‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’ – a great quote for the alt-right, in an era of Donald Trump and Brexit one could be forgiven into thinking this came from either side of the Atlantic in 2016. But this quote did not, it was given almost 15 years ago in Australia, off in the antipodes, the then prime minister John Howard was facing a probable election defeat and needed a good wedge issue, a good distraction, and a good dose of fear to secure his election victory later that year.
For Australia, this was the first time refugees had become overtly ‘political’. Prior to 2001 there was a general political consensus that refugees should be agreed to behind closed doors, in a bipartisan way – both sides acknowledging that refugees, along with international aid and other projects secure no one domestic votes, but it is the right thing to do. 2001 was the turning point in Australia, since then there has been no bipartisan agreement around refugees.
Some context to this point is needed, Australia has one of the ‘most generous’ resettlement programs in the world – the resettled refugees Australia accepts each year under the UN high commissioner for refugees program places it at number one or two globally for per capita resettlement, and number two or three globally per unit of GDP. Resettlement is different to refugees though, the latter seeking asylum in a country and the former being transferred from a third-party country (for instance Jordan, countries around Syria and Pakistan have the largest number of refugees, largely as a result of conflicts near their boarders), refugees also exclude those note captured by UNHCR numbers. So, what happens if a refugee in a boat makes it to Australia? Australia has the Orwellian ‘Operation Sovereign Boarders’ – a military-led, boarder security operation, cloaked in the cover of ‘on water operations’ and designed to prevent maritime arrivals of asylum seeks to Australia.
‘Stop the boats, axe the tax, stop the waste, ditch the witch’ – snappy short slogans, including inherently sexist commentary towards Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, whom conservatives regularly referred to as ‘the bitch’ and ‘the witch’. Stop the boats was in reference to the alleged 50,000 people arriving by boat each year under Labor, though a fact checker found this to be ‘rubbish’. Since 2001, the Liberal party have been using the refugee and resettlement program for political gain in Australia – this template is being repeated effectively globally by conserative parties, and is often used to wedge progressive politicians. ‘Stop the boats’ is a mix of disincentives, such as arbitrary and indefinitie detention in off shore processing facilities, as well as physically turning back boats, providing life rafts to people arriving on boat, and a offshore processing regime for any arrivals. Labor is finally starting to respond to some of the more extreme elements of the program – opposition leader Bill Shorten recently called out components of the program as nothing more than a wedge, typically when press coverage is bad for the government do we see this topic whipped up.
The problem with ‘refugee politics’ is that whatever humanitarian outcome Labor attempts to achieve never goes far enough for the purist far-left, led in Australia by the Greens – who largely pander to an inner-city constituency, as they peel off once-safe Labor seats from the left. One can easily argue the Greens do not wish to solve the issue, for any compromise means they cannot whip their base into an frenzy and differentiate against Labor. On the right, slogans such as ‘stop the boats’ haunt a moderate solution – meaning meaningful compromise on either side is difficult – the rise of alt-right parties in Australia, such as One Nation, further isolate the possibility of a middle ground solution.
Under the final months of the Gillard government a ‘regional solution’ was proposed, one which encompasses a lift in the total number of refugees to be resettled, a ‘people swap’ (of sorts 4000 Malaysian-based refugees, ‘swapped’ for 800 Australian-based) with other Asia Pacific countries, remaining firm on boat arrivals (preventing a ‘stop the boats’-style campaign). Increasingly, conservatives in Australia are softening towards this solution – one they once rejected in opposition.
So, what is the way forward? New coalitions are forming, one in Australia is the End Child Detention Coalition led by groups who seek a sensible, humane, compromised middle position – legislative protection for children and regional processing/resettlement, accelerating processing time. Coalitions like this, include many groups that would be considered typically traditional ‘Liberal’ audiences – Catholic Mission, Uniting Care, Jesuit Services, Catholic Religious Australia – my hope, and the hope of moderate progressives worldwide, is that interest groups like these can again make us cross the divide of politics, and from the conservative side, apply ‘compassion’ and ‘religious values’ to the issue of those seeking asylum. To do this, we need a moderate plan that can win support on both sides:
- Build unlikely Coalitions – This means engaging with conservatives. While progressives often fight on different sides of the fence, especially on issues like LGBTI rights, we can still work together in other areas – religious groups and progressives often agree on refugees.
- Do not let the perfect get in the way of good – Call out parties like the Greens in Australia and others for their obsession with so-called ‘purity’, which amounts to self-interest by another name, preventing government from achieving good outcomes.
- Call out conservative wedge tactics – Do not be afraid to call out conservative wedges, distractions, or (as I told they are known in Britain) ‘dead cats’. The electorate is smarter than many think – they can see through the game, but we need to call it out.
- Change the stories – Getting positive local stories about refugees makes a difference. Be it volunteering, in sport or as community leaders, we have plentiful examples – so we should talk about these stories.
- Make it bipartisan again – The issue is too complicated for slogans, and in a post-truth era, we need to take every opportunity to agree across the political divide.
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Neil Pharaoh was the national co-convener of Australian Rainbow Labor from 2008-2013 and Labor candidate for Prahran in 2014. He tweets @neilpharaoh
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