What are Overseas Public Information Campaigns, and how does Australia use them?
International advertising campaigns are nothing new for Australia – we rose to notoriety with our infamous “C U in the NT” tourism campaign. But did you know that we also run campaigns to stop people from coming to Australia?
What are Overseas Public Information Campaigns?
“Overseas Public Information Campaigns [OPICs], specifically in the context of migration management, asylum seeking, and refugees, are transnational marketing campaigns that disseminate a variety of advertisements in source and transit countries,” says Dr Josh Watkins, lecturer of global studies at the National University of Singapore. “And these advertisements have a very clear message, and purpose, which is to try to deter asylum seeking irregular migration.”
These OPICs are essentially advertising campaigns commissioned by the Australian government aimed at deterring potential asylum seekers from leaving their country of origin. These can range from trying to convince fishing communities that transporting asylum seekers is a sin, to scare tactics about the risk of the journey to Australia.
An example of one of Australia’s OPICs – a Pac-Man-style game about getting to Australia that never ends in arriving to Australia
Australia’s history of OPICs
Australia has been utilising OPICs since at least 1994. “Their first campaign was in Beihai, China,” says Dr Watkins. “They used radio, news, and television ads to try to discourage people from leaving Beihai, China, en route to Australia to request asylum.”
As Australia saw increasing numbers of boat arrivals, particularly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and transit countries throughout Southeast Asia, so too did it increase its use of OPICs. It’s important to note though, that OPICs are not used by itself, but rather in conjunction with a number of other border externalisations to try to deter people from leaving that country.
Examples in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, the country that the Biloela family had fled, has been a particular target for Australia’s OPICs. “They've used a number of different tactics, from radio advertisements, banners, posters, leaflets, social media campaigns, YouTube campaigns in Sri Lanka,” says Dr Watkins. Some notable campaigns include the Don't be Deceived by the Lies of People Smugglers campaign, or the Don't be Sorry campaign.
A poster for the Australian Government’s 2013 campaign Don’t Be Sorry
“The Australian government actually had a dedicated YouTube channel to these campaigns, but we don't know all of the campaigns, we don't know all the tactics, because very often these are secret campaigns that the Australian government doesn't even advertise that they're funding,” says Dr Watkins.
These OPICs were so prevalent during the height of Tamil asylum seekers fleeing Sri Lanka that you would see them in your everyday. Ben Doherty, Journalist for The Guardian Australia, saw these first hand in Sri Lanka. “You'll see huge, big billboards saying, ‘No Way to Get to Australia’. It's this sort of really overt presence of Australia maintaining and almost pushing its border all the way to the shoreline of Sri Lanka.”
One of the more bizarre campaigns that ran in Sri Lanka in 2022 included games simulating fleeing to Australia that always ended up in failure, as well as a short film competition, where the winner would win a camera, a drone, and a GoPro. The competition asks "budding filmmakers from around Sri Lanka to creatively express 'illegal migration to Australia', showcasing that there is zero chance of successfully travelling by boat to Australia".
From the winner’s announcement of the Zero Chance short film competition
A chilling example from Indonesia
“One of the most unique and nefarious, in my view, campaigns that the Australian government has funded was an Indonesia from 2009 to 2014,” says Dr Watkins. Instead of targeting the potential migrants themselves, Australia ran a campaign that targeted what the Australian government referred to as potential people smugglers. The company that ran the campaign for the Australian government did “market research” to determine that potential people smugglers’ motivations were based on their values, often religion. So what they did was try to convince these people, mainly fishing communities, that it was not only a moral, but a religious sin to transport refugees and asylum seekers to Australia.
Not only did they run radio ads, billboards, and community workshops, but through their research they realised that these fishing communities really valued family photos, but often couldn’t afford them. So they organised a ‘family photo day’, where they would not only take family photos, but gift those framed photos to the families, just with their slogans on them.
Here's some examples: "Smuggling irregular migrants is a sin." Another one is, "Proud fishermen are observant of religion and the law." Others are, "Sorry, not me, I know what's wrong."
And they gifted coffee mugs, shirts, jackets, calendars. So, every day you look at the calendar and you remind yourself that transporting refugees and asylum seekers to Australia is a sin.
-Dr Josh Watkins
Some examples of Australia’s OPICs in Indonesia
A part of a broader strategy
OPICs are just one of a suite of tactics used to try and stop asylum seekers from arriving to Australia and staying in Australia. OPICs in particular are way that Australia pushes its borders into other countries so that these potential asylum seekers don’t become Australia’s responsibility. The result, however, is tens of millions of people unable to flee persecution and danger, or remaining stuck in refugee camps waiting for another country to accept them.
“Particularly for refugees from the global south, the norm isn't resettlement, the norm isn't repatriation, or return to your country of nationality, but rather the norm is de facto statelessness, living in camps without prospects for regaining citizenship somewhere else. These various forms of border externalizations, including OPICs, are a form of immigration control to reproduce that system,” says Dr Watkins.
