Labor fails to learn bitter lesson of open borders

Twitter lit up last night with ecstatic scenes of politicians — well, Labor, Greens and cross-bench MPs — embracing and congratulating one another. They are close to inflicting their medivac regime on the offshore asylum-seeker system that they despise. Indeed, this is a victory for the mindset that finds it easier to denounce an elected government acting in good faith rather than the people-smugglers who have forced authorities to assume the heavy responsibility of securing our borders. Not infrequently, those given the difficult, often hazardous job of running the system are smeared as Nazis. Contrast the celebrations of last night’s legislative insurgents with the sombre appearance of Scott Morrison, who made the telling point that Labor, the alternative government, simply refuses to learn the bitter lessons of border control. The insurgents will be quietly applauded by the people-smugglers waiting in Indonesia to restart their wretched trade. It is the Prime Minister who will command the attention of mainstream Australia.

It’s true that last night the government suffered a historic defeat on the floor of parliament. Such is life for a minority government. But it’s hyperventilation to speculate about an imminent vote of no confidence. And what would be the virtue of an “early” election when an orderly vote is just a dozen weeks away? In any event, a parliamentary record does not constitute a strategic victory. Since last October, many partisan commentators have fallen victim to the Wentworth delusion, namely that the Liberal loss of this once blue-ribbon Sydney seat showed that the case for asylum-seeker “compassion” — rather than “cruel” border control — had at last won over a great many ordinary Australians.

But we believe mainstream opinion still prefers realism to emotive gestures. Border security is a bedrock issue for a sovereign nation, especially when it is up against criminal syndicates and (sometimes) fabricated refugee stories. The existing system was working. Tony Abbott was right to say that asylum-seekers in Nauru had medical care superior to that available in regional Australia. Necessary medical transfers, on the advice of doctors in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, have been effected without the grandstanding that encourages fresh attempts to probe the system for exploitable weaknesses. True, the minister retained discretion, but that is only right. The minister is accountable for our national interests; a doctor doing a diagnosis via Skype from Melbourne is not. In the high-stakes struggle that is border control, it was never a simple medical matter.

Ultimately the Australian people will pass judgment on this core government issue. Labor and the medivac lobby have shone a spotlight on border control on the eve of the election campaign. The people endorsed John Howard’s Pacific solution, punished Rudd-Gillard Labor for the open borders disaster and backed Operation Sovereign Borders under the man who is now Prime Minister. Some observers believed Labor in power would not be so foolish as to sabotage border control again. The ALP has shown its hand before a single vote is cast.