Immigration research in the politics of an anxious nation

Abstract

In this paper I examine the closure of the national government-funded Bureau of Immigration Research in 1996, soon after the election of a conservative political coalition to power in Australia. The Bureau's abolition is treated as a defining event in the profound shift that has been observable over the last five years in the forms of evidence produced and publicly aired about immigration. I seek both to form an explanation for the demise of this successful research institution and to provide examples of the research about immigration that was produced during the time of the Bureau, and after its closure. Using evidence primarily from a reading of contemporary media texts, government reports..