Dive into some of the big issues facing New Zealand with this bundle of hard-hitting BWB Texts. These four works are combined into one easy-to-read e-book, available direct and DRM-free from our website or from international e-book retailers. Tracey Barnett’s The Quiet War on Asylum addresses a big question: Why would New Zealand, a country that has never had a boatload of asylum arrivals in modern history, suddenly legislate for mass detention? Jane Kelsey looks hard at the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and the impact it may have on New Zealand if enacted. The penetrating discussion of the dramatic transformation in penal thought in New Zealand, and the lasting damage it has caused, is revealed in John Pratt’s A Punitive Society. Robert Wade’s tour of New Zealand in 2013 caused headlines and Inequality and the West places the local inequality debate against a global backdrop. BWB Texts are short books on big subjects by great New Zealand writers. Commissioned as short digital-first works, BWB Texts unlock diverse stories, insights and analysis from the best of our past, present and future New Zealand writing.

‘To the outside world looking in—indeed, to most countries that deal with tens of thousands of refugees annually—it may have seemed outright puzzling. When John Key stepped up to the lectern of his press conference and announced he was introducing mandatory group detention for ‘mass’ boat-arriving asylum seekers to Kiwi shores, there was one confounding detail missing. New Zealand has never had a boatload of asylum seekers in modern history. None.’ Why would a country that has never had a boatload of asylum arrivals in modern history suddenly legislate for mass detention? Geographically isolated and previously a world leader in fair treatment of refugees, New Zealand has abruptly changed tack. Treading across the refugee camps of Burma and Thailand, to Australia’s detention centres and back to New Zealand, columnist Tracey Barnett looks hard at this controversial new policy. She speaks to asylum seekers, refugees, NGO workers and migrants – people on the move and on the ground. Their lives and stories reveal a reality far more complex than the political rhetoric, and one that questions just how fair and ethical New Zealand really is on the world stage today.