Australia’s decision to reject Afghanistan aides is a ‘dog act’

Australia has made a disgraceful decision that will impact some of its biggest supporters in an indefensible “dog act”, argues Joe Hildebrand.

OPINION

The groundbreaking anti-Nazi researcher and thinker Hannah Arendt famously coined the concept of “the banality of evil”.

This is to say that actions which lead to horrendous violence and death are not just perpetuated by pantomime villains and psychopaths, but by pencil-pushers and clock-watchers just doing their jobs.

Acts with unthinkable consequences, in other words, are often committed unthinkingly.

There is no more darkly perfect example of this than the Australian government’s disgraceful and likely deadly decision to deny visas to hundreds of Afghan aides who risked their lives supporting our role in the long war against the Taliban.

It would be tempting to call the decision morally repugnant but no morality appears to have entered the process at all. Instead they have been put at enhanced and imminent risk of death – or indeed already been killed – because of a brainless box-ticking exercise by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Some 50 Afghan aid workers who helped Australian-led projects by the government’s AusAID agency and Australian NGO Save The Children, as well as 100 contracted security guards and their families, have been deemed ineligible by Foreign Minister Marise Payne for the “Locally Engaged Employee Visa” – the very scheme set up to protect them from Taliban retribution.

Their potentially fatal failing was to be hired via an Australian government subcontractor instead of being employed directly by one of the agencies.

A letter sent to one of the workers on behalf of Senator Payne, obtained by The Australian, is a masterclass in cold-blooded bureaucratic process.

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Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne holds a press conference with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has considered your application,” it reads. “Unfortunately, you are not eligible for certification under this visa policy as you were not considered an employee of one of the Australian government agencies identified in the legislative instrument.”

Thus a mindlessly multisyllabic sentence becomes a potential death sentence.

Indeed, Retired Army Major Stuart McCarthy told the paper the rejection letter was an effective “death warrant”, with 15 of the man’s former colleagues already feared murdered.

It is bad enough to be sentenced to death by form letter but the notion that the Foreign Minister herself has actually considered this request and rejected it is a black mark on her moral judgment. It doesn’t say much about her political judgment either.

If putting your life on the line to support Australia in the middle of a warzone isn’t enough to get the most basic level of Australian government protection then what on earth do we stand for as a country?

What indeed was the war in Afghanistan even for, if we are just to abandon those who helped us to the ruthless and bloodthirsty enemy we were once so desperate to stop?

Frankly, it’s a dog act.

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Australian Army soldiers at the range in Camp Qargha, Afghanistan.

Australians understand and respect – often even celebrate – the need for checks and controls in our border protection regime. And the Covid scare has shown that the left love hard borders just as much as the right when it suits them.

But those who have risked everything to help us in a war they never even asked for should be at the front of the queue, not the back. In fact for them there should not be any queue at all – and nor should they have to compete with or bump off other asylum seekers on our extremely tight humanitarian intake program. I have no doubt almost every Australian would agree with that.

That is simply the moral argument, and I hope the minister reflects on it late at night as she retires to her safe and comfortable bed in our safe and comfortable country.

But even in the cold transactional world of geopolitics the decision to deny visas to our wartime aides is nothing short of insane. What assistance could we possibly hope to get from any locals in our next foreign foray when word gets around that we literally left the last lot for dead?

This is what makes the decision even more incomprehensible, even for the most cynical politician. Paul Keating, the great master of political cynicism, famously observed that in the race of life you should always back self-interest because at least you knew it was trying. In this case self-interest is running stone motherless last.

If Payne has an ounce of self-interest, or indeed self-preservation, she should urgently ensure every Afghan aide, security guard and the other 200 translators still waiting are granted immediate entry to Australia and safety from the terrorists we claim to oppose.

These courageous and duty-bound souls have done more to deserve citizenship of this country than most of the people born here and it is vital to our national soul that we give them shelter.

Or we could just lock them out, leave them to die and contemplate just what type of country we are.