This thesis uses political cartoons from the mainstream press over the period 1886 &amp;ndash; 2001 to explore the politics of Australian asylum seeker and refugee policy. Australian asylum seeker and refugee policy is highly contested and increasingly characterised by practices of rights abuses, hostility and brutality. This thesis is an attempt to understand how moderate and humanitarian Australia has transformed its engagement with asylum seekers and refugees.   Beginning with colonial political cartoons, which capture the racial politics of White Australia and patterns of exclusion, the thesis uses political cartoons to chronologically trace the representations and politics of race, and the corresponding development of Australia&amp;rsquo;s exclusionary and hostile refugee policy regime. Colonial patterns of exclusion and racism are evident in the cartoons of Jews and Displaced Persons from the Second World War. With the 1975 arrival of Vietnamese and other Indochinese refugees, Chinese nationals fleeing China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and refugees from Kosovo, political cartoonists are challenging rather than reinforcing exclusion and racism, and critiquing refugee policy. The thesis concludes with cartoons of the 2001 Tampa and Children Overboard incidents, the sinking of the SIEV X and the arrival of refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. These episodes resulted in even more hostile policy responses with the adoption of a state of exception.  These cartoons are texts, and as cultural artefacts provide a historical overview of propaganda and politics, and reveal the racism and nationalism which have shaped these policy regimes. The cartoons provide a documentary account of the twists and turns of nation state engagement with asylum seekers and refugees as people experiencing persecution. They reveal myths of generosity and nation, and narratives of absurdity and brutality. It is the story of a political culture built with dog whistle politics.  The thesis argues there are enduring themes and patterns which emerge in Australia&amp;rsquo;s early treatment of migrants which have continued to shape Australia&amp;rsquo;s policy responses to asylum seekers and refugees; hostility towards non-white and non-Anglo people; fear of invasion; rights ambiguity; legal challenges; illegal detention; sending boats away; and breaches of international treaties. Political cartoons reveal that Australia&amp;rsquo;s asylum seeker and refugee policy has developed as a controversial and contested mix of racism, humanitarianism and state exceptionalism