Anthony Albanese was too caught up in the glow of his election victory to realise taking advice from Jacinda Ardern to soften Australia’s immigration rules and go soft on criminals would not end well.
Actions speak louder than words when it comes to testing Albanese’s pre-election rhetoric that there would not be a cigarette paper’s difference between Labor and the Coalition on border protection and national security.
Andrew Giles, a left-wing comrade who represented refugees stranded aboard the MV Tampa and led the fight alongside Albanese at the 2015 ALP national conference to reject the Coalition’s boat turnback policy, was never the right pick as Immigration Minister.
The Prime Minister’s decision to appoint Giles to immigration and Clare O’Neil as Home Affairs Minister was the easy option that is coming back to haunt Albanese.
In addition to abolishing temporary protection visas, Labor moved quickly to placate Ardern, who had set up a faux fight with Scott Morrison over Australia deporting hardened criminals back across the ditch.
“The New Zealand and Australia relationship is being tested. We have a simple request – send back Kiwis. Genuine Kiwis. Do not deport your people and your problems. We will continue to maintain rights for Australians in New Zealand. We do not wish to have a race to the bottom,” Ardern, standing alongside Morrison at Kirribilli, said.
Ardern, a darling of the global left, would ultimately tank domestically, as her wellbeing budgets failed to address a crippling housing crisis and crime rates soared.
Albanese, no doubt delighted by Ardern publicly embarrassing Morrison, moved swiftly to grant the New Zealand prime minister’s wishes.
While Albanese publicly declared that Section 501 “would be maintained”, Giles in January last year quietly issued a ministerial direction softening character test powers used by the Coalition to deport bikies, drug dealers, pedophiles and murderers.
Despite domestic migration pressures, congestion and housing shortages, the Albanese government also opened the books for 350,000 Kiwis to become Australian citizens. The decision coincided with a record number of New Zealanders leaving their country searching for work amid soaring unemployment. Australia is now estimated to be gaining around 2000 more New Zealanders every month.
If the government keeps going the way it is and releasing illegal foreigners from detention or allowing them to live in the community, there won’t be any need to keep open immigration centres in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory.
Asked last week if he was considering a ministerial reshuffle, Albanese left the door wide open: “If we are re-elected, or perhaps even before, you make some changes; inevitably, that occurs.”
Giles, who has taken the bullets for his factional chieftain, may yet win a pre-election reprieve from Labor’s poisoned chalice.
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