Left all at sea and in danger of drowning on refugee debate

The progressive side of politics is wedging itself on cultural issues, doomed like Groundhog Day to repeat the mistakes of the 2001 Tampa crisis election after election. And the progressive media seems determined never to learn and to make the same misjudgments election after election.

It was like an old hustler’s trick this week. Greens leader Richard Di Natale set the wedge trap in an address to the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Tuesday night, saying Australia should be taking 50,000 refugees a year. Never mind the Greens also think the country is struggling to sustain its present population.

Peter Dutton appeared onSky News’ Paul Murray Live that night and said the obvious. The majority of recent refugees were Afghans without jobs and often illiterate, even in their own language. Cue the instant outrage and by Wednesday afternoon The Sydney Morning Herald’s political editor Mark Kenny was already forecasting online that this “Coalition backfire” could cost Malcolm Turnbull dearly. So, after the biggest public policy failure in the nation’s history — Kevin Rudd’s deliberate 2008 decision to unwind the ­Pacific Solution, the arrival of 50,000 people by boat and the drowning of 1200 at sea — the party that reversed the crisis for a second time in a decade and a half is in grave danger of drowning in the moral posturing of its media critics.

“Peter Dutton’s deliberately incendiary claim that refugees are often innumerate and illiterate … reeks of Tampa-like exaggerations,” Kenny wrote. Twitter was alight. Crikey ­political editor Bernard Keane tweeted at lunchtime on Wed­nesday: “See, it’s not the fault of refugees themselves that they’re vile, parasitic scum that prey upon our children.”

Dutton’s office released figures costing the Greens’ new policy. Rachel Baxendale late Wed­nesday morning in The Australian quoted the four-year cost of the Greens’ 50,000 a year intake at $7 billion over four years and Labor’s 27,000 at $2.3bn over the same ­period. The government plans to stick with the existing intake of 13,750, rising to 18,750 in 2018-19 with a one-off intake from Syria of 12,000.

Incredibly, one of the main factual mistakes made by Dutton and singled out by Sarah Martin and Judith Sloan in The Australian on Thursday morning was the line about refugees taking Australian jobs. Several government and ­private research papers proved only 24 per cent got jobs and most remained on welfare. That will be little comfort to Labor in the ­marginal seats of our major cities.

Mark Latham ran hard with the facts on the costs of asylum-­seekers on The Bolt Report on Sky News on Wednesday night and, like David Crowe in his Wednesday night election blog on The Oz website, criticised Labor for mixing up refugees and migrants. It was no good Labor leader Bill Shorten citing the successes of Frank Lowy, Dick Pratt and Victor Chang. They were migrants rather than refugees. Latham also ­produced demographic research showing almost no refugees live in high Greens voting electorates.

But the costs were really irrelevant to Fairfax Media, Guardian Australia and many on the ABC. That is until Leigh Sales on ABC 7.30 demolished Labor’s spokesman Richard Marles on his party’s record in government on this issue. That was some redress after an egregious performance, on The Drum on ABC 24, by Guardian Australia assistant news editor Bridie Jabour, who really could not bring herself to understand ­Dutton’s facts.

Yet again Paul Murray on PMLive nailed it best when he outed Shorten for a whole day of confected outrage during which he never once mentioned Labor was planning to double the government’s annual refugee intake. As The Australian editorialised on Thursday, Labor was trying to talk out of both sides of its mouth: to its Greens-leaning left and its blue-collar outer suburban base.

One fact that seemed overlooked in most places, except by the Prime Minister in Darwin: Australia is already, with Canada, the most generous nation per ­capita in sheltering asylum-seekers.

So halfway through week two of the campaign, the Greens, who destroyed the government of Julia Gillard, had already completely wedged Labor, which can never be as soft on this issue as Di Natale. By Thursday morning Simon Benson in The Daily Telegraph reported 30 Labor candidates had by now dissented from party policy on asylum-seekers. Di Natale had set it all up in week one with talk about his list of demands for supporting Shorten in the event of a minority government on July 2. His appearance on Sky News’ Australian Agenda with Peter van Onselen and Paul Kelly on Sunday morning set up week two.

And the Greens are laying other traps for Labor with their support for the Victorian Labor government’s Safe Schools program and their commitments on Sunday penalty rates. Latham on Jones & Co on Sky News two weeks in a row took aim at Premier Daniel Andrews for Victorian Labor’s support of a program he says is designed to increase gender fluidity. Latham sees Labor being trapped in a world in which the Left rejects the notion of observable truths, but ordinary voters see Safe Schools as an extreme attempt to reconstruct gender.

Shorten tried all week to portray Safe Schools as a simple anti-bullying program, but it seems most unlikely that if parents actually start reading material linked to the Victorian version of Safe Schools, rather than the version watered down by federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham in March, there will be any support for Labor’s position. Especially in outer suburban electorates where Labor voters know the difference between boys and girls and don’t really want their 11-year-olds engaging in transgender role play.

ABC radio’s flagship PM program nailed the Greens wedge on Labor over penalty rates on Wednesday night. “I simply say to the Labor Party this: if you are so committed to penalty rates, protect them in law … if you care about penalty rates, and the Greens do, then join us and protect them in law,” Di Natale said.

Poor Shorten had little option but to commit to abide by the ­decision of the Fair Work Commission set up by the previous Labor government.

The old Tony Abbott show made some memorable appear­ances this week. Abbott on Chris Kenny’s Viewpoint on Sky News Sunday night pledged himself unequivocally to the Turnbull government, promised to serve a full term and virtually volunteered for a ministry after the poll. He defended Peta Credlin’s role as a ­television commentator and the following day she told Andrew Bolt she would not criticise Niki Savva over the bestselling book, The Road to Ruin, about the pair’s downfall. Credlin’s appearances throughout the week were sure- footed and incisive.

Most silly media piece of the week for my money was Kate Ellis last Sunday on the ABC’s Insiders pledging a $40 million Labor commitment towards swimming lessons to make sure all Australian children are safe on the water. Used to be the role of local councils, didn’t it?