The framing of public debate on indigenous rights and asylum seekers: The foreign, the feared, and the politics of belonging

On 17 September 2007, 143 nations voted in support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. However, Australia was one of four nations who did not initially endorse the declaration while subsequently adopting and endorsing the Declaration in April 2009. While this appeared to be a shift in policy, the continued support for the NT Intervention by the current Government seems in stark contrast with the rights of Indigenous peoples and is more reflective of the history of Indigenous peoples in colonial settler societies such as Australia. This paper explores the tensions and contradictions inherent within policies on Indigenous rights, as well as the securitization of contemporary debates on immigration and multiculturalism and the ways in which public debate on policy is framed by media and political discourse.