The Abbott government will spend $4.1 million on a telemovie designed to deter people from seeking asylum in Australia by boat.
The TV drama commissioned by the Customs and Border Security Agency will be broadcast in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The contract was awarded to Put It Out There productions, which reportedly made “propaganda” for the United States embassy in Afghanistan.
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“Each broadcast will be accompanied by a major awareness campaign across television and social media,” a spokesperson told the ABC.
“Television soap operas and telemovies are proven media to reach the target audience when seeking to deliver complex messages.”
Put It Out There head Trudi-Ann Tierney said she had reservations about accepting the contract but decided it could “save people from detention, disappointment and even death”.
“The impact this film will have on a person’s decision to attempt a journey by boat to Australia cannot be underestimated,” she said.
In a 2014 memoir of her time working in Kabul on drama shows, Ms Tierney said “in truth I was nothing more than a propaganda merchant”.
“The official term for what I was facilitating was ‘psychological operations,’ better known as PSYOPS which basically equated to identifying target audiences and influencing their values and behaviour to suit the objectives of, in the case of Afghanistan, NATO and its allies.”
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told the ABC the movie was part of an effort to end people smuggling.
But Phil Glendenning of the Refugee Council of Australia said the drama was unlikely to stop people fleeing the warzones of Syria and Afghanistan.
“A TV show isn’t going to stop people who are running from the Taliban,” Mr Glendenning said.
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