Australia has spent 25 years ‘stopping the boats’, but that’s not the same as controlling migration

Australia has spent a quarter of a century selling the world a simple idea: crack down on boats at the border, and people will believe you have migration under control. As Australian politicians and advisers have promoted this model abroad, other governments have bought in. The United Kingdom borrowed Australia’s “stop the boats” slogan and tried to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. European governments are pursuing offshore processing, turnbacks and “return hubs”. The model began with the Tampa…