how illegal immigrants are dealt with - the true s, page-14

Canberra Times editorial

Red faces still not enough for Govt
Thursday, 26 May 2005

PRIME MINISTER John Howard is engaged in an enormous juggle over refugee and detention policy. He is assailed on several sides. On the one hand is public opinion, an opinion which is probably firming against the principle of such policies because of the appalling mismanagement of a number of cases. That public opinion is also reflected in a mini- back bench revolt, led by Petro Georgiou, who is proposing to launch a private member's Bill which would, in effect, abandon mandatory detention, certainly in respect of women, children and long-term detainees.

Public opinion is also responsible for the plight of his minister, Amanda Vanstone, valiantly trying to defend the indefensible and sinking herself personally, and the Government generally, deeper and deeper by the moment. But on the other is the fact that an avowed tough line on uninvited asylum seekers was an election winner for Mr Howard in 2001.

The tough approach, implemented first by Philip Ruddock, now Attorney-General, and later by Senator Vanstone, seemed to have popular support but also made Mr Howard and these two ministers the subject of strong and justified criticism at home and abroad.

The criticism was not welcomed by the Prime Minister (except in the serendipitous sense that it continually reminded those voters who were hostile to refugees how sound the Government was on the subject) because it attacked his integrity. His unwillingness now to walk away from the policies is, in part, a reflection of his obstinacy - in some cases even perverse courage - whenever he is under personal attack. But it is also a reflection of one of his major weaknesses: his unwillingness to admit that he made a mistake. If mistakes have ultimately to be admitted, it must have been someone else's fault. Several may have to die so that he can live; that's politics, not personal. Usually he throws to the wolves only enough to satisfy their appetite; whether it has to be Vanstone, or senior or junior bureaucrats, is not yet clear and will be determined later.

Whether there was or was not a refugee crisis in 2001, there is none now. Whether the lack of an avalanche of boat people is a result of things settling down in Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots, or is a result of the Government's having "sent a strong message" that Australia was not to be imposed upon, may provoke a debate, but the answer is not particularly relevant right now. There is no longer a great need to maintain an overtly unfriendly, even punitive, approach to asylum seekers.

Moreover, Mr Howard has room to manoeuvre because of the knots in which the Labor has tied itself on the issue. In such a situation, one might expect that he would be leaning towards a substantial liberalisation of practice, provided that it did not make him seem weak, or surrendering to interests or lobbies (including moderate wings on the Liberal Party) that he hates or despises, or make him seem to make any admissions about the wickedness of the earlier policies, or the inappropriateness of their administration, or a government, as opposed to bureaucratic, role in some of the incompetence and heartlessness which has been demonstrated.

If that is his inclination, there is one thing going in his favour. Labor, from Kim Beazley down, is almost entirely unable to capitalise on his dilemma. It is compromised by its own appalling misjudgments, the policies it put into place under the last Labor government, its craven and shameful surrenders of principle in 2001, and the bizarre factional warfare system which sees that Labor's formal view on such matters is put by Senator Laurie Ferguson, the least inspiring potential immigration minister since Arthur Calwell.

Mr Beazley is at best confined to opportunistic tut- tutting at individual appalling cases (of which it seems there is a limitless supply) and a pretence that his government would apply the same general principles with more flexibility and compassion, particularly towards women and children. Alas the record of this weak ship's captain at a time of sinking ships stands against him: for implementing the Birkenhead principle he and his officers abandoned not only all of the passengers but a good deal of the crew.

But Mr Howard is probably equally reluctant to cede any point to liberal backbenchers such as Petro Georgiou, Judi Moylan, Bruce Baird and Russell Broadbent, or any others showing signs either of conscience or of lack of appetite for taking the battle to the enemy.

He is rejecting, out of hand, the idea of any conscience vote on the private members' Bills. He was said to have been furious during the party room discussion on the topic, reminding members that his policies had won the Government an election. It is even forcing him to say at least token words in support of Senator Vanstone, though he, in general terms, is now safely distanced from her actual administration. She is, of course, entitled to say that she is in trouble because she has conscientiously tried to do what he wanted. And that her department is in trouble because it tried to carry out the spirit of the Government's approach, as much as the letter. Fat lot he cares.

With or without prime ministerial support, so far as it goes, the position of Senator Vanstone deteriorates. Labelled late last week as the lowest for credibility in a long list of public figures, she is trying to offload responsibility on to her department. Her obliging departmental Secretary, Bill Farmer, even accepted some of the blame at an estimates committee yesterday, acknowledging that it was "distressing and unacceptable that our actions have fallen so short of what we want and what we understand the Australian people to expect." There were hints that a few junior officers would be rounded up and shot.

Meanwhile, Senator Vanstone has ordered some fairly commonsense changes which underline how slow and obtuse she has been all along. And she has by now handed over to Mick Palmer - the man chosen by her to discover the facts - a further 200 or so cases where human and legal rights may have been trampled on in her name. Mick Palmer has a narrow remit, but it is hard to imagine his being kind about some of the actions involved. It may be even harder for him to show that the minister, her predecessors, and their private offices, had no idea of what was going on.