It’s time to fundamentally rethink Australia’s approach to asylum seekers, free of narrow assumptions about what’s politically feasible.

How do Australian institutions and political leaders draw on history to tell us who we are? How do they make sense of Australia’s past as a country of immigration and a nation that has accommodated hundreds of thousands of refugees? In federal parliament, Teresa Gambaro recently said:

This report includes profiles of local projects, as well as a call for government action to address structural and systemic issues regarding housing availability and affordability.

This article tries to test the assumption that asylum seeker policy is guided by public opinion. It analyses events in November and December 1977 during the final stages of the federal election campaign.

Resettled refugees are vulnerable. They have high levels of mental health problems, but low uptake of mental health care. Evidence suggests that poor Mental Health Literacy (MHL) or poor knowledge and understanding of the nature and treatment of mental health problems is a major factor in low or inappropriate treatment-seeking among individuals with mental health...