Since 1945, Australia has enjoyed one of the world’s most successful migration programs. The program has enriched Australia’s culture and provided much-needed labour to support the economy.
The program’s humanitarian component has also provided safety and a new home to large numbers of refugees from persecution and war. For the last 40 years this country has participated in the UNHCR’s resettlement program and, as the Parliamentary Library noted last year, Australia has consistently ranked as one of the top three resettlement countries in the world.
This record of success and generosity was the result of (previously) bipartisan politics, in turn built on a base of strong public support. However, in 2007 Labor decided on a disastrous new course, with deadly consequences for asylum seekers.
The figures tell the story. From 1989 to 2001 there had been a small stream of irregular boat arrivals on Australia’s northern coast. Measures put in place by the Howard Government kept the numbers low and reduced the number of individuals arriving by boat to just 161 in 2007.
However, soon after its election late in 2007 Labor abandoned the Coalition’s successful policies, resulting in a loss of control of the border. Numbers of irregular arrivals soon exploded. By the 2013 financial year arrivals exceeded 25,000: a number for 12 months that was twice the number recorded for the whole 12 years of the Howard Government.
“A principled humanitarian program can only succeed with the support of the public. But the Australian public will not be taken for mugs. Unless the government controls the borders, and ensures that only genuine refugees selected under our policies are permitted entry, support will disappear.”
This chaotic period saw the serious erosion of public support for the humanitarian program. Worse still was the toll of more than a thousand lives lost in the attempt to take advantage of Labor’s folly and ineptitude. Only the determined efforts of the newly-elected Coalition government from September 2013 put an end to the tide of death and the restoration of public faith in the migration program.
This renewed public support enabled the Coalition government to make a generous offer of places for refugees from the Syrian conflict in 2015. I personally lobbied the Immigration Minister to ensure that Australia opened its arms to those most at risk from the horrors of the war in Syria, and the result has been an orderly flow of refugees from camps in Syria to safe haven in Australia.
Sadly, less than three years after the restoration of government control over the nation’s borders, Labor is again threatening chaos on our shores and the undermining of public support for humanitarian migration.
More than a score of Labor candidates for the federal election have openly expressed opposition to the policies successfully implemented by the Coalition (and we can only guess at how many more privately oppose those policies). Some in the party’s leadership had opposed the policies but have since undertaken convenient U-turns. After the election, these paper-thin new convictions will inevitably dissolve when exposed to a party room dominated by the open-borders tendency and Labor will again embrace the deadly folly of the Rudd and Gillard years.
A principled humanitarian program can only succeed with the support of the public. But the Australian public will not be taken for mugs. Unless the government controls the borders, and ensures that only genuine refugees selected under our policies are permitted entry, support will disappear.
The Coalition has a proud record of humanitarian compassion linked to resolution and competence in controlling our nation’s borders. Returning the Coalition at the upcoming election will ensure the continuance of that success; a win by Labor would return the nation to the disastrous past.
