Federal election 2016: Border control ‘secures multiculturalism’

PM says tough border protection is essential to sustain Australia as the most successful multicultural nation on earth.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. ‘If you don’t have strong ­border protection then people lose faith.’

Putting his personal stamp on asylum-seeker boat policy, Malcolm Turnbull says tough border protection is essential to guarantee and sustain Australia as the most successful multicultural nation on earth.

In his election-eve interview with The Australian, Mr Turnbull said his prime ministership was based “absolutely” on the nexus between strong border controls and a confident, multicultural ­society.

He has gone far beyond the stance of his predecessor, Tony Abbott, who campaigned on “stopping the boats” and delivered, by offering a progressive view of the benefits arising from safe borders and strong law and order.

“If you don’t have strong ­border protection then people lose faith in the immigration system and the whole Australian multicultural project is threat­ened,” Mr Turnbull said.

The Prime Minister said Britain’s vote to leave the EU was a vindication of Australia’s border protection.

He warned that much of ­Brexit’s support was because of ­“anxiety over immigration” and Britain’s inability to secure its borders. Australia, by contrast, had the agencies and policies to ­reassure the public.

“It is critical that Australians believe with good reason that their government controls the ­immigration system and every element of it, the skills-based system, the family reunion channel and the refugee channel,” Mr Turnbull said.

“Australians have to know their government determines who comes to Australia, how long they can stay and the terms on which they can stay. Now this is critical. It is one of the points every Liberal leader has made. John Howard has made it and I make it today.

“Multiculturalism is threatened by any abandonment of strong border protection.

“You have to believe your government controls law and order. And law and order starts at the border.”

Mr Turnbull’s view of a “very clear nexus” between border security and successful multiculturalism seeks reconciliation between right-wing “stop the boats” politics and left-wing champions of multiculturalism.

Offering an expansive view of law and order — a national security system with police, intelligence and a range of agencies — Mr Turnbull insisted that success on the security front was tied to success on the multicultural front.

“Compare our situation with Europe, where you have trans-national terrorism — terrorists are able to move across borders, you don’t have an FBI or ASIO that has pan-European authority, and I mean real authority,” he said.

“In the UK, the people, or a large per cent of people, felt they had lost control of their borders, and with freedom of movement in Europe the British government could not restrict the entry of people from other parts of Europe into the UK.

“Europe had a double problem. First, there was the porosity of Europe’s borders to people arriving from the Middle East seeking asylum. We’ve seen the consequences of that. That’s the question of border control and the lack of it.

“Then there was internal movement. For all practical purposes, you don’t have internal borders. That was part of the objective of the EU. And that has caused a lot of anxiety in Britain. The point is that having a strong border control policy is absolutely critical. I assert, and no one has contradicted me, that we are the most successful multicultural society in the world.”

Mr Turnbull said the task of leadership was to confront problems and explain issues to the public. He was sure that “a very big benefit” from strong border controls was the sense of reassurance it engendered and this was tied to the confidence around multiculturalism and immigration.

Asked about Islamist terrorism, he said: “We have a comprehensive, well resourced, very capable, national security system with police, intelligence and other agencies. We have provided them with substantial additional resources. They work very closely with other countries, particularly with our Five Eyes partners, and that international collaboration is intensifying.”