Reckless and toxic: left hurls abuse amid Labor’s weakness on borders
We are experiencing one of the most testing and divisive periods in our multicultural history, and the Prime Minister is rudderless, swept along by events rather than leading.
On national security, immigration and social cohesion, the Albanese Labor government is all at sea. We are experiencing one of the most testing and divisive periods in our multicultural history, and the Prime Minister is rudderless, swept along by events rather than leading.
Record immigration during a housing and cost-of-living crisis, hundreds of criminal non-citizens set free and reoffending, people-smuggling boats arriving on the mainland, anti-Jewish hate speech rampant and unprosecuted in our cities, more than 1300 migrants welcomed from Gaza with cursory security checks, and the director-general of ASIO saying it is OK if these new arrivals support Hamas.
Yet Anthony Albanese is not exercised, his standard approach seems to be hands-off – just let the bureaucrats manage all of this – and he attacks Peter Dutton for sowing “fear” and “division”.
Teal MP Zali Steggall screams “racist” at Dutton, while Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young calls him “nasty” and Labor Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek accuses him of trying to “win votes by frightening” people.
We have heard it all before; every time Labor is caught out for weakness on border protection, national security or immigration, the green left confects charges of racism, xenophobia and division.
Ask John Howard. Ask Philip Ruddock. Ask Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. Even as the falsehoods pushed by Labor and the leftist media are exposed – remember people-smuggling was all about “push factors”, and Nauru was a hellhole, and turning back boats was impossible and would trigger “conflict” with Indonesia – they refuse to learn.
They have never apologised for those mistakes, even as they have mimicked Coalition policies. And now they are again in denial about immigration and security weakness, directing vile abuse at anyone who calls them out.
It is almost inconceivable that we are heading down this path again. Even if they can never grasp the policy imperative of border security, surely the left should comprehend the insulting and self-defeating politics at play – their entire attack is based on the premise that mainstream voters are nasty or racist enough to make “dog-whistling” worthwhile.
Imagine if Labor and the Greens were as robust in defending the integrity of our immigration program as they are in attacking the Coalition. Imagine if they had as much disdain for people-smugglers and terrorist sympathisers as they do for right-of-centre politicians. Imagine if they accepted that people of good heart and fair mind can value a sovereign responsibility to secure borders, protect citizens and regulate immigration.
In what might well have been Dutton’s Howard moment (“We will decide who comes to this country and the manner in which they come”), the Opposition Leader has zeroed in on the risk of taking migrants from Hamas-controlled Gaza without proper security checks during a sickening war started and continued by Hamas.
“I don’t think people should be coming in from that war zone at all, at the moment,” Dutton said on Wednesday. “It’s not prudent to do so and I think it puts our national security at risk.”
Given what we know about how this influx has been managed, the Opposition Leader’s position seems sensible, even obligatory.
Just last weekend ASIO director-general Mike Burgess admitted Hamas sympathisers might have been allowed in. “If it’s just rhetorical support, and they don’t have an ideology or support for a violent extremism ideology, then that’s not a problem,” Burgess told ABC Insiders on Sunday.
Hamas is a radical Islamist terrorist organisation hellbent on the annihilation of Israel and Jews, it is also a proscribed terrorist entity around the world and in Australia, and the idea anyone could support Hamas without supporting its ideology presents an unfathomable distinction.
Burgess also made it clear that not every one of the almost 3000 Gazans offered visas have been subjected to ASIO security checks. This is a point Albanese fudged all week, and on Thursday he was caught out with a devastatingly obvious fudge aimed at misleading not just the parliament but the nation.
On the ABC Burgess had said, “If they have been issued with a visa, they’ve gone through the process, part of the process is, where criteria are hit, they’re referred to my organisation and ASIO does its thing.”
This made it clear that ASIO referrals occurred only if “criteria” were hit.
In Question Time five days later Albanese quoted Burgess as saying: “If they have been issued with a visa, they’ve gone through the process, they’re referred to my organisation and ASIO does its thing.” The Prime Minister omitted the key phrase and, even when this was pointed out by Dutton within minutes, he refused to apologise or correct the record.
This is more than an insider’s word game. This is a devastating blow against Albanese’s authority and integrity on national security matters.
The Prime Minister is far more imaginative and proactive in this political defence than he and his ministers have been in running the policy. All the way along they have taken a passive stance, routinely expressing confidence in the security agencies as if they have outsourced government and national security.
It is government by spectating, and it has become an Albanese hallmark. The Prime Minister exudes leadership like Donald Trump exudes humility, which is unfortunate given right now the nation needs a guiding light for social cohesion.
Albanese and his new Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Tony Burke are treating the Gaza refugees like tourists from a well-governed nation rather than refugees from a war-torn zone where a terrorist outfit is popularly supported and provides the only form of authority.
No third-country processing, no individual face-to-face security checks, no temporary protection or safe-haven visas; unlike previous intakes from conflict zones, it seems the government could not be bothered making special arrangements for unique circumstances.
Burke said all applicants were checked against an ASIO watch list, which obviously is inadequate. The applicants come from a territory where Hamas was elected to power and, according to surveys, still holds majority support even after it orchestrated the October 7 atrocity, triggering the brutal war with Israel.
Albanese uses comments from Burgess about the need to temper public debate to chastise Dutton. Yet this point is where the Prime Minister is vulnerable and, in my view, culpable.
Since October 7 last year we have seen mobs chanting “gas the Jews” – or, as the NSW police would have it, “where’s the Jews” – others shouting joyfully and triumphantly about the slaughter of innocent Israelis, and still others calling for the destruction of Israel to create a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea”.
As a result of all this hate speech there have been no prosecutions and only lukewarm admonition from authorities.
This has been a clear failure by federal and state governments, letting anti-Semitism off the leash and enabling ugly ruptures between communities. Yet Albanese tells his political opponents to “lower the temperature” of public debate.
In these circumstances it is reckless to welcome into this country, without individual security checks, people from Gaza who, according to the ASIO boss, can legitimately express rhetorical support for Hamas.
When social cohesion is being threatened by levels of open Jew hatred that we have never seen before, governments have a duty to act with caution.
The opposition is reluctant to criticise Burgess. Yet his role must be under scrutiny after his acceptance of “rhetorical support” for Hamas and his claim a week earlier that Islamophobia presented a threat “almost equal” to anti-Semitism.
Politicians and authorities should be openly discussing the threat of Islamist extremism and joining with Muslim communities to combat it.
Instead, they infantilise those communities and seek to mollify any discontent while seeking to divert attention or create false equivalence – in the end this approach could generate more resentment than tackling the issues head-on.
When anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic protests and rhetoric is tolerated but Islamist extremism is never mentioned, public trust can be lost.
At the media event to increase the terror threat level last week Burgess did not mention Islamist extremism once but he did mention Islamophobia.
All this is unfolding when our immigration intake has reached a new record level, adding the population of Tasmania last year. Almost one-third of all Australians now were born overseas.
Public confidence in our immigration system and national security is more important than ever. And social cohesion is vital.
This means calling out extreme rhetoric or behaviour on all sides. And placing our domestic security ahead of all other considerations.
Much of this debate will be seen through the prism of partisan politics. But it is much more important than that; it is about preserving our multi-ethnic success story and protecting our communities from imported hatreds.
Still, when it comes to politics it is all downside for Labor. They are exposed in a traditional area of weakness, so they are failing to type.
And it plays into Dutton’s strongest suit. They have ridiculed him for years as a hard man and now they have created a situation where a hard man will be needed.
The vicious calls of “racism” and Islamophobia from the teal independents could cost them dearly, especially in Wentworth and Goldstein where there are significant Jewish populations. It is toxic to throw this slur around, and it is pretty stupid, too, given Gaza refugees are refused entry to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and almost everywhere else.
For Dutton the logic is simple: “Could you imagine if we were proposing to bring people in who were sympathetic to another listed terrorist organisation, like al-Qa’ida or ISIL or ISIS? It’s completely unacceptable. And the government’s trying to patch this up, but they are putting our country at risk.
“We can take people in a measured, responsible way, that’s not what they’ve done.”
Hard to argue with that, you just need the toughness to implement it.
Strength on borders and security tends to be a non-negotiable with voters. Not because they are racist or xenophobic but because they are smart. Labor, the Greens and the teals should know that.
But once more they have lost sight of it in a frenzy of self-defeating moral superiority.
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