author of Quarterly Essay 13: Sending Them Home – Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference (with Robert Manne). His writing has also appeared in the UNSW Law Journal, the Monthly, the Age and the Canberra Times.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Manne is emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University. His recent books include On Borrowed Time, Making Trouble: Essays Against the New Complacency, and The Words that Made Australia (as co-editor). He has written three Quarterly Essays and is a regular contributor to the Monthly and the Guardian.

READ AN EXTRACT

In Sending Them Home, Robert Manne tells the stories of individual asylum seekers and finds in their experience the seeds of a devastating critique.

Read An Extract