Politics is war by other means.
By Gary Scarrabelotti
Recently Tony Abbott has been getting a lot of advice about how he should play the responsible national interest political leader and support amendments to a bill drafted to secure the off-shore processing of refugees.
As I pondered this advice I recalled the fact that in 1940 Menzies and the United Australia Party which he led were almost defeated at the polls and Menzies was obliged to form a minority government with the support of two independents, Arthur Coles and Alexander Wilson.
In this weakened position Menzies wrote a number of times to Labour leader, John Curtin, proposing a coalition. Curtin turned Menzies down every time. Eventually in 1941 Curtin was able to form a government when Coles and Wilson withdrew their support from the Fadden government and promised to back Labor instead.
As I understand it, that is how Labor Opposition Leaders are supposed to behave. Just why Abbot should be less tough on Gillard than Curtin was on Menzies I will never fathom.
Anyway, what is clear is that Abbott has been setting the political agenda and the decision of the High Court to strike down the Gillard Government’s “Malaysian Solution” offers him greater opportunities to direct the national debate from the Opposition benches.
Mug’s game
Now, let’s turn to our problems with illegal immigration.
The Malaysian Solution is a bad deal. Swapping between zero and 800 of our illegals for 4000 legit refugees, suggests that Malaysia has played us for mugs. Despite its deficiency, however, the Malaysian Solution has a couple of things going for it. For a start, it is a decisive shift by Labor toward the principle of off-shore processing for illegal refugees established under the Howard government and mistakenly reversed by Rudd Labor.
Labor is now trying to find a way back to the Howard principle without resorting to the Nauru option and PM Gillard cannot now re-establish off-shore processing of a kind palatable to Labor without the support of Abbott and the Coalition.
The politics of this is clear enough. If Abbott helps out Gillard, and the Malaysian Solution works, at least in the short term, the refugee problem will seem to go away. The risk for Abbott then is that, by the next election, people might have forgotten that Gillard’s success was entirely dependent upon Abbott having played the role of a statesman acting in the national interest. Indeed, Gillard’s calculation is precisely this: that the voters will have forgotten Abbott’s magnanimity.
While the Government and Coalition manœuvre against each other to seek maximum advantage out of their convergence on off-shore processing, we – the average, mainstream Australian voters – should be asking ourselves some important questions.
National interest
What, principally, do we want our statesmen and ‑women to achieve for Australia on the refugee front?
Well, Step 1, ought to be, to confirm in a decisive legislative act the general principle that illegal immigrants should not be processed in Australia.
From the perspective of principle, it matters little whether our illegal immigrants are dealt with in Malaysia, on Manus Island, on Nauru, or in any combination of these or other locations. What is important is that “offshoring” illegals should be established in such a way that the principle — and the policies conducted in its name — cannot be struck down by a future High Court finding.
Wrapped in the concept of off-shore processing there is, however, much more than a way of addressing our present problems with illegal immigrants. What the off-shore principle contains, in embryo, is an entire refugee policy.
Let me explain.
The policy objective for any federal government ought to be that all applicants to Australian authorities for refugee status will be assessed off shore. The flip side is that, with some allowance for exceptional circumstances, those who seek to have their applications assessed in Australia will have them rejected.
Furthermore, those attempting to make on-shore refugee applications will be permanently disqualified from making subsequent off-shore applications. This is — or should be — the ultimate policy goal for both the ALP and the Coalition.
Step 2 has to be to establish the principle that Australia will deal with refugee applications in — and send illegal refugees to — any country it chooses whether or not that country is a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on refugees. Another plus in favour of the Malaysian Solution is that it is a step in this direction. Ultimately, Australia needs to pluck up the courage to rescind its ratification of the UN’s outmoded refugee convention.
As Bagaric and Faris QC point out in their article on the subject in The Greens: Policies, Reality and Consequences, the Convention was developed to deal with post World War II refugee flows in a way that was convenient for the victorious western powers and was framed too narrowly to deal with actual refugee movements of today.
The Convention grants refugee status only to those outside their own countries and in flight from a closely defined threat of persecution. As such the Convention does not respond to the real circumstances of refugees now: that they are not necessarily in flight from persecution, but simply from wars and natural disasters, and that many are refugees in their own countries.
Accordingly, Australia needs a policy framed in a determined way, as Bagaric and Faris QC put it, to choose its refugees rather than have them choose us. This means selecting them — with eyes fixed on identifying those who will best contribute to Australian society — wherever they are to be found other than upon Australian shores.
And maybe, Step 3, we should increase our refugee intake way beyond the present rate of around 14,000 per year.
Finally, by taking Steps 1, 2 and 3, Labor and the Coalition would achieve something else important for Australia. They would deprive the Greens of oxygen on the refugee issue.
Swing left
At the source of the political kudos that the Greens get out of the refugee issue, is the 1951 Convention. Without its narrow and inapposite definition of a refugee, there would be no “refugee industry” and there would be little or no resort to courts and tribunals in an attempt to convert illegals into legitimate refugees by squeezing them into the narrow categories presented by the Convention.
Moreover, without the refugee industry and the legal charades, there would be no political issue for the Greens to exploit to the disadvantage of both major political parties and, more importantly, with injury to our national sovereignty. It is no surprise, then, that the Greens are faithful supporters of the 1951 refugee convention. For them it is the gift that just keeps giving.
Does the Coalition understand this reality as clearly as the Gillard government has come, belatedly, to understand it? Right now the Coalition seems to be suffering from the paradox of political prudence: where the smoother, more practical and conventional path can lead one into awkward positions.
When the Government launched its Malaysian Solution, the Coalition’s Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison, with the unflinching support of his Leader, attacked from the “left”. Thus the Coalition has pointed out that Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention on refugees and has argued that illegals might not receive in Malaysia the same kind of gentle handling that they receive in Australia.
Contrary to media advice, including that from his old friend Greg Sheridan of The Australian, Abbott cleaves to this position and today threatens to knock out the Government’s proposed amendments to the Migration Act because they, allegedly, undermine refugee rights and the UN Convention on refugees. How strange that, in developing its critique of the Malaysian Solution, the Coalition should end up on the same side as the Greens.
Paradox
No doubt it seems wise, when the Gillard government is under attack from the refugee lobby and élite opinion, that the Coalition should not unnecessarily put itself in the line of fire. By giving credit, however, to the arguments of the “left” on refugee policy, in order to score off the Gillard government, the Coalition could find itself in a policy cul-de-sac. By taking this “wrong turn”, the Coalition risks muddying a clear political message on refugees and confusing voters in mortgage-belt electorates disposed to support a firm national policy against illegal immigration. This is not the place, one would have thought, that a pace-setting, right-of-centre political leader would really want to be.
Abbott, however, has never wanted to conform to any “right-wing” stereotype about what politicians should be and do. When you think you have nailed down the Abbott political persona, you’re more than likely on the point of making a mistake.
There is another factor at work here. It relates to the “culture” of contemporary politics. To reverse the Clausewitzian dictum, politics is war by other means. Abbott understands this better than his opponents — except, perhaps, Greens leader Bob Brown. This is why Abbot destroyed Rudd and is near to destroying Gillard.
In politics, as in war, alliances are often temporary and unholy. They are used as much to damage one’s new allies as to defeat the main enemy. Abbott understands that the Greens are the biggest threat to the Liberal’s old heartland city seats. Let’s not forget, either, that part of the art of politics is to turn errors to one’s advantage, and to oblige political foes to cop the odium for killing a sacred cow while taking for oneself the credit for having done so.
So what about Abbott coming to Gillard’s aid? No way. Expect him to follow no advice but that of W. C. Fields:
“Never give a sucker an even break!”