Labor, Greens and unions reveal their fraudulent selves

LABOR, the Greens and the trade union movement have exposed themselves as frauds and charlatans with their criticism of the Coalition's so-far successful border immigration policy. When the conservatives came to office, Labor and Green members vehemently ridiculed their plans to execute one of the principal planks of their policy platform and "stop the boats". Now that there have been no boats for four weeks, the same shrill voices are demanding more information on the operational details, full-knowing the people smugglers would love to know how Operation Sovereign Borders is effected so they can modify their own plans. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is adamant he will not help the people smugglers but Labor and the Greens seem determined to do their utmost to ensure his effective policy can be undermined and more people will commit to risking their lives in leaky boats to jump the legal queue. In seeking to have details of Operation Sovereign Borders revealed before a senate committee, Labor and the Greens are showing no appreciation of the national interest nor any concern for those involved in stopping the illegal people smuggling racket. They have studiously ignored the reality that secrecy in this operation is of paramount importance and that just three days after the federal election, the Border Protection Command director of operations advised that no information should be released on where or when asylum seeker boats were detected or which navy vessel was involved in the operation. With fewer boats and fewer illegal arrivals, Australia stands to reap a nearly $90 million-a-year dividend as Morrison closes four superfluous-to-needs detention centres. One would think Labor and the Greens would be turning cartwheels at the news. For years, they have been carrying on about the necessary detention of illegal arrivals but now the closures are a matter of grave consternation. Acting Greens leader Richard di Natale has said he had "huge" concerns about the Coalition government's approach to asylum seekers. "We've got a situation where all of our detention centres are under huge strain … and we're going to close down a number of centres in Australia, move those people (to) where there's less scrutiny, where tensions are already at boiling point, what do we think's going to happen?" Let me remind di Natale of his party's social justice policy, specifically this paragraph: "We will close down the worst remote Australian detention centres, including Curtin, Scherger, Wickham Point, Northern and North West Point on Christmas Island, saving $366 million." Scherger is one Morrison intends closing, along with Port Augusta, Leonora and Pontville. Pontville has been empty since last September, when the former (failed) Immigration Minister Tony Burke ordered the transfer of juvenile residents into community care. The fact Pontville has stood empty, but staffed, for four-and-a-half months has not deterred Tasmania's Labor Premier Lara Giddings, the Greens or the trade union involved from protesting its formal closure. Ignoring the reality that federal Labor's Burke emptied the facility, Giddings this week said the closure was a continuation of "the Liberal Party's attack on Tasmanian jobs". "This is an appalling decision by the Liberal Party which makes a mockery of its promise to create jobs in Tasmania," she scolded. In Giddings' Tasmania, it is smart to pay people to sit in an empty facility knowing that the state relies on mainlanders to fund their lifestyle. United Voice, formerly the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, wheeled out its Tasmanian secretary Helen Gibbons to express her dismay. "This is a really sad scenario," she said. "This centre had a reputation for being really well run. The staff there were trying to make the best possible environment." How difficult would it be to run a superb empty facility and create a great environment for non-existent illegal arrivals? Gibbons wistfully harked back to an earlier era when federal Labor's failed border protection policy ensured there were 270 jobs at Pontville. "They were all Tasmanians," she wailed. "There have been no refugees at all since late last year, which was a political decision by the new government when it first came to power." This is a great example of the need for illegal arrivals to prop up an industry which takes in rafts of workers from the former Miscos union, armies of social workers, and cadres of card-carrying Labor lawyers. Those lawyers are going to have to find other avenues of opportunity when the illegal arrival traffic is fully halted. Morrison has also signalled he will personally cancel the visas of undesirable residents from now, denying them any right of appeal. He acted after a string of Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions that blocked the deportation of convicted criminals - including a New Zealand man who had a hand in the 2008 violent robbery of a prominent Melbourne doctor, and a Vietnamese man with a 17-year-long criminal record of robbery, thefts, weapons offences and crimes of dishonesty and assessed as having "a significant possibility that he may reoffend". Morrison's actions are going to help the budget bottom line, they are going to save lives, and they are going to remove the stress that the unionists who have been working in detention centres have been complaining about. This is a win-win-win result for the nation. These should be causes for celebration, but not if you're Labor or Greens supporter in search of causes for condemnation.