The struggle to change negative responses to asylum seekers is becoming more difficult due to global economic insecurity and increasing numbers of people seeking asylum. Effective and persuasive advocacy and activism to shift these opinions and create better outcomes for asylum seekers are critical. As for all social movements, how advocates engage the wider public, particularly those opposed to asylum seeking, is key to gaining support for this project. In this article, I use discourse analysis as a method for identifying both current activist discourses and rhetorical strategies, and how these shape the responses of the opposition. Using letters to the editor, online comments and media articles from a 2010–2011 Australian debate on the relocation of asylum seekers to a small South Australian town, I explore a particular strategy for change used in asylum seeker advocacy: eliciting shame. I identify two ways that shaming is ‘done’ – through expressions of contempt and disgust, and through a comparison of privilege and oppression. However, the analysis of the responses to this shaming demonstrates that, rather than provoking the hoped-for change, shaming actually elicits its opposite: flight or fight responses of denial, avoidance and escalating conflict.