Anniversary Without Celebration: Asylum Seekers in Limbo

July 2017 marked the fourth anniversary of the Coalition Government’s pledge that none of the asylum-seekers who had arrived by boat would ever be resettled in Australia. 

The policy stopped the boats and arguably dented the business model of the people smugglers.

Yet four years on hundreds of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru seem to be trapped in a legal limbo.

Whatever the bona fides of their claims for asylum they will never see the Australian mainland, while attempts to find alternate placements continue to stall or fail.