 Who has the legal authority to decide how a refugee should be treated? A civil servant sitting in a processing centre? A privately hired security guard? Or Darren, the airline personnel who rolls his eyes at the refugee who has a whole life stuffed inside an overweight suitcase? The law forces roles in each of these people and makes them act as proxy custom agents. We've all had that chat with Darren at the check-in counter who has told us sorry, according to the system, your baggage is overweight. This happens all the time to refugees, except Darren is given the power of a border police officer. People like Darren should not have the authority to decide what happens to people's lives. From the moment a person is declared a refugee, a pre-determined script cast as person has a criminal, a security risk or a potential terrorist. Australian authorities can then justify certain treatment towards this group. They can be removed to a third country and they can be placed in detention without judicial reasons for the decision. Last month, thousands of Australians protested the ongoing six-year detention of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru. Perhaps we can turn back to the theory of law to change how we think about law. Through theory, we can relate the law back to our shared vulnerability as human beings by showing how the law can have an impact on people. My research looks at how authorities through a performance can convince us to accept how refugees should be treated. Philosopher Judith Butler gave us the idea that gender is not something that we are, but something that we continually do. Our idea of the refugee is being performed by a series of decisions made by people like Darren. My research looks at how laws work so we can make them better. In modern times we have seen laws which did not allow gay marriage, denied indigenous people the right to vote and permitted the abuse of juveniles in detention. Through theory, we can question the relevance of laws which mean that people fleeing from persecution to Australia are ironically then treated in cruel and degrading ways. Like Darren, we are all characters in this play and together we have to work towards changing the script. Thank you.