This paper outlines developments in national policies relating to asylum seekers between 2008 and 2011, thereby updating a paper published by the NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service in 2008.

Multiculturalism has been a contested policy and concept since its introduction in Australia in the 1970s. While maintaining some core principles, in the three decades since its introduction, federal multicultural policy statements have evolved in response to changing government priorities and responses to the challenges facing Australian society. While Australian multicultural policy has its roots...