Novice Kerryn Phelps is wading into public policy she clearly does not understand

If Labor decides to back Kerryn Phelps and humiliate the government, it will claim a short-term partisan victory but will have weakened our borders — even before taking office.

As a medical doctor Kerryn Phelps would be aware of the Latin maxim primum non nocere - or first do no harm — because it is central to the Hippocratic oath. This is an approach that politics should learn from medicine; too often the political instinct is to act for the sake of being seen to act.

Tragically Phelps, a novice, inexperienced, independent MP, is rushing in on the border protection issue in a way that can only deliver terrible results from a medical and political perspective. If her ill-considered legislation to water down offshore processing is passed she risks infamy as the person who single-handedly unleashes, yet again, the people-smuggling trade.

This is the same trade that was naively reanimated by Labor a decade ago leading to 1200 deaths, creating untold trauma for 50,000 people sent into detention, frustrating the hopes of other refugees, costing more than $10 billion and undermining the integrity of our immigration system. If such an episode of trauma and chaos were to occur again it is hard to imagine how Phelps could live with herself.

Yet she should not be the focus of concern or blame on this issue. Sure, she is behaving recklessly and foolishly — wading into an area of public policy she clearly does not understand, seeking to claim glory for herself even though she has never visited Nauru or Manus Island or been briefed on the issues in Indonesia or Christmas Island — but she is, after all, just one independent MP. This is the attention-seeking we expect from them.

The real problem here is Labor. They have supported her measures in the Senate and could help them pass the House next week. Labor, having unleashed this hell under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, promise they have learned their lessons and can be trusted to maintain tough border protection under Bill Shorten.

Yet they have already supported this proposal that would allow refugees and asylum seekers from Nauru or Manus Island to be brought to the mainland on the say so of just two doctors. If this were implemented we could soon expect every person held offshore to be brought to Australia, where they would remain while taking legal action to stay — just like almost 900 asylum seekers who have done the same already.

This, of course, would effectively be the end of offshore processing. The idea that virtue-signalling politicians could undermine border security in such a fashion just when all the children have been resettled from Nauru and hundreds of refugees are being transferred to the US — in other words just when the whole sorry saga is almost reconciled — is unfathomable.

It is a sickening example of how politicians can take huge risks with the national interest and even the lives of desperate people to score petty political points against their opponents. Labor must know it should side with the government and block Phelps’ proposal.

If it decides to back the independent and humiliate the government, it will claim a short-term partisan victory but will have weakened our borders even before taking office. That would almost certainly do harm to the nation and desperate asylum seekers; and possibly to Labor.