Bill rolls dice on our borders

In October 2009, the Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking rescued 78 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers but was denied landfall in Indonesia. The Rudd government was paralysed. It took a month to reach agreement with Indonesia to process them for resettlement in other countries. This incident contributed to Kevin Rudd’s downfall the following year.

Labor’s polling and focus group research at the time revealed growing voter anxiety about the increase in asylum-seekers coming to Australia.

In June 2010, Julia Gillard wrote an incendiary email to Rudd stating that “the issue of asylum-seekers” was “an enormous reason” why the government was tanking in the polls. This email was revealed in my book Rudd, Gillard and Beyond (Penguin), published in 2014.

Gillard’s email argued that the handling of asylum-seeker issues had resulted in a “loss of control of the borders” and was “feeding into a narrative of a government that is incompetent and out of control”. She toppled Rudd three days later.

Labor’s support for changes to medical evacuations from Nauru and Manus Island has caused renewed anxiety in party ranks. Several frontbenchers and backbenchers are nervous about the Coalition’s mounting scare campaign reminding voters of the horrors of the Rudd-Gillard government’s disastrous handling of border protection.

Opposition immigration and border protection spokesman Shayne Neumann wanted to maintain the minister’s ultimate authority to reject transfers on broad character grounds. Defence spokesman Richard Marles also insisted that the minister must have the final say.

Instead, Labor supported changes that allow the minister to be overruled by an independent medical panel on health grounds. Some Labor MPs blame Senate opposition leader Penny Wong and insist the party should never have voted for the original bill in the Senate last year. Some Labor MPs thought the bill would be defeated in the house anyway.

Scott Morrison has now drawn a clear battle line on border protection that seems to be paying a dividend in the latest Ipsos poll. He says that if any boats arrive it will be because of Bill Shorten. If any refugees are evacuated to Christmas Island or to the Australian mainland, it will be because of Shorten. Moreover, the implication is that if any asylum-seekers drown trying to reach Australia, this will also be Shorten’s fault.

The Coalition will continue to remind Labor of the figures from when it was last in office: 50,000 people arrived on 800 boats and 1200 people drowned. The dismantling of the Howard government’s Pacific solution represents one of the worst policy decisions of any government in Australian history. There is no denying this; the deaths of so many are its wretched legacy.

Shorten was placed in a difficult decision on the medivac legislation. Most of Labor’s Left faction, including leadership aspirant Anthony Albanese, was determined to support it. Labor had, after all, supported the earlier bill in the Senate.

Shorten could have insisted on tougher conditions and greater ministerial discretion, but this risked torpedoing it altogether and then he would have been blamed by the Left.

The truth is most Labor MPs, candidates and party members do not support offshore processing and boat turnbacks. Shorten has worked miracles to maintain Labor’s support for these border protection principles. He did the best he could to avoid a potentially damaging fracture within Labor on medivacs and more broadly on offshore processing.

In the end, Shorten took a calculated but risky decision. He avoided a Labor split, inflicted a historic defeat on the government in parliament and can use the legislation to appeal to voters uneasy about offshore processing. Labor senses that voters have shifted on the issue of border protection and are uncomfortable that asylum-seekers remain in limbo on Manus Island and Nauru. Rudd also thought voters had shifted on border protection.

Neumann insists there is “no difference” between the Coalition and Labor “when it comes to Australia’s strong border protection regime”. It is true that the new legislation applies only to asylum-seekers presently on Manus and Nauru in need of urgent medical care. But the bottom line is that ministerial authority has been weakened.

But it is nonsense to think the government’s defeat on medivacs was all upside. Indeed, it worked overtime not to be defeated. It was the first time a government lost a vote on an amendment to its own legislation since the Bruce government in September 1929. The Fadden government lost a vote on a motion opposing the budget in 1941, but that was couched as “a want of confidence”.

Given the division and dysfunction in government ranks, including the knifing of two prime ministers, the legislative defeat was symptomatic of the past six years. Voters prize stability and they expect a government to be able to govern. It does not augur well. Loss of control of the house led to changes of government in 1929 and 1941.

That is why the Coalition will do everything it can to win the election. The scare campaign will continue. But it will fail if voters believe it is highly exaggerated or they are being lied to. Still, the political ground has shifted in the Coalition’s favour, and voters traditionally score it highly on national security, immigration and border protection.

Labor has adopted a risky strategy that is fraught with dangerous unpredictability. The medivac legislation has stalled Labor’s political momentum in the short term but the party is gambling that border protection no longer has the influence on election outcomes it once did.

Only time will tell.