[2016 LA Club] Week 1

[Anonymous]

Due to government’s decision in sending asylum seekers, who are in Australia for medical treatment, back to the Nauru detention centre, sparks Nicola Barnett’s opinion piece “Lifesaving spirit lost”. Barnett contends that the government is no longer following the Australian values and should reconsider mandatory detention centres and prevention of people smuggling. Barnett’s tone is factual and sarcastic, speaking her mind, and saying it straight to the point. By declaring that sending asylum seekers back to Nauru is “un- Australian” appeals to the reader’s Australian values. That Australian citizens do not believe and want to be culprit in the emotionless decision by the government. Barnett creates a bad connotation being un-Australian and therefore that it is unkind to send the asylum seekers back to Nauru.
Barnett also points out that the medical professionals, the experts, are “advising” asylum seekers to get treatment. The inclusion of experts, and their opinions persuades the reader that treatment is what is necessary for these people, and the fact that the government is denying these people from medical help, may result in a life or death situation. This creates the task to be more urgent and necessary to solve, before many other innocent lives are lost.
Barnett continues, and creates a hypothetical situation from the perspective of the life guard. A life guard represents Australian values, protects others before themselves, and helps the weaker. By creating a hypothetical situation of the lifeguard not saving the one person, because it will discourage others from coming. It allows the reader to clearly understand the foolishness and self absorbed motives of the government, rather than the actual medical saving the asylum seekers require.

[Anonymous]

I tried to do this in a structure similar to how I would respond to the SAC/exam.


During a scathing response to the Australian government's recently exposed prerogative to send asylum seekers requiring medical attention to Nauru detention camps, Nicola Barnett contends that the government "must explore the alternatives to mandatory detention". 

Barnett opens her piece by highlighting how the government's reasoning for the deportation of the asylum seekers was "un-Australian", which is intended to portray to the reader a sense of betrayal towards their country, therefore inciting them to estrange themself with the policy. She compares the government's reasoning to a more relatable moral dilema with a single swimmer being stranded at sea in order to further an emotional connection between the reader and the recent policy. In the analogy she lauds surf lifesavers as "heros" and claims that not a single one of them would have done what the government did, and, in conjunction with using inclusive language when referencing "our" surf lifesavers, attempts to tie the reader to what she claims is all surf lifesavers' morals. Barnett portrays the asylum seekers as people like us who had just lost their way, people who had "misfortune" or made an "error or judgement", in order to illicit empathy from the reader towards the asylum seekers and their plight.

Throughout her piece, Barnett mainly used an appeal to patriotism to persuade the reader to be sympathetic to the asylum seekers' case and to support alternatives to future government actions regarding asylum seekers.