THE DAMNED HYPOCRISY OF THE LEFT If ever you wanted to see the hypocrisy of the Left, just get on Twitter and follow Melbourne barrister and self-styled “human rights activist” Julian Burnside QC. He has railed against tough border protection laws for years, parading his moral superiority, decrying the Pacific Solution, offshore processing, temporary protection visas, turning back boats – the works. He is one of the green-left activists who encouraged Labor down its ill-fated path of softening our border protection regime, ending the Pacific Solution and closing our processing centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. These policies led to a reopening of the people-smuggling trade, enormous trauma for tens of thousands of people forced into detention, extensive cost blow-outs of many billions of dollars, and, most tragically, the deaths of more than 1100 asylum seekers. Yet we never hear any contrition from the activists, just more moral posturing. You would expect them to be angrily decrying the PNG solution – after all it is a reinstatement of the Pacific Solution except a little tougher because PNG ends up being the country of resettlement. But, of course, many of these moral poseurs have exposed their partisanship by being much more compliant now that a Labor government is driving the policy. The ABC especially, has had none of the frothing at the mouth and ranting anger that characterised its coverage of the Pacific Solution. But Burnside takes the cake. Last night on Twitter he sent out this message: “Let’s face it: the PNG Arrangement is a shabby deal, but at least if might stop Scott ("illegals") Morrison becoming Immi Minister.” There you have it. All the gnashing of teeth, all the railing against Howard, all the moral vanity boils down to partisan point-scoring. The shabby deal is okay – the human suffering is tolerable – if it drives a party political outcome more desirable for the Melbourne QC. Words fail me. As readers know I have long favoured strong border protection for all the obvious practical, humanitarian and fairness reasons. Now that Kevin Rudd has come up with an especially tough policy – probably tougher than it needed to be as Labor hadn’t tried other measures at its disposal – all those Labor MPs and supporters who have talked about dog-whistle politics, racism and rednecks owe the rest of the country an apology. Either they have been wrong for more than a decade, or they are prepared to adopt the most shamelessly cynical politics for their own political gain. Just on boats, imagine if Labor had also been sensible enough to keep boat turn backs as part of their tool kit. Then after the introduction of the PNG policy on Friday, our navy and customs personnel could have explained the situation to the boatloads of asylum-seekers they met, and encouraged them to return to Indonesia. It would have saved the trauma of these people being told, once on Christmas Island, that they’ll end up in PNG. And it would have sent the most powerful message possible back to Indonesia – its government, its people-smugglers and potential customers waiting there. Now, Rudd has pinned all his hopes on the government of PNG. Their competence and reliability are crucial for this deal to hold together and be implemented effectively over time. Australia has thrown a potentially divisive issue into what is already a volatile and troubled political climate in PNG. It is difficult to be optimistic about the outcome – but if it can be managed properly, the PNG solution could well work. Still, the good news for an Abbott government is that it can expect no opposition from the ALP in the future, no matter what measures it uses to try to stop the boats. For that matter, Labor can no longer attempt to block the axing of the carbon tax. Rudd has conceded that Abbott is right on both those policies. He couldn’t really object to moves to curb union power either. The core message of the Rudd sequel so far is that Labor has been wrong, and trust Labor to fix it.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 03:19:27 +0000
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