Tony Abbott unveiled the Coalition’s immigration policy this week: a return to the Howard-era “Pacific Solution”, complete with off-shore processing and Temporary Protection Visas, plus a new policy that would see asylum seekers forced to find work or lose access to welfare benefits.
In yesterday’s Crikey Daily Mail, Bernard Keane argued that his plans are more about image than outcomes:
The return of the Pacific Solution continues the C0alition’s obsession with preventing the ‘processing’ of asylum seeker claims on mainland Australia, despite it having no impact on the process of determining whether a claim for asylum is valid, and no impact on the legal rights of applicants.
But one thing Abbott hasn’t managed to revive from his predecessor’s days is the party discipline and unified front Howard generally managed to keep. Signs of mutiny are already afoot, with moderate Liberals immediately and publicly slamming the plan.
But will voters be more willing to hop on-board Cap’n Tony’s good ship Border Control? Or is the party sailing into dangerous waters with its ongoing drift to the right?
Here’s how the press pundits are calling it today:
The Australian
Editorial: Channeling John Howard on boats
The Coalition may be on a vote-winner by going back to square one on asylum-seekers.
Sydney Morning Herald
Editorial: Abbott rescues Pacific solution
pure populism … a symbolic sacrifice on the altar of xenophobia.
Jacqueline Maley: Ghosts of Christmas Island past return to centre stage
It was like they were putting the border protection band back together. Peter Reith was probably waiting in the Bluesmobile out back.
The Age
Michelle Grattan: A cynical and depressing echo of the Howard years
… a slap in the face not only for the small-l liberals in his party, but in the community as well.
Herald Sun
Philip Hudson: Tony Abbott smells votes on boats
The majority of the party backs Abbott on this one.
Each and every time Abbott goes on about boats, the media has a duty to press him instead about planes and overstayed visas, and not let him wriggle out of answering it What has the mendacious monk got to say about the real issue?
With people overstaying visas, they were originally cleared through the custom’s and immigration program, and then passed through inspection at the airports on arrival.
People arriving by boat have not, so part of the detention process is conducting the checks that people arriving as legitimate, approved visitors have already gone through prior to arrival and upon entry to Australia.
The process isn’t helped by the fact that many people arriving by boat make it extremely hard to confirm their back story’s, having disposed of their passports and other documentatioon prior to pick-up.
The Mendacious Monk will say precisely nothing about people overstaying their visas. Why should he, when he knows addressing that particular issue will probably not garner him a single vote and it is so much harder to identify these people (who arrive camouflaged in plane-loads of passengers) than it is so show another leaky boat on a film clip. I will even leave aside the obvious observation that a large number of visa-overstayers are probably lighter coloured than boat people.
The issue is not about – and has never been about – floods of ‘illegal’ immigrants, flotillas of invading boats, border ‘security’ or people smugglers. It is purely about wedge politics, playing on people’s fears and grabbing the votes nof those who are too lazy to do a simple bit of arithmetic. The numbers of boat people are trivial To repeat earlier postings, if 10000 asylum seekers arrive here this year by boat and every last one of them is granted asylum (which doesn’t happen) and spread around the country, then at the end of the year every 3500 Australians will have increased by precisely 1 person to become 3501. Pretty terrifying, isn’t it?
The Monk will continue with his present hairy-chested line while it he perceives it is in his electroral interest to do so. The government will continue to respond in its similarly conservative way because it needs the votes of the same innumerate people and the attention span of the media is too short to be able to explain the actual trivial nature of the issue.
There is no shortage of valid issues that could be up for some real political debate and I find it so depressing that these issues are either ignored or reduced to simplistic TV-oriented sound grabs.
It’s interesting to speculate on what the proponents of the ‘We’ll decide who comes etc’ mantra would think if the indigenous people of this country had had the opportunity to adopt a simlar attitude in 1788. No doubt, they will tell us that is a diffeent case entirely.
No surprise in the Australian and Herald Sun supporting The Monk who is Mad, they would support Abbott if he suggested blowing the boats out of the water.
Is this a policy he means or just one made up for the moment under pressure?