Labor claims unity ticket with government on boat people, but not on Immigration Minister

THE Coalition’s lack of response to the Manus Island decision raises questions about the competence of Turnbull’s hand-picked ministry.

Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton. Picture: Mick Tsikas / AAP

OPINION

LABOR’S history means it will never win an asylum seeker debate in the broad electorate, but it could make a strong showing in another important area: Competence.

On the eve of his calling the election, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is facing an accusation that the ministry he hand-picked might not be the smartest bunch in the building, even on asylum seekers.

Or particularly on asylum seekers, where Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has made a name, although probably not the one he wanted.

The absence of a coherent response to the PNG Supreme Court’s cease-and-desist order — hardly an undercover operation — on the Manus Island detention centre has allowed voters to ask if the Government knows what it is doing.

If they are not asking this, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is encouraging them to do so.

“For three years the Turnbull Government and his predecessors have been ignoring the train wreck we see right now on Manus Island,” the Opposition said today.

“This Government has incompetently handled the regional processing of refugees and asylum seekers.

“Labor is resolute against the people smugglers. It doesn’t matter about Liberal or Labor we have the same position on opposing the people smugglers.

“But Minister Dutton and Prime Minister Turnbull have created a situation, an almost unworkable situation of semi-permanent, indefinite detention.”

The re-emergence of the issue will not totally please the Opposition.

Every time it features in public discussion Labor cops a hiding. It is almost a reflex position for a significant chunk of the electorate that whatever the problem — and whatever the circumstances — it was Labor’s fault.

Thus Mr Shorten’s defensive assertion that Labor and the Coalition have “the same position on opposing the people smugglers”.

So the Opposition has been grateful that for the past three years the asylum seeker debate has been in a comatose condition, after refugee applicants were pushed well offshore for processing, never to touch mainland soil unless for medical treatment.

It was the policy of Kevin Rudd but the Coalition was credited with its success.

Politically, it worked. Just seven per cent of voters told a March 1 Essential Media survey asylum seeker policy was one of their three most important election issues.

If Mr Shorten’s unity ticket exists, it disappears when it comes to Minister Dutton, who Labor will accuse of mismanaging the policy in which it claims proprietorial rights.

And by attacking Mr Dutton’s abilities, it will be hoping to devalue the competence rating of Prime Minister Turnbull himself.

When he took the Liberal leadership last September, 70 per cent of voters told Essential Mr Turnbull was a capable leader. By March this had fallen to 64 per cent.

Peter Dutton is not easily shaken by criticism, even when 46 per cent of more than 1000 doctors surveyed by Australian Doctor magazine voted him the worst Health Minister in 35 years.

He has achieved a singular prominence as Immigration Minister, not least by spending millions to get Cambodia to take in refugees Australia had placed on Nauru — a total of four.

He also showed an unusual skill when he mistakenly sent a text to a woman reporter in which he called her a “mad f**king witch”.

Then there was the time he accused Amnesty International of a “ideological attack” on his policy without nominating which bits of the Amnesty report were so suspect.

He said Australia had not paid a boat crew to turn around to Indonesia, when in fact they had been paid. And the Prime Minister did not appoint him to cabinet’s national security committee, which by usual practice always includes the Immigration Minister.

Peter Dutton is not Malcolm Turnbull. But he could be the counter argument to the Prime Minister’s appeal for voters to trust his management abilities.