Adjudication No. 1430  (adjudicated July 2009)

The Australian Press Council has upheld a complaint brought by an advocacy group, A Just Australia, against The Australian about some of the language used in four articles and an editorial on boat arrivals published in April 2009.

The crux of the matter is that the complainant objected to the use of "illegal" or "illegals" in the reference to unauthorised arrivals and referred to the Australian Press Council Guideline No. 262:

The Australian Press Council has received complaints about the terminology that is applied, and ought to be applied, to those arriving in Australia who do not have normal immigrant credentials. Technically in Commonwealth immigration legislation they are referred to as "unlawful non citizens". However, they are often referred to as "illegal immigrants", or even "illegals".

The problem with the use of terms such as "illegal refugee" and "illegal asylum seeker" is that they are often inaccurate and may be derogatory. The Council cautions the press to be careful in the use of such unqualified terms in reports and headlines.

The complainant also referred to a 2004 Adjudication of the Council that upheld a complaint regarding the use of the term "illegal immigrants" (Adjudication No 1242).

While the complainant insisted that "unlawful" is very different to "illegal", its representative agreed with the newspaper that for many people this amounted to "splitting hairs". She went on to suggest that neither word should "be used at all when referring to asylum seekers".

The complainant, while acknowledging that there should be some allowance for interpretation when the term "illegal" is used to refer to the method of arrival, pointed out that in at least one article the asylum seekers were referred to as "illegal immigrants". The Council notes that the newspaper, apart from using the term "illegal immigrants" once in the article of April 7, had also used other unchallenged expressions such as "unauthorised passengers" and "unauthorised arrivals". In an article of April 9 and one on April 21 the expression "illegal arrivals" was used in addition to "unauthorised arrivals". In a second article on April 21, the newspaper referred to "refugees who arrived illegally".

In an editorial of April 29, the newspaper argued trenchantly that its coverage had been fair, despite its continued use of terms to which A Just Australia objected.

The complainant calls on the Council to issue stronger guidelines on the reporting of boat arrivals. The Council notes that its current Guideline is generally observed by the print media. However, it also notes that, while Ministers and government officials continue to use the disputed terms, it is difficult for the press to report the immigration debate using consistent terms.

The Council is of the view that the newspaper had not sought to report incidents of "unauthorised arrivals" in an inflammatory way as alleged by the complainant. The newspaper's coverage of the boat arrivals in the cited articles was fair and balanced, but the use of the modifier "illegal" in the articles and the term "illegals" in a headline are, in this case, factually inaccurate.

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