Tony Abbott's firm stance on boats a winner

TONY Abbott has been copping it from all sides for his decision not to accede to the government's demands to support legislation to enable the Malaysia Solution to go ahead.

The Left has dismissed any suggestion he is protecting the rights of asylum-seekers and conservative commentators are concerned that by blocking the government's plan he risks opening the door to Labor in opposition doing the same on Nauru.

I think Abbott's belligerence on this issue is correct on all counts: political, humanitarian, ultimate outcomes and procedurally. Some of those consequences are intentional, chief among them the political advantage he secures.

But the unintended consequences are also positive if observers take the view, as I do, that Australia should take responsibility for people heading this way who are seeking asylum.

Onshore processing isn't something to be feared. Not at the numbers arriving during the Howard years. Not at the numbers who have come here since. Not even if the number of people coming here by boat quadrupled.

A senior member of the opposition told me that, in his view, colleagues of mine who have condemned Abbott for blocking the amendments to the Immigration Minister's powers are wrong because "the longer the public debate is dominated by asylum-seeker issues the better off we are". Indeed.

Some readers will weep at such crass political calculations, but they are likely to be accurate.

Because of the perception that John Howard stopped the boats by using Nauru and temporary protection visas (never mind the proven mental anguish they cause), and boats started coming again when both methods were removed by Labor, Abbott is well placed to stand by Nauru as his solution of choice now, whether it would work again or not.

Given the present polling, we are likely to find out: if Labor blocks the decommissioning by a Coalition government of the carbon tax legislation, Abbott would call a double-dissolution election, no doubt wrapping up amendments to allow Nauru to go ahead if necessary.

Anyone who has refined their powers of logic knows that just because Nauru worked once, it doesn't mean it would work again. But it matters not: politically, ongoing asylum-seeker discussions are a win for Abbott.

While Labor likes to claim Abbott is opposed to the Malaysia Solution only because he believes it might work, I am not sure that is altogether true.

Again, thinking politically, he likes the wedge of opposing Malaysia so he can highlight the divisions between Left and Right within the ALP.

And while Abbott is forgoing the opportunity to let Malaysia unravel of its own accord - if people are mistreated there or the 800 figure is reached - the opposition knows that the Left will keep on highlighting the distasteful elements of the plan for some time to come.

Politically it helps Abbott to add a humanitarian string to his asylum bow by blocking Malaysia, even if both sides should hang their heads in shame on this issue.

The most ridiculous thing about the present asylum debate is the way both sides try to claim the high ground on humanitarian grounds by variously arguing that stopping boats is humane because it prevents deaths at sea. The use of those sickening images of people drowning off the coast of Christmas Island has made doing so easier in the superficial world of the asylum-seekers debate.

If you believe stopping boats coming to Australia will not stop asylum-seekers making their way to other destinations instead, boats will continue to sink, people will continue to die. The only difference is that it will be happening farther from our shores, so we don't have to feel as bad about it, right? Wrong.

And even if people in crowded camps don't make the dangerous journey elsewhere, they will remain in those camps, suffering from the various reported problems: rape, disease, persecution, malnourishment and so forth.

But getting back to Abbott's right to reject law changes that would give Chris Bowen god-like powers as Immigration Minister, people should not forget the government was trying to publicly pressure the opposition for support before it had even seen the legislation.

Labor's argument that Abbott is being obstructionist is hollow. No executive government can simply ignore the role of parliament, opposition scrutiny and the checks of the Senate and assume that an opposition will automatically support legislation of this kind.

Finally, there is the notion Julia Gillard keeps referring to that the law changes she wants will also give Abbott the ambit he will need to shift policy to Nauru, were he elected prime minister. Without the changes, Labor claims, Nauru will be as dead as the Malaysia Solution is because of the High Court decision.

That is the advice of the Solicitor-General, from the same advisers who said Malaysia would be good to go in the first place and that plain packaging legislation on cigarette packages was A-OK.

Not that we are being allowed to see such advice, of course. The light shining in on the new parliamentary paradigm isn't as bright as the independents intended it to be. Meanwhile former solicitor-general David Bennett QC thinks that Nauru may well still be an allowable form of offshore processing in the eyes of the High Court.

Abbott is no saint when it comes to asylum-seeker policies. Far from it.

But his opposition to Malaysia is politically good for him; prevents a poor policy being enacted; ends offshore processing, at least for a while; and doesn't necessarily kill off Nauru.

ON a separate note, leadership speculation within the government continues, with suggestions Kevin Rudd is working the numbers. Undoubtedly Rudd would lift Labor's support, at least temporarily. But question marks remain as to whether he has really changed his autocratic ways.

If he had, surely he would have contacted the conspirators who removed him to tell them - even if only through gritted teeth - that he would not institute payback were he to return and that he understood why they felt frustrated during his first stint as leader. That has not happened, not for a single one of them.

This has two important consequences: it shows Rudd hasn't learned or changed enough to make a comeback at this stage and, second, it means self-interest will see factional powerbrokers continue to oppose his return.

If Rudd has changed and is listening to advice around him, his advisers should be telling him to hit the phones hard. Not to the backbench but to the powerbrokers. The rest will naturally follow if he does.

Peter van Onselen is a Winthrop professor at the University of Western Australia.