Opportunistic asylum: How Australia exploited the Iranian women’s football team

When it comes to asylum seekers, the Australian political machine has prided itself on using cruelty and a purposely obtuse understanding of international law.  Bolted sovereignty has been elevated over rights and humanitarianism, while political interests have abominated the dark, hungering hordes heading to the island continent on unseaworthy boats.  From the early 1990s, the UN Refugee Convention became increasingly clipped, its applicability scorned in domestic politics.  By the time the conservative government of John Howard assumed power in 1996, turning Australia into a vast village of suspicious citizens suffering from arrested development, the asylum seeker became electoral bait, hooked on fishing lines to lure in voters worried their comfortable lives would somehow be ruffled by the dark, brooding arrivals […]