Party Games: Bill Shorten misses the boat on refugees question

OPINION: It must be terrible for a politician to see a popular issue rattle past his office window and realise he can’t take advantage of it.

Shorten misses the boat on refugees

IT must be terrible for a politician to see a popular issue rattle past his office window and realise he can’t take advantage of it.

Bill Shorten had that air about him yesterday as he stood to deliver the first question of the day in a new Parliamentary week.

“We all agree that Australia cannot let people languish on Nauru and Manus indefinitely,” Shorten intoned with his best “concerned of Moonee Ponds” attitude.

Before he could get to the nub of his question - as much as there was one - we all knew this was going through the motions as Labor and the Coalition have a unity ticket on the harsh treatment of asylum seekers in detention, including children.

Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten during Question Time at Parliament House. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Shorten engineered the final capitulation of Labor’s already tough-on-refugees policy at his party’s national conference last year, so we could guess he wasn’t about to ask for anything like letting these poor souls stay on the Australian mainland.

“Can the PM update the House on efforts to secure a credible re-settlement arrangement in other countries for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus Island?” asked Shorten.

For his trouble, Shorten copped a belt around the ears from Malcolm Turnbull who shamed Labor with its litany of policy and administrative failures during its six years in office.

At the weekend, Labor’s Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews - someone from the same party patch as Shorten - launched a campaign to open Victoria’s doors to the asylum seekers threatened with repatriation to Nauru.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews met with an asylum seeker family seeking asylum who face imminent deportation to Nauru.

Andrews was joined by New South Wales Liberal Premier Mike Baird, his Labor colleague from South Australia Jay Weatherill and Will Hodgman from Tasmania, all looking more progressive and decisive than either the national government or the federal Labor Opposition.

That many of these premiers have also been out in front on the taxing and spending debate is not helping Shorten either.

Opposition leaders need to be heard and they need to carve out a voice that rises above the ruck through conviction or being different.

Shorten struggles on both fronts and the premiers - especially Weatherill and Baird - are looking like a better opposition to the federal Coalition than Labor. That’s a serious problem.