Peta Credlin: Refugees from truth must be laid bare

ORDINARY Australians are sick of compassionistas who don’t really care about deaths at sea as long as they have a stick to beat our country.

Most migrants and refugees who comes to Australia, such as Sadaq Aeyz, daughter Mayram and wife Zahraa Jasim, desperately want to fit into Australian culture.

THIS won’t come as any surprise but I am not a swinging voter.

Although my extended family is made up of moderate Liberals, swinging voters, Nationals, strongly union-based Labor voters and right-wingers who would make Pauline Hanson look soft, I have always known why I vote Liberal (and yes, Christmas is ­entertaining).

The two defining issues that make me a conservative are the nation’s ­finances and immigration; both loom large as parliament returns on Monday and both will play a big role in determining the government’s future.

Australia is one of only 27 countries in the world that takes refugees via the UN’s humanitarian program.

After a year where the parliament has been empty more weeks than it has sat, the final fortnight of the year is critical. The government needs to use the coming period to pass legislation and wrest back a sense of control.

The defining focus over the past few weeks has been the US election and for a government desperate to build its own narrative and momentum, the Trump elevation has starved it of oxygen.

At this time of year, the usual government play is to tally up achievements and sell them hard into December before the nation switches off and heads to the beach.

Clearly, with a Budget held months ago and only partially legislated, followed by a long and difficult election campaign (and a scrappy start to life with a one-seat majority), this hasn’t been an easy year for the Coalition.

This is why the final fortnight matters and why if they get their collective act together, the government has two big opportunities to finish the year well.

Malcolm Turnbull must put away the kid gloves and take this issue head on.

The first is the budget. The numbers from May will be updated in the Mid Year-Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) due out in a few weeks.

The MYEFO document is a big test for the government especially as they’ve made “jobs and growth” a key strategic weapon. Alongside the business tax cuts, which they must legislate, getting the focus back onto debt and deficit is important because this is where Labor’s promises fail the fiscal test.

The second issue is immigration.

Malcolm Turnbull must put away the kid gloves and take this issue head on. Rather than fear a fight with the refugee lobby and apologists from the United Nations, he should embrace it.

Nothing better defines the demarcation line between the left and right than immigration policy. It is an area where Labor has failed miserably and where Bill Shorten’s hollow words mean nothing because of a rising outbreak within his own ranks. There’s no doubt the boats would start again if Labor was back in power.

Now before the professional grievance lobby starts their hectoring, let me be very clear. I believe in immigration and I believe we should be generous in the support we provide new arrivals so they can settle in quickly and join the Australian family but it must be on our terms.

Aborigines aside, every single one of us is a migrant or the descendant of migrants so any idea that we wouldn’t want to extend a warm welcome and give this generation of migrants the same opportunities as those who have come earlier is offensive and wrong. But because we also demand the right to control our borders (as any sovereign nation must), that’s precisely the message that the UN, the activists, the Greens and Labor’s left want to guilt us into believing.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull must tackle the issue before Christmas.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Australia is one of only 27 countries in the world that takes refugees via the UN’s humanitarian program. That’s right, about 163 other ­countries do not help out. But far be it from the activists to tell you the truth.

Over many years, Australia has been consistently ranked in the top three resettlement countries in the world, alongside the USA and Canada. Between the three of us, we provide about 80 per cent of global resettlement places each year. Australia’s program — on a per capita basis — is also one of the most generous in terms of arrival support, health, education and language services.

The government’s critics, who have complained loudly that they haven’t done enough to fix Labor’s mess (go figure), were knocked for a six when the government announced the deal to send the genuine refugees from Manus and Nauru to the US (not everyone gets to go to the US because, surprise surprise, not everyone was a genuine refugee).

I was there when the Coalition stopped the boats and it wasn’t easy.

But along with Labor, the leftist lobby were quickly back into their stride, attacking the legislation permanently banning illegal arrivals by boat from ever coming to Australia. They just don’t get it. The only way to clear the camps is to find a reliable resettlement partner and the only way to ensure that no boat people ever make it here is to pass the legislation.

Without another country to accept refugees, people must return home or remain indefinitely on Nauru or Manus; ending up in Australia would only restart the smuggling trade. And without the new legislation as an absolutely iron-clad deterrence, the people smugglers once more have a product to sell, the boats will set sail, and the deaths resume.

Ordinary Australians are sick of compassionistas who don’t really care about deaths at sea as long as they have a stick to beat our country.

They also understand that if we control our borders, we will be able to give places in our humanitarian program to people who need it most. Forget the young men who buy their boat passage here with thousands in cash and falsified documents; how about a fair go for the women and children in camps with no way to buy their way out?

Immigration is good for Australia, provided — and this is very important — newcomers are ready to leave old hatreds aside and make the effort to fit into their new home.

I was there when the Coalition stopped the boats and it wasn’t easy. There was also a lot of fear among the senior ranks of government and the bureaucracy that we were fast arriving at the point that if we didn’t stop them this time, we probably may never have stopped them.

Such is the professionalism of the smugglers and the growing numbers of people wanting an economic outcome as much as escaping genuine persecution.

All credit to Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop for persisting in their ­efforts to empty the camps and finally close this miserable chapter in the ­history of the Rudd-Gillard government’s failures.

Let’s be clear: immigration is good for Australia, provided — and this is very important — newcomers are ready to leave old hatreds aside and make the effort to fit into their new home. We should expect them to fit in. This doesn’t mean they have to deny their ethnicity or lose their cultural richness. But where their culture is at odds with the freedoms and equalities that we demand in Australia (such as the treatment of women), yes they do.

The only people blushing or cringing at terms such as “integration” are the professional refugee lobbyists who fear losing a cause — not migrants who are normally proud of just how Australian they’ve become.