Loony Left has no place in border protection policy

THE safe, fair way to help refugees was stopping the boats.

STUPIDITY is prevalent among some in the loony Left of the ALP who would scrap the offshore processing of asylum-seekers. Sensibly, caucus yesterday defeated the push by West Australian MP Melissa Parke and the former Speaker Anna Burke to withdraw the opposition’s support for the transfer of asylum-seekers to Manus Island or Nauru and to demand closure of the detention centres. Not to be outdone in foolishness, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young wants asylum-seekers processed in Tasmania. Her proposal shows as much respect for the state as the colonial governors who dumped convicts in Van Diemen’s Land. The real danger with the addled thinking of the green-Left is that while purporting to be kind, their proposals would be cruel if enacted. They would draw people-smugglers back into business, endangering more lives in flimsy vessels. Genuine refugees who have for years waited their turn for resettlement in UNHCR camps would be forced to wait even longer as those with the resources to self-select would jump the queues.

Despite the initial scepticism of its critics, the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders has succeeded in stopping the boats for six months. Risking that vital achievement by reversing the key components of the policy would be risking “catastrophe’’, the term Bob Carr used in his Diary of a Foreign Minister. As the former foreign minister wrote, the surge in asylum-seekers represented the “biggest threat to Australian territorial integrity since World War II”.

Initially, Kevin Rudd scored a short-term win in the 24-hour media cycle with his appalling misjudgment in dismantling John Howard’s Pacific Solution in 2008. He and his immigration minister Chris Evans were happy to boast about it. But the folly of their decision became clear as the slow trickle of boats turned into an armada of 800 on Labor’s watch, bringing 50,000 passengers, including many who destroyed their papers, and many economic refugees. The human cost of such failure was the known drownings of 1200 people, and violence and destruction in overcrowded detention centres.

Former Labor immigration minister Brendan O’Connor, a member of the party’s Left, at least showed he has learned a lesson when he spoke against his colleagues’ motion on ABC radio’s AM yesterday: “I believe that offshore processing is a very important element that may need to be used to prevent people — in effect and most essentially — dying at sea.’’ Mr O’Connor’s comments are a sign of how extreme some of his colleagues have become.

Mandatory detention was initially a Labor policy, introduced by then-immigration minister Gerry Hand in the Keating government in 1992. The division in caucus over the issue reflects the balancing act Bill Shorten faces in regaining and holding support in Labor’s traditional heartland in working and middle-class suburbs while mollifying the green-Left in the inner cities. Ms Parke, Ms Burke and Senator Hanson-Young reflect the views of a vocal minority who regard putting out the welcome mat for asylum-seekers as an article of faith. Aspirational working families, in contrast, are staunch supporters of strong border protection.

The compelling importance of stopping the boats has been underlined this week by the preposterous claim launched against the government — that is, against taxpayers — by survivors of the SIEV 221 asylum-boat crash off Christmas Island in 2010. The death toll from the accident was 35 adults and 15 children.

The legal action, as Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday, is shameful and offensive. It insults the courage and generosity of those who risked their lives to save as many asylum-seekers as possible. As reported on December 16, 17 and 18, 2010, the navy and Customs acted swiftly and heroically to pull survivors to safety. Others owed their lives to the frantic efforts of Christmas Island residents who threw life jackets into the treacherous seas.

The surest way to prevent such tragedies is to ensure our generous intake of refugees arrives through an orderly process. After the lessons of the past six years, it beggars belief that even the green-Left would risk a return to porous borders.