AustLit

'I wish this book had been published in 2009. Then, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd infamously called those facilitating the journeys of asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia ‘the absolute scum of the earth’, adding for good measure that in his view, they should ‘rot in hell’. Then, Smuggled could have contributed to exposing Rudd’s influential remarks as little more than a hysterical attempt to save his prime ministership.'  (Introduction)

'Professors Ruth Balint and Julie Kalman are descended from Jews impacted by the Holocaust. No surprise then that in the introductory sentences of this work they remind us that the first people smuggler was probably Moses. Throughout the Jewish year, we study this colossus, who may or may not have existed, as he leads the Hebrews out of Pharaoh’s bondage into the desert toward a promised land. For much of the past two thousand years, Jews have relied on people smugglers as they were shunted from country to country. In Smuggled: An illegal history of journeys to Australia, Balint and Kalman detach the people smuggler from the politicised, malign tropes surrounding this activity and present firsthand accounts from some of those who were smuggled and from the smugglers themselves.' (Introduction)