We still need to decide who comes here, and how

Labor senator Kristina Keneally has not given support for nation­al security legislation due to be debated in the Senate.

The government will put a foreign fighters bill before the Senate this week in a bid to stop terrorists returni­ng to the country. The news came as New Zealand Prime Ministe­r Jacinda Ardern renewed criticism of Australia’s tough border­ security policy. Her counterparts in the Australian Labor Party have signalled they could oppose new anti-terrorism laws.

Labor senator Kristina Keneally has not given support for nation­al security legislation due to be debated in the Senate.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligenc­e and Security, Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, told The Weekend Australian: “There is an operational imperative to have this bill passed.” However, Labor is equivocating about the reform. It has a record of blocking reforms aimed at securing borders and strengthening national security.

Many left-wing parties continue to criticise strong border securi­ty policy. Last week, Ardern admonished the Australian govern­ment for sending Kiwi criminals home. Under Australian law, a foreign national convicted of an offence with at least a 12-month jail term can be deported.

In January, Home Affairs Ministe­r Peter Dutton defended the deportation of about 800 non-citizen criminals the previous year. About 500 had committed violent crimes. He stressed the obvious: it is the Australian government’s job is to keep Australian citizens safe.

About 100 deportees were convicted pedophiles. Fifty-three were guilty of domestic violence. A total of 125 committed an assault and 56 were armed robbers. Thirteen were convicted murderers.

Dutton introduced stronger laws in 2014, with a marked increas­e in deportations. Under Labor, from 2009-2013, 582 visas were cancelled on character grounds. Since 2014, the Coalition has cancelled 4150 visas.

Ardern approaches border securit­y like many left-wing politic­ians in Western countries. She exhorts laxity as an inherent virtue in relation to border policy, but fails to explain how welcoming people who reject liberty and formal­ equality demonstrates compassion to free-world citizens.

Her expectation that another country should deal with New Zealand criminals is also typical of open-border backers, who commonly shift the blame for failed citiz­ens from their countries and communities of origin to the West.

When immigrants in Western countries took up arms to fight for Islamic State, the left blamed social­ exclusion. When it was reveale­d soldiers of jihad were from middle-class families, the left blamed Islamophobia.

When journ­alists revealed there was no evidence to support the belief that foreign fighters had been victim­ised in the West, apologists called them “homegrown”.

At every step, leftists in the media and academia found a way to diminish Islamists’ responsibility for the emergence of Islamic State and shift the blame to the free world.

The public woke up to the real threat of transnational jihad and weak borders long before the polit­ical-media class. They voted to ­secure borders, tighten immigra­tion criteria and reform national security laws to prevent people who reject the Western way of life being granted visas.

Australia enjoys unofficial par­iah status among globalists for ­implementing offshore detention and turning back boats. The UN, Amnesty International and Medecins Sans Frontiers condemned Operation Sovereign Borders.

But Australian voters care little for the distant chorus of tut-tutting globalist elites. They have re-elect­ed the government committed to doing whatever it takes to keep Australians safe.

Ardern must know she is on a hiding to nothing when she criticises Australian border security. Yet she persists in her futile endeavou­r to shame the government into keeping Kiwi criminals.

Like many leftists, Ardern exhorts a compassionate approach to borders without quantifying the benefits to law-abiding citizens. In 2017, she joined globalists in condemn­ing Australia’s system of offshore detention. Ahead of the East Asia Summit, she offered to take asylum-seekers from Australia’s offshore immigration centres, claiming “harm is being done.”

She said: “I see the human face of this and I see the need and the role New Zealand needs to play. I think it’s clear that we don’t see what’s happening there as acceptable, that’s why the offer’s there.”

Since then, Ardern has adopted a less self-righteous approach to the asylum-seeker issue. Earlier this year, The Courier-Mail newspaper in Brisbane reported that, during Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership, senior departmental officials from New Zealand told Australian counterparts that NZ was not willing to resettle single men on Manus Island who were seeking asylum.

The Ardern government put spin on the leaked information. A spokeswoman said: “Our consistent position is a preference (for) or a prioritising of women and children, so that does not exclude men.”

There is a reason that Western governments might not favour the mass intake of men from Islamist states.

In the 21st century, the vast majority of terror­ist attacks on Westerners have been committed by Islamists, many of whom were first- or second­-generation immig­rants. And there is increasing evidence of sexual assault by young migrants from cultures with deeply ingrained hostility towards Western women.

In Britain, sex-trafficking rings organised by men from Islamic countries and communities have been uncovered, underage girls among their thousands of victims.

Last year, seven men from British Pakistani backgrounds were convicted of rapes in relation to the Rotherham sex abuse scandal. In Newcastle, 17 men and one woman were convicted for offences relating to sexual exploitation. The perpetrators came mostly from ethnic minority backgrounds. One told a female ticket inspector: “All white women are only good for one thing — for men like me to f..k and use like trash.’’

Migrant crimes are often omitted from border security conversations, but they should be brought to bear on consideration of who we let into Australia. As John Howard said: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”