Care‐based interventions in situations of injustice are often characterised as separate from political activism. Critics argue that care‐based activities fail to address the causes of suffering, allowing structural issues to go unchallenged. Through an empirical analysis of “irregular maritime arrival” friendship programmes in Australia, this article challenges the binary opposition that has been constructed between the “personal” domain of care work and volunteering, and the “political” realm of activism. It shows that friendship programme volunteers understand their actions as a response to and intervention in a political situation that they find morally reprehensible. It also demonstrates that volunteers see their personal acts of friendship (and not only the recognisably “activist” activities that they sometimes inspire) as politically significant. By claiming irregular maritime arrivals as friends, volunteers seek to challenge representations that see “boat people” as enemies and Others. Furthermore, they provide opportunities for members of their communities to do the same.