On 25 July 2011, the governments of Australia and Malaysia announced that they had entered into an ‘Arrangement’ for the transfer of asylum seekers.1 Its stated aim was to deter asylum seekers from travelling by boat to Australia by providing that the next 800 asylum seekers to arrive unlawfully would be transferred to Malaysia in exchange for the resettlement of 4,000 UNHCR-approved refugees living there.2 The joint media release by the Australian Prime Minister and Minister for Immigration lauded it as a ‘groundbreaking arrangement’ that demonstrated ‘the resolve of Australia and Malaysia to break the people smugglers’ business model, stop them profiting from human misery, and stop people risking their lives at sea’.3 The success of the Arrangement relied on Malaysia being perceived as an inhospitable host country for asylum seekers, with the Australian Government emphasising that it provided ‘the best course of action to make sure that we sent the maximum message of deterrence’.4 The Government also made clear that those transferred to Malaysia would ‘go to the back of the [asylum] queue’.5