Sacred cows get diced by reality

MALCOLM Fraser has become the ringmaster of the soft-left agenda in this country. Fraser and friends, some resembling political clowns and others linguistic acrobats, use emotional tricks to claim a monopoly over compassion on their pet issues.

They treat views that diverge from theirs as a sure sign of redneck ignorance, right-wing cruelty and dreadful immorality. Along with gay marriage and climate change, an open border immigration policy is one of those totemic leftist issues where believers brook no disagreement.

At the core of the Left's case sits an authoritarian contempt for the Australian people and a refusal to acknowledge the reality that supporting strong borders and showing compassion are not mutually exclusive.

At the annual speech for the Australian Refugee Association last week, Fraser delivered a familiar tirade against "rednecks" in the Australian community. The Labor Party, he said, had decided it would not let the Liberals rip out any more "redneck" votes from the ALP constituency. "Those words were used in a conversation I had with one of Labor's most senior people at the time," Fraser told his audience at Adelaide University's Elder Hall.

The applause that greeted Fraser on Friday night in Adelaide deserves to be countered with a closer look at the lameness of his high-moral horse. That some members of the ALP share Fraser's views about rednecks is hardly a whistle-blowing moment. And remember others, such as headline-chasing lawyer Julian Burnside, remonstrating about a "redneck contingent who would love to push back the boats". Urging Julia Gillard, as new Prime Minister, to take "a principled stance on asylum-seekers", he made it clear that any other view is unprincipled.

Don't for a second think that Fraser and his supporters are talking about some small minority of rednecks, a minority you might find in any country. As a former prime minister, Fraser knows that elections are won and lost in the centre. That most Australians support strong borders and a controlled immigration program means, according to leftist doctrine, that most are rednecks.

The same snooty assertions of moral superiority accompany other sacred cows of the Left. Recently, Fairfax columnist Elizabeth Farrelly denounced some radio broadcasters as "cane toads" for failing to show obsequious deference to the Left's climate change commandments. And just try voicing dissent about gay marriage as a panellist on ABC1's Q&A. One immediately attracts utter befuddlement as if anyone educated beyond the age of 15 cannot possibly be opposed to gay marriage (unless you are some kind of religious zealot).

Labor's former finance minister Lindsay Tanner tried to explain the situation as follows: "The ABC is biased in favour of serious subjects, which by definition tend to attract more attention from educated, progressive audiences." Get it? Only seriously educated people can have views suitable for airing on the national broadcaster. If you are opposed to gay marriage, sceptical about climate change or support border protection, it follows that you are too stupid to have your views aired on the ABC.

For political circus acts, no one beats Labor senator Doug Cameron, who recently described The Australian as the "biggest problem for democracy". You might think that Cameron could conjure up bigger threats to democracy than a newspaper that, unlike the Fairfax press and much of the ABC, chooses to run a diverse range of views and takes an unapologetically centrist editorial position. But as former US presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson once said: "You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad."

Fraser, like Cameron, like Burnside, reflects either an intellectual inability or ideological refusal to acknowledge reality, lest it corrode their deluded claims on compassion. On immigration, the reality is simple enough. An orderly immigration policy controlled by the Australian government is far more compassionate than a policy that effectively contracts out decisions about asylum-seekers to people smugglers.

After the tragedy off Christmas Island last December, Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young tweeted: "Compassion, nothing more to say." The Greens senator has become an advocate for refugee advocates, promoting an industry whose livelihood and profile depend upon a disorderly system of immigration and the arrival of boatpeople.

The complex refugee issue deserves more than Twitter platitudes. Start with some hard-headed facts. According to the UN refugee agency Global Trends 2010 report, 43.7 million people were forcibly displaced by conflict by the end of 2010. UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Alexander Aleinikoff says barely one per cent of the world's refugees (or under 100,000 out of 10 million) are resettled each year. Many wait for years to gain entry to countries such as Australia.

Even the PM acknowledged on Meet The Press on Sunday that there is a "queue" for orderly refugee migration. Every country places a limit on the number of refugees it accepts. Hence, those entering as unauthorised boat arrivals will take the place of others waiting in refugee camps. Policies that encourage this are not compassionate to those waiting in refugee camps. And policies that encourage asylum-seekers to take boats across treacherous seas are not compassionate to them when death is a real threat.

The other realities are also simple enough. Australians will embrace higher levels of immigration if there is an orderly immigration policy. While critics decried John Howard's immigration policy for lacking compassion, the facts point the other way. Immigration increased every year after 1996, rising from 67,100 in 1997 to more than 142,000 in 2006. Relying on evidence, not emotion, the fair-minded would call this a compassionate outcome.

When Labor came to power, there were four unauthorised boat people in detention. There are now almost 7000 in Australia's detention system, including more than 1000 children. In the late 90s, the number of people arriving by unauthorised boat rose from 660 (from 19 boats) in 1996 to more than 5000 (from 43 boats) by 2000. The Howard government's immigration policies reduced that number to 148 (arriving in 5 boats) in 2007. Since then boat arrivals have jumped to 2856 (and 61 boats) in 2009 to 6889 people (and 135 boats) in 2010. The fair-minded would recognise that softer border protection policies have delivered harsher, not more compassionate, outcomes.

There is a strong case for Australia to settle more than the 13,770 refugees we accepted for the 2009-2010 year. The Liberal Party should make that case, understanding that voters will support an increase if the federal government can display it has regained control of the nation's borders and has implemented an orderly system of entry for refugees. That will be a compassionate outcome. Meantime, the Left refuses to notice that such realities are making mince meat of their sacred cows.