The matter of the management of Australia’s refugee and immigration policies has arisen again following the arrival of asylum seekers in Australian territorial waters.
The arrival of an unauthorised craft at Ashmore Reef, its interception by the Australian navy and its subsequent incineration with loss of life has returned the matter of ‘asylum seekers’ back to the centre of national politics.
This latest incident was reminiscent of the infamous ‘Children Overboard’ affair that marked the emergence of the issue of border security as a major issue in the 2001 federal election.
This affair provided the then prime minister, John Howard, with a means to justifying his government’s intention to stress border protection as the Liberal-National coalition’s strong point in the campaign following the September 11 terrorist attack on New York.
Howard and some of his ministers impugned the reputation of those refugees who were accused (falsely, as it turned out) of throwing their children in to the sea to force the Australian navy to accede to their demands to be taken to Australian territory.
In so doing, Howard was later to declare the right of government to decide on ‘who comes to this country and the manner in which they come’.
This declaration, made during the 2001 election campaign, demarcated a bitter dispute between the government and a small section of the Australian community appalled by the prime minister’s seemingly callous disregard for the fate of people taking incredible personal risks to try to find sanctuary from war and dislocation.
The Howard approach was a political winner, however. Before September 11, the Tampa Crisis and the issue of ‘illegal immigrants’ emerged, Mr Howard and his colleagues were about to receive an absolute hiding at the 2001 election thanks to its introduction of the unpopular Goods and Services Tax.
The border protection issue, however, saved the Howard government.
These were very bitter times in the political debate, not least within the Liberal party itself where a small but noisy minority within the parliamentary wing were most unhappy with Mr Howard and his approach to people seeking political asylum.
With an election imminent, however, these critics were swept aside.
It is the memory of all of this that is fresh in the minds of politicians and journalists as they get in to an apoplexy of this round of the asylum seeker controversy.
The fact that there is such a small number of people trying to get to Australia in this fashion should not be surprising given the tragic circumstances war has caused in places like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka (where the refugees are coming from).
That these people should be trying to get to Australia is hardly surprising either, given that this country is part of the Asian region.
The claim being made by the Liberal opposition that such people make rational choices on their destination based on an appreciation of the nuances of Australian immigration law following the change from a Liberal to a Labor government is risible.
Altering the flow of this human tragedy requires solutions in the lands from which these people are fleeing. Australian immigration law, frankly, has nothing to do with it.
For Australia, the rational policy question is not how to stop this flow but, rather, how to deal with it humanely in a way that also meets the need for identity and health security.
This is, in fact, the approach the Rudd government is trying to take, although the hyperbolic ventilations about the evils of people smuggling by the Prime Minister during the week shows how nervous Labor continues to be in dealing with asylum seekers and border protection.
The interesting thing here is that this issue poses more danger to the Liberal opposition leader than the prime minister.
Mr Turnbull and his colleagues are desperate to try to counter Rudd and his government, and have clearly been tempted to go back to an issue that served them well in the past.
The trouble is that immigration, asylum seekers and border protection as issues, do not have the impact on the electorate that they had in 2001.
So much has changed since that time: George W. Bush is no longer the US president, John Howard has gone, and the Global Financial Crisis has displaced international people movement as the most important source of insecurity for voters.
For all Rudd’s clear nervousness about border security and asylum seekers, it is actually Mr Turnbull who has to be careful with regards to how he manages his side of the debate.
After all, the Liberals gave support to the Rudd government’s decision to do away with the controversial Temporary Protection Visas and the so-called ‘Pacific Solution’ policy.
Turnbull was also elected leader of his party at the behest of the moderates for whom the Howard approach to this matter was so distasteful.
To get anywhere in the future, Mr Turnbull has to lay the Howard legacy to rest.
Advocating the resurrection of TPVs and the Howard approach to border security won’t allow Turnbull to achieve this objective.
Dr Economou is a senior lecturer in Politics at Monash University