‘Bill Shorten and Kerryn Phelps are weakening national security’
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been given early Christmas presents by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and GetUp!’s new parliamentary go-to-girl Kerryn Phelps over their stance on national security, Piers Akerman writes.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been given early Christmas presents by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and GetUp!’s new parliamentary go-to-girl Kerryn Phelps.
Both Mr Shorten and Dr Phelps firmly placed their penchants for virtue-signalling ahead of the very genuine national security risks and undoubtedly weakened the protections which have not only assisted in keeping the nation safe but have also saved lives.
The Labor leader tied himself in knots trying to walk both sides of the security fence and appeal to those who know the real risk posed by terrorists using encrypted communications and those who believe that their telephone and internet conversations should be encoded.
This is a complete nonsense and a giant leap in the presumption that the currently available technology enjoys a mystically privileged position rendering it immune to the bona fide demands of security services equipped with warrants.
Mr Shorten permitted Labor to pass the Coalition’s bill giving security agencies the power to force technology companies to assist them crack encrypted messages — but promised to revisit the changes when Parliament resumes on February 12, with a view to amending the legislation with the support of the newly invigorated crossbench.
He said he wanted the agencies to have the powers over the Christmas period, which security chiefs warn is a time of heightened risk.
Civil liberty concerns raised by the Greens and fellow travellers are a furphy.
Whilst showing a modicum of common sense, his support for Dr Phelps’ move to have illegal migrants brought to Australia from Nauru if two doctors agree following just a Skype consultation that there is a medical need for treatment here is a total sellout.
Nor can it be linked, as Dr Phelps and her GetUp! supporters (backed by a cohort of deluded children) claim, to pathetic stories of children on the island.
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The Coalition has quietly been ensuring that the number of children on Nauru — all either sent there or born there because of Labor with the support of the Greens and to cheering from their GetUp! sympathisers — has been dramatically reduced.
After Labor last softened border protection laws, more than 50,000 people arrived illegally and more than 1200 died at sea or were cruelly slashed to death after smashing against the jagged ramparts of Christmas Island.
The Coalition, under Prime Minister Tony Abbott, stopped the boats (again) and halted this senseless loss of life but Labor left office with children in custody.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already moved more than 100 children from Nauru (where they were not locked up) to Australia. There are 10 minors remaining on the island with four soon to leave for the United States.
The sob story about children in detention relentlessly promoted by the ABC, Fairfax media, GetUp! and Dr Phelps is a furphy and an insult to the people of Nauru.
Permitting two doctors to make Skype consultations and decide whether individuals should be brought to Australia breaches the current efficient secure borders operation.
It will permit “doctor shopping” as the open border advocates will easily find sympathisers like the founder and president of Doctors for Refugees, Dr Barri Phatarfod, who recently told SBS that it was “likely” that every single child on Nauru had “some form of mental disease” — and that’s without the benefit of a diagnostic consultation.
Other refugee advocates have claimed, again without meeting so-called sufferers, that it is probable that the children are suffering from “resignation syndrome” which purports to describe a catatonic state entered into by some on Nauru. If they are not actually victims of this “syndrome”, you can bet they will be after some skilled coaching.
The medical transfer ruse failed to pass but will be back in the New Year and the people smugglers will be watching the bill’s progress with great interest.
They will also be watching the moves by the Labor Left at next weekend’s national conference in Adelaide to weaken border security laws — and they are likely be rewarded with a surge in forward reservations.
The chaos of the last days of Parliament will be repeated at the conference as Mr Shorten attempts to maintain the semblance that the policies which he will take to the election are not soft on border security.
That chaos line was a little overworked by the ABC and Fairfax media in their attempts to portray the Morrison minority government as struggling. In reality it was the Labor opposition and the crossbenchers in the House and Senate who were wrong-footed.
Their tactics might have been scripted by their new spiritual leader, the former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who now seems to have eschewed returning to his banking career in favour of devoting himself to the destruction of the Coalition government’s chances of re-election.
The sob story about children in detention relentlessly promoted by the ABC, Fairfax media, GetUp! and Dr Phelps is a furphy and an insult to the people of Nauru.
Errors in the wording of the motion put in the Senate aimed at making it easier for illegal entrants to be brought to Australia permitted the Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi to derail the move, which could have brought down the government.
So confused were Labor and the crossbenchers about the motion first introduced by Dr Phelps in the Lower House that Senator Derry Hinch, of his eponymous party, actually voted against a motion banning paedophiles and those convicted of crimes of domestic violence from entering the country.
There can be no greater evidence of the lack of understanding of the consequences of Dr Phelps’ ill-considered legislation than that shown by Senator Hinch, who seems to have adopted the view that if one doesn’t comprehend legislation, vote with the Greens.
Gifted with such cack-handed attacks on policy he has skilfully handled in the past, Mr Morrison has finished the parliamentary year just ahead. Now he must capitalise on his small victories on national security and step up on other issues that are core to Liberal values.
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