SOC 103A: Bachelor of Applied Social Science

Running head: DEVELOPING SOCIAL POLICY
Developing Social Policy
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DEVELOPING SOCIAL POLICYIntroduction
Mandatory detention policy in Australia was introduced in 1992 with bipartisan support.
Under the sections of 189, 196 and 198 of the Migration Act, all the unlawful non-citizen
residents in Australia must be detained and kept in the immigration detention until they are
granted a visa lawfully or deported from the country if visa is not granted. This policy is applied
on everyone without a valid visa, which also includes asylum seekers, lawful residents who are
overstaying their visa, and those whose visa was not approved (Aph.gov.au, 2017). According to
some experts, this policy primarily focuses on deterring the illegal boat arrivals. This policy is an
administrative action to deal with the increasing pressure of the refugees and unlawful entrants to
the country and checking the potential identity, health, and security issues so that their own
communities remain unaffected (Refugeecouncil.org.au, 2016). This report will critically discuss
the policy process and implementation of the mandatory detention policy in Australia. It will also
discuss if there is any allowance for systematic evaluation of the policy. A special focus will be
put on the empowerment and participation during the process, equality, justice and fairness in the
policy.
Critical discussion on policy formulation and implementation
According to Beidas e al. (2012), the policy cycle process can be applied to illustrate the
process of mandatory detention policy formulation process. A policy cycle represents the
movement of the ideas and the resources, iteration of the policy making and a routine which does
not finishes with a particular decision, but carries on to implementation and evaluation (Althaus,
Bridgman & Davis, 2007).

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DEVELOPING SOCIAL POLICY
Figure 1: Australian Policy Cycle
(Source: Althaus, Bridgman & Davis, 2007).
As illustrated in the above image, the policy formulation for the mandatory detention
starts with problem identification, which is the increasing number of asylum seekers, illegal boat
arrivals and people overstaying visa, and with denied visa. The policy analysis is based on the
statistics of these people and on the instruments, such as, the Migration Act, Migration
Amendment Act 1992, Migration Reform Act 1992, Migration Amendment (Detention
Arrangements) Bill 2005, etc. (Aph.gov.au, 2017) In the next step, consultation with the
stakeholders happen, in which, the government of Australia and various social organizations put
forward their concerns about the impact on the society due to the illegal immigrations and also
the impact of detention. Next, all these stakeholders come together for coordination for the
benefit of the community as a whole. For this mandatory detention policy, the stakeholders have
specially considered the issue of the children, as they are the most vulnerable subject
(Humanrights.gov.au, 2017). After the decision on mandatory detention has been taken on the