Why Malcolm Turnbull is biting his tongue

MALCOLM Turnbull is copping it for failing to weigh in on Donald Trump’s travel ban, but there’s an obvious reason for his silence.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

COMMENT

AT 8PM on September 21 last year, Malcolm Turnbull took to the stage at the UN General Assembly.

There the Prime Minister told the story of Aliir Aliir, a child fleeing war-torn Sudan who was taken in by Australia and went on to become a promising AFL player.

“Earlier this year I was delighted when Aliir debuted for the AFL football team I support, the Sydney Swans,” Turnbull said. “Now 22, Aliir is one of the first Sudanese immigrants to play AFL and has become a role model in our multicultural nation, especially for young people in Sydney.”

Turnbull’s point was that Australia’s tough stance on boat arrivals had enabled us to take in people like Aliir through the conventional UN channels. Through strength came compassion.

As they say in the classics: Good point, well made.

This week another rising Australian sports star born in Sudan also made news in America, NBA rookie Thon Maker.

According to ESPN, there were “concerns” Maker might have been stopped from entering the US from Canada under Donald Trump’s new executive order.

The order temporarily bans the entry of non-Americans from certain troubled Muslim-majority countries to the US. There are seven on the blacklist, Sudan is one.

Complicating things, 19-year-old Maker was born in what is now the six-year-old nation of South Sudan — which is not on the blacklist — but was then part of Sudan, which is.

It is unclear whether Maker has a US green card, which would make him either fine to come in or not fine to come in, according to conflicting advice from the White House chief-of-staff and the White House chief-of-staff.

However it is reported he has dual Australian-Sudanese citizenship, which would make him either fine to come in or not fine to come in, according to conflicting advice from the State Department and the State Department.

As it turned out, Trump signed the order late on Friday afternoon but Maker safely re-entered the country that night. Maybe it was all fake news, maybe the immigration guys hadn’t got the memo, maybe they were just sloppy or maybe they didn’t think the Milwaukee Bucks would be much of a threat in the play-offs.

Aliir Aliir during a Sydney Swans training session. Picture. Phil Hillyard

Emerging Aussie NBA star Thon Maker.

Either way, Malcolm Turnbull, once the international champion of Sudanese refugee sports stars, has been oddly silent. What a difference a Don makes.

Now Turnbull is of course the whipping boy of the darling left because he failed to yell enough at Donald Trump over his Muslim-but-not-really-Muslim ban. And yes, maybe Australia is the only Western country not trolling the US president on Twitter right now.

But, by an incredible coincidence, it also happens that Australia is the only country relying on the US to take our offshore asylum seekers — the most improbable detainee swap since the opening scenes of Die Another Day.

So if we hold our tongue with the Donald it means America takes more refugees and we take more refugees. Isn’t that what the activists want?

And it also means Trump is practising nice, conventional international diplomacy. Isn’t that what the establishment wants?

Not really. For all that the chatterati dictate what Turnbull should say about Trump, they never mention what he should actually do. They just want him to get indignant and outraged, which is, in their defence, all they really want to do themselves.

And of course there is nothing Turnbull can do. Australia matters too much to be able to flip the bird at America, as New Zealand does from time to time, but not enough to be able to pressure it, as some larger European nations attempt to.

But let’s face it, they can’t really do much either. Whatever tut-tutting there is from the UK, it will ultimately do whatever the US wants and since leaving the EU it needs America more than ever. And the rest of Europe, for all its noble ideals, will ultimately fall into line one way or another because they’re scared of both ISIS and Putin and it’s the US who gathers the lion’s share of intelligence and bankrolls NATO.

Indeed, since World War II the West’s relationship with America has never really been about leverage, it has only been about America’s willingness to play nice — or at least to be seen to be playing nice. To create the impression — mostly real, often not — that it is a legitimate moral force empowered by a consensus of like-minded nations.

Trump’s brutalist style has simply exposed the ugly truth behind global politics: That America doesn’t really have to do what anyone else wants and the only true global check on its power is the rise of China’s.

And, needless to say, good luck with that.

So what is it again that the left want Malcolm Turnbull to do? Pour petrol on himself in the Oval Office?

Well, in a sense he already has. If Trump hadn’t agreed to the asylum seeker swap then Turnbull’s leadership would almost certainly have been immolated. His only hope was ever to play nice.

And if the PM does end up on the pyre he’ll be replaced either by a stalking horse for the hard right or Bill Shorten. These days it’s hard to know who’s channeling Trump more.

Would the left prefer that? Perhaps. Having someone local to protest against would at least save thousands in airfares.

But as long as Trump is the democratically elected commander-in-chief of what is still the most powerful nation on earth it is probably a good idea to keep him onside with careful whispers instead of careless ultimatums.

And maybe some courtside seats to Thon’s next game wouldn’t go astray either.