Recently, Australia’s Immigration Minister announced the impending deportation of a fifth Hazara asylum seeker back to Afghanistan since late 2014. In Europe, Syrians and Iraqis are being waved through while Afghanis are rejected at the border or repatriated. Why do we value some lives more than others?

On Friday, Tony Abbott raised Australia’s terrorist threat level to high, readying the country for a new normal of intensified anti-terror policing and security screenings. Less noticeable amid the media noise surrounding terrorism and the IS was the fact that two days earlier, vice-chancellor Michael Spence did the on-campus equivalent, by citing a hastily commissioned ‘security assessment’ to ban a visitor to Sydney University.