By Shaun Crowe Posted Fri Aug 16, 2013

Photo: Rather than demanding compassion, refugee activists should highlight the benefits asylum seekers offer the community. (AAP: Julian Smith)

If refugee advocates wish to change public opinion in the asylum seeker debate, they need to change their approach. Rather than demanding compassion, they must demonstrate how Australians will benefit from welcoming asylum seekers into the community, writes Shaun Crowe.

In a campaign largely defined by furious disagreement over mild difference, Wednesday night's 7.30 Report surely takes the cake. Debating immigration policy, both Tony Burke and Scott Morrison clashed over which party would most effectively achieve their shared aim: that is, in the words of Tony Abbott, how best to "stop the boats".

Regardless of the merit of "deterrence", the spectacle made one thing clear. Despite a decade of progressive advocacy, a decade of rallies and petitions, the political reality hasn't meaningfully changed. If anything, the opposite has occurred: deterrence is now deeply entrenched, offshore processing is bipartisan and now, the Coalition is determined to tighten the borders even further, with Scott Morrison advocating greater barriers to permanent resettlement.

With this in mind, it's now time to admit that, for all their good intentions, the refugee lobby and political left have failed. The major parties haven't moved, political rhetoric hasn't changed and, perhaps most significantly, a recent Lowy Institute poll found that most Australians still support offshore processing.

All in all, the hearts and minds have not been won.

But why is this the case? After a decade of intense advocacy, why has the pro-refugee movement been unable to transform elite and popular opinion?

The answer, I think, lies in a failure of political strategy.

Instead of convincing Australians that refugees represent a social good, that they can actually improve our communities, advocates have overwhelmingly argued that we need to show "compassion" to the world's needy. Couched in terms of "moral obligation", these arguments have ignored one of the key factors underpinning effective social change: that people are more likely to support something when they deem it to be in their community's interest, and not simply a burden that they're forced to accept.

Take Christine Milne's electoral pitch. The Greens leader has argued that Australians should support their refugee policy because they're the only party offering compassion on asylum seekers. Milne hasn't suggested that asylum seekers will enrich the lives of existing Australians, she has simply appealed to moral abstractions, like our "humanity".

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has a similar approach. A quick scan of the lobby group's recent Facebook posts uncovers a number of important messages, but two themes are most persistent: on one hand, the "illegality" of Labor's PNG policy and, on the other, the need for Australians to extend their "compassion" and "humanity" to displaced people. Again, these are two abstractions, however admirable, that are largely detached from Australians' quality of life.

Historically, however, successful social movements have approached transformation from a different direction. For instance, when Ben Chifley introduced changes to social welfare after World War II, it was not simply because of a moral obligation to the unemployed: it was also because it provided the "aggregate demand" which would underpin the economics of growth and full employment. Unlike the Greens and ASRC pitches, change would benefit the whole community, not just those in need of charity.

Successful modern social movements have tended to heed this lesson. Paid parental leave, which is now bipartisan policy, was not purely prosecuted with abstractions based on gender theory. Rather, advocates have argued that, by allowing parents to return to work after time with their child, Australia would maximise its participation rate and industrial output. Again, economic benefits would be diffuse, not simply concentrated in those few receiving payments.

Climate advocates are increasingly recognising this reality. As the climate scientist Ben McNeil observed in his book, The Clean Industrial Revolution:

"After my Canberra experience, I realised that compelling scientific, environmental or moral arguments aren't strong enough to invoke the change needed to solve this problem... without an economic awakening, the changes needed to cushion the blow will never be realized."

McNeil and other advocates see that, if meaningful emissions abatement is to be legislated, it must be framed in terms of economic and social opportunity, not just threat.

It's now time for the refugee movement to also learn this lesson; to convince Australians of the benefits that refugees can bring, rather than implicitly accept their burden. It's time to shift from moralism to positive advocacy.

To the ARSC and Greens, here's some free marketing advice. Get Australia's most beloved refugees (Ahn Do, Frank Lowy and Dr Karl Kruszelnicki etc) and place them on billboards around our major cities. Next to their faces, place the words: "I'm a refugee".

Below each person, a simple message. For Ahn Do, "refugees make Australia a funnier place"; for Frank Lowy, "refugees make Australia a wealthier place"; and for Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, "refugees make Australia a smarter place".

Next to the "compassion" refrain, these basic, positive messages have a much better chance of cutting through to the public. Refugee advocates must accept that, if they want society to support increased humanitarian intakes, they first have to convince citizens that it will be a good thing for their community.

Questioning someone's compassion isn't going to change their mind. Calling someone a racist isn't going to change their mind. But convincing them that refugees are in their interest? That seems like a good place to start.

Shaun Crowe is a PhD student in Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. He tweets at @shauncrowe. View his full profile here.

The failure of the refugee lobby - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)