Is Labor wavering on borders?

Peter Dutton is correct. Any softening of the Coalition’s hardline border protection regime, including offshore processing and detention, would open the floodgates to another wave of asylum-seekers chancing their lives to make it to Australia by boat. The interception of a boat carrying 131 Sri Lankans in Malaysia, bound for Australia or New Zealand, confirms people-smuggling has not gone away; Operation Sovereign Borders is keeping it at bay. Any watering down would risk a repeat of the Rudd-Gillard years when 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats and 1200 people drowned.

Whatever pressures Bill Shorten faces from his party’s left flank, he has shown Labor is not to be trusted on this issue. In November, the Opposition Leader said the government should consider accepting New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s offer to resettle 150 refugees from Manus Island. He claimed Malcolm Turnbull should “have the conversation and see if we can make this proposal work”. It would work for the criminals who control people-smuggling rackets, who realise that travellers who arrive in New Zealand immediately qualify for Australian visas. It would be people-smugglers’ strongest selling point since the Rudd government dismantled John Howard’s Pacific Solution in 2008.

The irresponsibility of some ALP members wanting asylum-seekers to be shifted out of detention after 30 days is a sign of soft heads, not soft hearts. So is the push by Labor activists to challenge the party’s support for boat turnbacks at the national conference in July. Such changes would see Australian detention centres again being overcrowded for years on end. It could endanger national security. Ms Ardern says New Zealand is no easy target as people-smugglers would face heavy penalties if they entered its waters. People-smugglers do not care if their underpaid underlings and leaky tubs are impounded. Their sole interest is pocketing thousands of dollars from each passenger before they set sail. New Zealand has nothing like Operation Sovereign Borders in place. Australia’s policy is New Zealand’s best defence, as well as ours.