Premier Daniel Andrews’ campaign for refugee children is self-defeating

THE Premier’s campaign to stop refugees being sent to Nauru may be sincere but it looks like grandstanding and could be self-defeating, says James Campbell.

Dan’s campaign self-defeating

THIS week the political world in Spring St has been debating the rights and wrongs of Daniel Andrews’s intervention into the asylum seeker debate.

On Saturday, the Premier wrote to the Prime Minister offering to inform him that “Victoria stands ready to assist and care for the children and their families who were brought to Australia from Nauru”; indeed, that we would “accept all responsibility for all these children and their families”.

Two days ago Andrews followed up his letter by taking two of the children facing deportation to the zoo.

“I can’t show you their faces, but I can tell you a bit about these two beautiful kids,” the Premier wrote as a caption to his Instagram photo. “They’re ordinary Victorians in almost every way. They go to their local primary school; they laugh, they learn, they play. But one thing is very different: any day now, these two boys will be deported to Nauru and will stay there indefinitely.

“Dozens more children face the same fate. Please, Prime Minister: it doesn’t have to be like this. Let’s do the right thing by these children and their families. Let’s prove that we really are a fair and decent society.

“It was so special meeting these two boys. Perhaps they don’t really know what might be happening to them. Perhaps they don’t yet understand.

“But they love this place. And they certainly loved their trip to the zoo. They loved seeing the baby animals in their sanctuary, safe and sound. I wish I could have shown you their faces at that moment. You wouldn’t believe how much they smiled. #LetThemStay”

Reactions to Andrews’s letter have been mixed, to put it politely. To some, the Premier’s intervention has been welcome. To take a random sample of comments from his Facebook page, it has been an example of “great leadership”, “progressive, compassionate”, which had “reaffirmed ... faith in humanity”.

To others it was, to quote our editorial yesterday, an example of “blatant grandstanding”, which offered “false hope in a heart-wrenching situation”.

According to Labor MPs — including those who don’t like him — there is no doubt the Premier sincerely believes that these children should be allowed to stay. But it is hard not be cynical about the public exercise of emotion when you learn that the first Malcolm Turnbull heard about Andrews’s letter was when it landed on social media.

Unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister was unimpressed and got straight on the blower to say, dude, you don’t have to use Twitter if want to talk to me, just pick up the phone. Or whatever words to that effect 61-year-olds use.

Now of course Labor politicians can perhaps be forgiven if they indulge themselves when they see an opportunity to embarrass their Liberal counterparts over asylum seekers. For the past 15 years the issue has caused the ALP nothing but pain. It is noticeable that Andrews’s federal counterpart has been hiding under the doona on the issue. Noticeable, but not surprising.

Bill Shorten’s only contribution to this debate so far has been to get the ALP’s national conference to accept Tony Abbott’s turn-back-the-boats policy. (Those readers who might be tempted to think that there is a difference on this matter between Shorten and Andrews should remember that the only reason Shorten prevailed at that conference was because the Victorian Socialist Left backed his position.)

The question I would ask of Andrews’s intervention into this debate is this: has it made it easier or more difficult for Malcolm Turnbull to allow these children to stay in Australia? After talking to people close to Turnbull, it is my belief that he is in no hurry to return them to Nauru and that if everyone would just shut up about the subject, the chances are they will still be here in a year or two.

For internal Liberal Party reasons, as well as a belief — false in my opinion — that allowing them to stay would immediately open the floodgates again, it appears that Turnbull does not believe he is able to grant a general amnesty to these people.

How does continuing to run a massive public campaign on their behalf change that?

It is hard to believe Daniel Andrews doesn’t understand that but it seems he hasn’t been able to help himself.

The cheap sugar hit from all the Leftie adulation has proven too tempting.

The Premier has made himself look good to those who enjoy moral posturing on asylum seekers. But if he keeps it up, he might as well pack those kids’ suitcases for Nauru himself.

JAMES CAMPBELL IS STATE POLITICS EDITOR

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