ALP call to resist ‘fear’ over refugees

The federal opposition believes public sentiment about asylum-seekers and border protection is shifting.

Scullin MP Andrew Giles. Picture: Josie Hayden

Opposition multicultural affairs spokesman Andrew Giles has flagged a shift from Bill Shorten’s strategy of neutralising the issue of asylum-seekers and border protection, declaring Labor needs to “prevail over the politics of fear”.

The Victorian Socialist Left MP, who is also Labor’s assistant immigration spokesman, said he believed public sentiment was shifting on the issue because it was the first election since 2001 that did not feature the “demonisation of asylum-seekers”.

Mr Giles said it should be Labor’s job to call out the “dog-whistling rhetoric” and “lies” of the government on refugees and border protection.

With the Morrison government attempting to repeal the medivac legislation in parliament next month, Mr Giles said people expected more from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton than “fearmongering”.

“I believe that the debate over the medivac legislation showed that this is an area where Australians are feeling ‘conflict fatigue’ — where they expect more from politicians than slogans and fearmongering,” Mr Giles said in a speech last night to socialist think tank Australian Fabians.

“We have to give Australia’s hopeful side a fair chance to ­prevail over the politics of fear and division.

“There’s another way in which we might change the politics of our asylum debate. It’s through better remembering that this is about people’s lives. And having more confidence in the empathy and ­decency of Australians.”

Mr Giles was chosen by ­Anthony Albanese to assist Krist­ina Keneally in the immigration portfolio despite being a former asylum-seeker lawyer and ­opponent of boat turnbacks.

The frontbencher said that, while some of his views had changed on processing asylum-seekers, his values continued in the vein of the “light on the hill” championed by Labor legend Ben Chifley.

“Let us remember that the light on the hill, our movement of change’s core mission, doesn’t stop shining at our border. Our objective is to do good anywhere we may lend a helping hand,” Mr Giles said. “Ben Chifley was right then and he’s right now.”

Immigration Minister David Coleman said the government fixed the “appalling mess that Labor created in immigration”.

“Labor’s complete lack of control of the migration system was unforgivable and had devastating consequences,” Mr Coleman said.

“We are the greatest migrant nation in the world and part of being a great migrant nation is having an orderly, sovereign and fair system. Under Labor, all three of these essential elements were lost.

“We welcome people from all parts of the world and we’ll continue to back migrants who build on our Australian success story.”