Labor's border protection contortions satisfy chattering classes, but most voters are more logical

Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten during Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House last week.

No political issue exposes the sanctimony of the green left and their lack of intellectual integrity more keenly than border protection. Facts surrender to feelings, reality is made subservient to fantasy and political judgment eschews experience in favour of a John Lennon Imagine version of world affairs.

The IPSOS opinion poll turnaround which has seen Labor’s primary vote collapse and the Coalition’s recover is only a single sample yet to be confirmed by other polls such as the reliable Newspoll let alone tested over a series across some weeks. Yet it was entirely predictable and absolutely what anybody with any understanding of the border protection issue and the contemporary politics would have expected.

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The government has been improving its performance across a range of issues and the polls will have been tightening anyway. But Labor’s mistake on borders is epic and obvious.

Yet if you wanted evidence of the delusion still exhibited by the Left on this issue you only had to look at the Sydney Morning Herald’s editorial today. It suggested the government’s loss of the vote in parliament on border protection was “ostensibly a disaster for Prime Minister Scott Morrison” and that “voters appear to have taken a different message from the chaotic events” in Canberra.

.@chriskkenny: People are expressing surprise about the sudden tightening in the polls in the wake of Labor’s decision on border protection. Labor now is blaming it ... on a scare campaign.

MORE: https://t.co/ykweMevBOK #thekennyreport pic.twitter.com/QBTbfISdSy

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) February 18, 2019

Say what? Voters were never going to be exercised by the insider debate about parliamentary gamesmanship orchestrated by Greens and Independents — including Liberal turncoat Julia Banks — and amplified by Labor. What matters to the mainstream is action; and Labor acted to weaken our border security.

Voters know Labor have done this before. And voters know Labor promised not to do it again. Yet they just did it from opposition — imagine what they would do in government.

This is so obvious it astounds me that Labor went down this path. A week ago these potential repercussions were clear which is why I suggested that: “To prove he has the strength to lead this country, Shorten should forget amendments, admit his error, and oppose this Bill.”

He took a wild punt, driven by opponents of offshore processing and a desire to embarrass the government. In one fell swoop he damaged the national interest and shot himself in the foot.

The policy imperatives here are so obvious it almost insults readers to recount them but after all the chaos and tragedy of our border security problems it is inherently reckless to weaken our border protection measures. Voters know this viscerally; they have consistently shown that they understand the direct connection between running a cohesive and generous immigration nation and having a system of order and integrity.

It is only politicians, activists and journalists of the Left or so-called progressive cohort that have failed to grasp this. They oppose offshore processing, temporary protection visas and, of course, for years, stridently opposed boat turnbacks. In other words, they promote no measures to combat people-smuggling; they advocate open borders.

Mainstream voters know in their bones that such an approach not only undermines our immigration system but renders our borders meaningless, diminishing our sovereignty. There is no surprise that it is a hot button politically.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his frontbench during Question Time. Picture: Gary Ramage

Labor was always going to be attacked in the campaign as a risk on borders — a charge they inexplicably escaped in the last campaign. But it was going to be difficult for the Coalition to make the change stick while Labor held firm.

In 2013 Kevin Rudd said none of the refugees send to Manus Island or Nauru would ever come to Australia. Now Shorten has backed laws making it easier for them to come here. Labor has broken with its own border policies so questions linger about how it would stick by Coalition practices.

That Herald editorial suggested: “There is no reason why the ALP cannot face down the challenge from people smugglers just as resolutely as the Coalition.” This ignores Labor’s record and its opposition to temporary protection visas, and the current loosening of offshore processing rules.

The Herald then said: “the policy of turning back the boats was launched in the dying days of the Rudd-Gillard government.” This is plain wrong. Labor opposed turnbacks, declared they would not work and even suggested they risked “conflict” with Indonesia.

Labor has never turned a boat back, many of its leading figures are on the record opposing the tactic and Shorten now says this will be the mainstay of his border protection settings. These contortions might satisfy members of the chattering classes who are willing to twist logic to suit their virtue-signalling aims. But most voters are a little more logical.

The sensitivity on these issues is not unique to this country. The Brexit issue in the UK, border wall debate in the US and rising nationalist backlashes across Europe are all driven by the same mainstream support for borders, concern about uncontrolled migration and respect for sovereignty.

Leftist activists are completely wrong to dismiss public concerns as the result of scare campaigns or merely as rhetorical or partisan reactions — this is all about serious policy ramifications. Voters know the real life importance of 50,000 arrivals, 800 boats, $16 billion and 1200 needless deaths.