Inspired by Hessel’s (2011) call in Time for outrage and drawing on the concept of ‘moral outrage’, we argue in this article that addressing contraventions of human rights and social justice issues demands an emotional connection with the nature of injustice. We propose that contemporary social work in Western liberal democracies has lost touch with the moral imperative, sentiment and affective encounter as a positive impetus for collective action. We consider competing interpretations of why this might be the case and look beyond the incursions of neoliberal market methodologies towards a consideration of the complex relationships between power, subjectivities and collective emotion. Western epistemologies have viewed emotion as the antithesis of rationality and discouraged this type of thinking as somehow risky, tricky and dangerous. We seek to reconfigure this political and ethical (mis)appropriation of emotions and argue for its centrality within the social justice mandate of social work.

There is little known about the social, cultural and emotional wellbeing (SCEWB) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ young people in Australia. What research exists does not disaggregate young people’s experiences from those of their adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ peers. The research that forms the basis for this article is one of the first conducted in Australia on this topic. The article uses information from in-depth interviews to inform concepts of social inclusion and exclusion for this population group. The interviews demonstrate the different ways in which social inclusion/exclusion practices, patterns and process within First Nations communities and non-Indigenous LGBTIQ+ communities impact on the SCEWB of these young people. The research demonstrates the importance of acceptance and support from families in particular the centrality of mothers to young people feeling accepted, safe and able to successfully overcome challenges to SCEWB. Non-Indigenous urban LGBTIQ+ communities are at times seen as a “second family” for young people, however, structural racism within these communities is also seen as a problem for young people’s inclusion. This article contributes significant new evidence on the impact of inclusion/exclusion on the SCEWB of Australian First Nations LGBTIQ+ youth.

In the latter months of 2014, following events in faraway Iraq and Syria, Australia responded forcefully at home. The manufactured fear of a terrorist attack resulted in police raids, increased counter-terrorism legislation and scare campaigns to alert the public to 'threat'. Although Islamophobia rose in Australia after 2001 it has been latent in recent years. It is on the rise again with collateral damage from government measures including verbal and physical attacks on Australian Muslims. Vitriol is also directed at asylum seekers and refugees. Media, government and community discourses converge to promote Islam as dangerous and deviant.

Australia's policy of mandatory indefinite detention of those seeking asylum and arriving without valid documents has led to terrible human rights abuses and cumulative deterioration in health for those incarcerated. We argue that there is an imperative to research and document the plight of those who have suffered at the hands of the Australian government and its agents. However, the normal tools available to those engaged in health research may further erode the rights and well being of this population, requiring a rethink of existing research ethics paradigms to approaches that foster advocacy research and drawing on the voices of those directly affected, including those bestowed with duty of care for this population.

This paper explores ethical questions arising from the work of health practitioners in immigration detention centres in Australia. It raises questions about the roles of professional disciplines and the ways in which they confront dual loyalty issues. The exploration is guided by interviews conducted with health professionals who have worked in asylum seeker detention and an examination of the outsider advocacy role undertaken by the social work profession. The paper discusses the stance taken by individuals and professional associations on participation in controlled settings, including as participant, bystander and advocate, and asks when the provision of care becomes collusion with oppression.

In Australia since about the turn of the millennium, discrimination against Muslims has been increasingly normalized, made respectable, and presented as prudent precaution against violent extremism. Vilification of Muslims has posed as defending ‘Australian values’ against those who will not integrate. Liberal political leaders and press leader-writers who formerly espoused cultural pluralism now routinely hold up as inimical the Muslim folk devil by whose otherness the boundaries of acceptability of the national culture may be marked out and policed. The Muslim Other is positioned not only as culturally incommensurate, but dangerously so: dishonest, criminally inclined, violent, misogynist, homophobic, backward, uncivilized. On the far right, extremist nationalist organizations incite racist hatred under cover of this rhetoric, often cloaked as reasonable common sense. This paper undertakes an ideology analysis of political and media discussion, and examines the forms of social control that they advance and sustain.