We are delighted to have Associate Professor Lia Kent host the launch of Vannessa Hearman's The Good Sea: The Journey of the Tasi Diak and the Politics of Refugee Protection in Australia.

In May 1995, after five days and six nights on the Timor Sea, eighteen East Timorese asylum seekers, including a six-month-old baby, sailed into Darwin in a small wooden fishing boat. The Tasi Diak was the only boat to reach Australia throughout the 24-year Indonesian occupation of East Timor.

Drawing on archives, government records, media reports and interviews with the asylum seekers, The Good Sea tells the dramatic story of their perilous journey to Australia. It traces the lives of young activists in the East Timor underground. It examines the powerful impact of the boat's arrival on Australia's relationship with Indonesia in the last years of the Suharto regime - and how it energised the campaign for East Timor's independence.

Vannessa Hearman is a historian of Southeast Asia specialising in political violence, human rights, and historical memory in Indonesia and Timor-Leste. 

Associate Professor Lia Kent is an expert in peace and conflict studies, and a Vice-Chancellor’s Research and Impact Fellow at Victoria University. 

Free, but bookings are essential.

Please book here.

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