Because although the ALP promised to be tough on border protection by Mr "Hi I'm Kevin, I'm here to help, I'm a fiscal conservative and I'm strong on border control" Rudd, in fact they were intent on destroying the Howard Pacific Solution, because they knew what was best.
The lip sewing, the mass protests, the relentless attacks by the SBS and ABC, had convinced a lot of people that Labor would be the new paradigm for Australia.
So when they got elected they dismantled the Nauru option, got rid of Temporary Protection visas, and immediately caved in when held to ransom by blackmailers aboard the Oceanic Viking.
Since then the flood of arrivals has continued unabated.
The problem for Gillard & Co is that the punters have now woken up to the fact that the ALP has sold them a lemon, their policy is "all at sea" so to speak, and they cannot go to their coalition partners the Greens because their policies are even more wacky and out of step with what mainstream Australians want.
So now Gillard has to suffer the humiliation of asking the Opposition to support a policy that the ALP swore on a bible they would never enact - to send refugess to another country that wasn't a signatory to the UN convention of refugees.
So here we are - A perfectly good functioning Pacific Solution, that treated refugees humanely, was under Australian control and which stopped boats arriving, was trashed by the ALP and Greens and now the ALP is grovelling and backflipping more times than an Olympic high diver, trying to enlist the support of the Opposition to pursue a failed policy that they swore they would never bring in.
And the so-called solution sucks - we get 5 new refugees for every 1 we send to them.
Only the ALP, with it's addiction to waste, debt, and union rorting could dream up a pathetic failed policy such as this and stand their with a straigh face and try and tell the punters it's a good deal for Australia.
The punters have stoppe listening and are counting down the days to the next election.
