Relaxing border controls leads to misery and death

The Queensland town of Biloela, in the shire of Banana, has taken a young migrant family into its heart. Sri Lankans Priya Nadarasa and Nadesalingam Murugappan, who arrived by boat separately as Tamil asylum-seekers in 2012 and 2013, had been living under temporary visas in the town for several years. They have two Australian-born children, Kopika, 4, and Tharunicaa, 2, and have made a life under difficult circumstances. The parents’ claims to asylum have been rejected; they have exhausted appeals, which went as far as the High Court, and were to be deported to Sri Lanka. The family, in detention since March last year, is on Christmas Island, having won a last-minute Federal Court injunction to stay until Wednesday.

The family’s plight was championed at weekend rallies around the country, drawing in activists on the left who want open borders and unlikely people from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Alan Jones and Barnaby Joyce asked the Morrison government to let the family stay. The Banana Shire mayor says Biloela is praying for them.

MORE: Greg Sheridan — Asylum family’s plight presents a dilemma of biblical proportions | Geoff Chambers — Has Labor learnt nothing? | Inquirer — No exceptions any more

At a Sydney rally, opposition home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally called on Scott Morrison to live by his Christian faith in the manner of the Good Samaritan parable. So now Labor is trying to gospel-shame the Prime Minister. Anthony Albanese has asked the government to use discretion and to show compassion to the family.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton dismissed the calls for intervention. He claimed it was Labor who put the family into detention. During his last days in office in 2013, Kevin Rudd declared no refugee who arrived by boat would be settled in Australia and would instead go to a third country. Mr Dutton said the couple was found not to be refugees under the UN definition and would have to go home: “They never accepted that decision.” Their claims have been assessed through courts and tribunals for years. The Immigration Assessment Authority did not accept Priya was ever perceived by Sri Lankan authorities to have any involvement with the Tamil Tigers or face harm if she was to return to her home country; it rejected her claim that Nadesalingam’s supposed links to the Tigers would be of concern to Sri Lankan authorities.

In any case, since the couple arrived in Australia, the security situation in Sri Lanka has changed for the better. Wisely, Mr Morrison has refused to intervene. Having served as immigration minister in the Abbott government, he said he could not in “good conscience” allow the family to stay. To intervene would be to send the wrong message to people-smugglers, who exploit vulnerable people. “I know what happens when people think it’s OK to make an exception here or there,” he said. “I remember what happened. I remember the deaths.” The Opposition Leader says allowing the family to stay would not undermine our border policy. Mr Albanese has good intentions and may be reflecting an opinion at large in the community, but the thinking is wrong and dangerous.

After border controls were relaxed by the Rudd government in 2008, more than 50,000 asylum-seekers arrived on 800 boats. Labor believed it was putting a more “humane” border policy in place after the Howard government’s tough but effective detention regime known as the Pacific Solution. Yet Labor’s softer border policy was fiscally reckless and catastrophic in human terms: 1200 people lost their lives at sea trying to reach our shores. As immigration minister, Mr Morrison presided over the successful Operation Sovereign Borders. The policy is built on boat turnbacks and offshore processing — effectively a “ring of steel”, hindering people-smugglers and their illicit, evil trade. It stopped the boats.

Any perception of policy weakness, or a regime change, can quickly lead to a new crisis in our northern waters. As we reported on Monday, Australian Border Force officials are facing a surge of people-smuggling activity from Sri Lanka. Since May, the ABF has intercepted six vessels carrying suspected illegal immigrants. Since 2013, 12 vessels from Sri Lanka have been stopped from reaching Australia; 204 people have been returned to the South Asian country alone. Mr Dutton describes this renewed activity as “concerning”. After the government was defeated in February in the lower house on the so-called “Medivac” laws, allowing doctors to decide which detainees could come to this country for medical treatment, there were fears of an upsurge in people-smuggling.

Mr Morrison went to the May election pledging to ditch the laws; in July, the Coalition’s repeal bill passed the House of Representatives and was sent to a Senate committee, which is not due to report until October 18. The government can call on debate for a bill at any time and is likely to bring on a vote when parliament resumes next week. For the sake of stronger borders and to avoid more deaths at sea, crossbench senators should back the Coalition’s Medivac repeal.

Despite the public outcry, the Tamil family’s claims have received a fair hearing; those verdicts have not been on whether they are good people or able to integrate into our society or even if they deserve a go as economic migrants. The question is: are they refugees? The emphatic answer is no. Each year we accept 18,750 refugees. As Mr Dutton said of the cap, “we take those most in need”. It may be of no solace to the family, but Mr Morrison invited them to make an application through proper channels to return here as migrants. Like the Prime Minister, many Australians hope that they do.