Left is happy to bury its border policy bodies at sea

Labor leader Bill Shorten says the party will review its commitment to offshore detention at the ALP national conference in July.

The government’s military-led border protection program, Operation Sovereign Borders, is under attack as Labor lurches left and refugee activists gain ground. Labor leader Bill Shorten has indicated the party will review its commitment to offshore detention at the ALP national conference in July. If given the opportunity, the far left will restore the lethal trade in people-smuggling by welcoming illegal boat arrivals and moving offshore processing centres on to Australian soil. The policy ­reversal would appease the green-left and accelerate the ALP’s ­retreat from the political centre.

Labor has a few roos loose in the top paddock and they’re hopping mad about sovereign borders. The left faction has proposed an end to offshore processing and boat turnbacks. New MPs include Ged Kearney and Ali France, the ALP’s pick to stand against Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton in the Queensland seat of Dickson. While Kearney espouses standard Labor left beliefs about migration, France goes low to attack political opponents. She described sup­porters of offshore immigration processing as hypocrites. In ­December, she questioned the Christian faith of Liberal MPs who defend secure border policy. The Courier Mail reported that on Twitter, France re-posted comments from a user “who suggested cutting off power and water to Mr Dutton’s house”.

The normalisation of incitement to harm conservatives or damage property presents a problem for liberal democracy. The ­culture of harm tolerance is cultivated by those who falsely equate conservative views and the exercise of liberal democratic principles with violence. Shorten and Greens leader Richard Di Natale claimed that if the government kept its election commitment to holding a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, gay youth would take their own lives. Politicians and human rights activists also equate free speech with physical harm to defend censorship of dissenting views under section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. Green-left activists state that Operation Sovereign Borders causes physical harm, but have not produced ­research to demonstrate such a causal relationship. Much harm could be ­attributed to experiences before arrival.

The far left’s conflation of ­secure border policy and physical harm serves another purpose. Whether intentional or not, it ­creates a political justification for asylum activists to cause damage to property or dissenters. The idea of politically correct harm is ­accepted in some activist circles. But greater problems will arise if it becomes mainstream.

In court last week, members of the Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance were cleared of intentionally damaging commonwealth property after gluing their hands to a balustrade in Parliament House. Federal prosecutors alleged the refugee activists glued their hands to the leather balustrade with the intent of damaging property. After a short deliberation, the jury cleared the activists.

In 2016, magistrate Trevor Morgan encouraged Young Labor activists after they climbed on to the roof of Peter Dutton’s office with a banner smearing him as an “international criminal”. The Courier Mail reported that ­Morgan said: “If one of my daughters was caught doing like you did, I’d probably be very proud of her.”

Protests are a vital part of liberal democracy but causing damage or the misuse of emergency services is another matter. The Queensland protest wasted an ­estimated $10,000 in police ­resources. What is the cost of refugee activism to struggling Australian taxpayers? We haven’t given our consent for activists to damage property and waste emergency service resources. No one voted for them in an election.

Unsurprisingly, activists are taking the courts’ leniency as a green light for further action. The Advocate reported that WACA member Jason Ray said he would repeat the “super glue tactic” while Philip Evans reportedly said breaking the law was an “individual decision”.

In a liberal democracy, the law exists to preserve public order and prevent the use of militant methods for political ends. In the Western tradition, public reason is the vehicle for political reform. To permit harm for political ends is to ­invite the demise of liberal democracy. The alternative, illiberal democracy, is empowered by activist networks, lawyers and politicians who use militancy to impose ideology that people reject in democratic processes such as general elections and parliamentary debate.

Australians voted for secure border policy when they chose the Liberal-Nationals Coalition to govern the ­nation. The government broke the people smugglers’ business model by implementing the objectives of Operation Sovereign Borders. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull highlighted the financial and human costs of Labor’s relatively weak border ­policy. It cost more than $10 billion for Australia to manage the 50,000 unlawful ­arrivals and left more than 14,000 refugees languishing in UN camps. Speaking to the ABC in late 2016, Turnbull said: “We’ve been able to … stop the boats — no deaths at sea. We’ve closed 17 detention centres ... we reduced children in detention from almost 2000 when we came in office to zero.”

Despite those 1200 people dying at sea under Labor, activists claiming to represent refugees’ interests want to revive a regressive border regime that rewards people smugglers. To gain popular support for the people-smuggling model, asylum activists bury the body count it yields. To prevent backlash against weak borders, they conceal the widespread harm caused by the principle of quantity over quality in immigration and asylum programs. By way of ­example, the Police Federation warned that magistrates were giving lenient sentences to foreign-born offenders to prevent them being deported. Despite the reported judicial interference, the government has deported about 3000 foreign criminals.

Labor is moving to the wrong side of history by compromising national security for people smugglers and asylum activists. The ALP might maintain boat turnbacks, but will double the number of asylum seekers and send more Australian money to the UN.

The Liberal-Nationals Coalition government is renewing its commitment to Australian sovereignty by crafting ­immigration and border security policies with the national interest in mind. Labor has yet to demonstrate how weakening border policy would serve the interest of Australians. The Australian government exists to serve the Australian people. Sometimes the obvious eludes the bleeding hearts.