Extract from ABC The Drum
Opinion
Updated about 8 hours ago
Close the borders in the name of decency and
compassion - not since George Orwell's 1984 satire has logic been so
twisted. Tony Abbott's speech in London didn't tell the real story
about Australia, writes Barrie Cassidy.
The political shackles that bind leaders - the
restraint against their most basic instincts - are sometimes a
helpful thing.
This week Tony Abbott broke free of the shackles
and exposed his creed: a fundamental rejection of negotiation and
compromise, and a refusal to allow compassion to get in the way of a
nation's self-interest.
Delivering the Margaret Thatcher lecture at
London's Guildhall, Abbott insisted it's strong leadership that makes
a difference.
His definition of strength?
Thatcher on the Falklands, he said, "did not
see an Argentine grievance to be negotiated, but a monstrous
violation of British sovereignty".
No negotiation.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
He urged Europe to study Australia's experience,
turning boats around and denying entry at the borders. "It will
require some force," he declared.
Fight. Fight. Fight. Even against desperate
refugees.
On safer ground, he urged even more force against
Daesh terrorists, but even then he argued for more effective local
forces on the ground:
As Margaret Thatcher so clearly understood over the Falklands, those that won't use decisive force, where needed, end up being dictated to by those who will.
Fight. Fight. Fight.
Even on domestic policy, the message was the same:
She (Thatcher) didn't see unions protecting workers so much as bullying their employers into bankruptcy.
Black and white. Fight. Fight. Fight.
To Thatcher the prime ministership wasn't about achieving consensus...
No consensus. Fight. Fight. Fight.
Abbott insisted "no country can open its
borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself",
and that Europe needed to close its borders to migrants "for the
universal decencies of mankind, lest the world rapidly becomes a much
worse place".
Close the borders in the name of decency and
compassion - not since George Orwell's 1984 satire has logic been so
twisted.
"War is Peace", "Freedom is
Slavery", "Ignorance is Strength", wrote Orwell of a
new world government that had brainwashed its population.
Abbott's speech caught the attention of the
British media, and most of it was negative.
The Huffington Post (United Kingdom) said the
speech was so ironic you couldn't script it, and his suggestion that
the borders be closed in the interests of universal decency "had
many Tory ministers present wince".
If the speech was designed to lay down markers for
Abbott's eventual return to the top of Australian politics, then the
only winner can be Malcolm Turnbull.
Having demonstrably captured the crucial middle
ground, why should Turnbull fear a campaign from Tony Abbott intent
on pitching even further to the right?
Abbott's speech in the end was a missed
opportunity. Why do our leaders not tell our real story when they
travel abroad?
George Megalogenis in his latest book "Australia's
Second Chance" topically raised the question that Australian
leaders should respond to: "How did you make the world's
greatest migrant nation?"
Good question. And the answer is obvious, or
should be.
Megalogenis writes:
Our unique strengths are social cohesion; our ability to turn the disparate querulous cultures of the world into a unified people.
That's our story; that's the real story. It's not
one that preaches hardnosed indifference to the tragedies befalling
the rest of the world. It's not one that favours tough action, force
if necessary, to prevent the suffering of others from spoiling our
utopia, a utopia built on migration.
And it's not one - at home - that favours force
and the will of a single leader over negotiation and consensus.
Barrie
Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a
weekly column for The Drum.
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