This week the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, promised to ‘stop the boats’ and announced a new hardline stance on immigration. This familiar language shapes familiar policy. The inability to seek asylum, forcible boat turnbacks, offshore and indefinite detention led to an immeasurable human toll in Australia. But two decades later, after implementing a similar ‘solution’, the cruelty of the system remains. Gabrielle Jackson talks to Guardian Australia’s editor-in-chief, Lenore Taylor, and head of news, Mike Ticher, about the enduring inhumanity of Australia’s immigration regime and whether the UK will learn from our mistakes