Who's afraid of 4500 boatpeople?

BOTH of the main political parties are keen to display their toughness on border protection, so much so that they seem to have lost sight of the plight of the people who are trying to make their way here in rickety boats.

While Kevin Rudd has softened elements of Australia's system for handling illegal boat arrivals, he isn't keen to advertise that and his rhetoric on boatpeople has been anything but soft. The opposition, meanwhile, is seriously contemplating a policy response that includes towing boats that enter our waters back out to sea. It's extraordinary.

Why are we so concerned about the 4500 or so boatpeople who have attempted to seek asylum in Australia since the ALP was elected about 2 1/2 years ago?

Yes, the numbers are higher than they were during the Howard years, as the Coalition nauseatingly continues to point out. And the upsurge may well be a consequence of a softening of the assessment processes since the Pacific solution was removed from the political lexicon.

But these numbers hardly suggest we are being inundated. We should remember the much larger number of refugees flowing into parts of Europe and Asia because of their proximity to conflict zones. Australia's refugee numbers will always be low because of something called the ocean.

The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who try to enter Australia illegally by boat are ultimately assessed to be legitimate refugees and are therefore included in Australia's annual refugee quota of 13,750.

Some commentators point out the unfairness of boatpeople taking up the places of asylum-seekers who have done the right thing and taken refuge in UN-sponsored camps awaiting placement (as if there is always an orderly process for escaping persecution that should be followed).

If that is the concern that needs to be addressed, what's wrong with increasing the annual quota so boatpeople don't take places away from asylum-seekers waiting in camps? We are constantly being told that a big Australia is an important economic goal, so perhaps we could do with the small number of extra citizens.

Despite the recent increase in boat arrivals that the opposition is determined to highlight for political advantage, many more people continue to arrive illegally by plane and far fewer of them turn out to be legitimate refugees.

Yet I don't see too many press releases from the opposition attacking this problem (probably because it has always been a problem, including when the Coalition was last in government).

And let's not forget that right now Australia houses about 50,000 visa overstayers, mostly from the US, Britain and China.

But the political debate is centred on boatpeople, partly because it plays into people's (inaccurate) fears about hordes of arrivals from underdeveloped countries who threaten our way of life, and partly because opinion polls continue to show that most Australians oppose illegal immigration.

The 2007 Australian Election Survey asked respondents to agree or disagree with the proposition that immigrants who are here illegally should not be allowed to stay for any reason. Fifty-six per cent agreed while less than 20 per cent disagreed. Of course the poorly worded question includes some of the other categories of illegal entrants mentioned, but respondents were likely thinking about boatpeople.

Since 2007, opinion polls continue to show that most Australians worry about illegal boat arrivals. Politicians are elected to reflect the public's will. But they are also elected to lead. Showing more compassion for some of the world's most marginalised people might not play to the masses, but a leader who encouraged the population to think that way would morph into a true statesman.

I find it disappointingly inconsistent that both of our political leaders, Rudd and Tony Abbott, wear their religion on their sleeves, yet neither of them practises the compassion that Christianity extols when it comes to boatpeople.

This is especially the case for Abbott, as the opposition is talking far tougher on how it intends to stop boat arrivals if elected. While Rudd talks tough, at least some of his actions on refugee policy have been compassionate.

Abbott has described the teaching of the Jesuits during his schooling as the greatest influence on his life. The Jesuits are part of the Catholic religious order founded by St Ignatius hundreds of years ago. The Australian Jesuits' website highlights that Jesuit spirituality "offers us a way to deepen our desire and commitment to help others, especially those in more urgent need and [with] less hope of help".

What class of people would be a more obvious contender for that category than boatpeople?

What's more, the Jesuit Refugee Service is one of the world's leading not-for-profit entities focused on helping refugees.

Abbott's combination of social conservatism and his Jesuit upbringing should make him a perfect candidate for being a more compassionate conservative. The term was first used by one of president Ronald Reagan's advisers to refer to the idea that there was a natural fit between conservatism and being compassionate because of the importance conservatives placed on family values.

Abbott's generous paid parental leave scheme fits into the compassionate conservative ethos, as would a more tolerant stand on asylum-seekers arriving by boat.

Instead Abbott has been applying the rhetoric of former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson to asylum-seekers when he says that he will do whatever it takes to stop illegal boat arrivals, including restoring the Pacific solution.

With some predictions suggesting there will be as many as 70 more boat arrivals before the next election, the boatpeople issue won't go away and Abbott's rhetoric is designed to make this issue an election-winning one for the Coalition.

Right-wing American commentator P. J. O'Rourke adopts the sort of thinking about boatpeople that conservatives in this country should consider. He says he can't think of a more hardworking group of people who would contribute to the prosperity of a nation than individuals who are prepared to risk their lives in unsafe boats to get here.

Such people, if given the chance, often turn their attention when starting a new life to small business, a core Liberal Party constituency.

Australians shouldn't be afraid of boatpeople trying to come to our country. Our geographical position means that their numbers will always be small compared with refugee migration in other parts of the world.

It's time our politicians started to lead public opinion on this issue instead of following it.