We’re now so far down the truthy tunnel, we’ll require a map, a floodlight and some grappling hooks to find our way back
We can start with a statement of the obvious. Governing is about choices.
Scott Morrison has made a number of significant choices over the past few days.
He’s chosen to try to wedge Bill Shorten on border protection, which was part of an effort to do everything he could to try to avoid losing the vote he lost in the House on Tuesday. After losing the vote, he’s chosen to push off the loss by launching a sonic boom on border protection.
The sonic boom is playing out on multiple fronts. Morrison chose to hold a press conference in his courtyard on Wednesday to announce the government will reopen the Christmas Island detention centre in order to deal with “what the parliament has done to weaken our borders”.
His words, “weaken our borders”.Scott Morrison has made a number of significant choices over the past few days.
He’s chosen to try to wedge Bill Shorten on border protection, which was part of an effort to do everything he could to try to avoid losing the vote he lost in the House on Tuesday. After losing the vote, he’s chosen to push off the loss by launching a sonic boom on border protection.
The sonic boom is playing out on multiple fronts. Morrison chose to hold a press conference in his courtyard on Wednesday to announce the government will reopen the Christmas Island detention centre in order to deal with “what the parliament has done to weaken our borders”.
Morrison did not, at any point during this uplifting presentation, point out that 879 people (sick asylum seekers and their families) have been transferred to Australia for medical treatment as of 9 February, and that influx has not necessitated the reopening of any mothballed detention centres, nor any public rumination about weakening Australia’s borders, nor, for that matter, triggered any known surge in the number of boats attempting to reach Australia.
Again, a choice. What you say, and what you choose not to say. Prime ministers, more than any other person in the country, workshop everything that comes out of their mouths.
Tracking back just a couple of weeks, Morrison gave a speech about the economy. The prime minister made a choice with that outing: he would hint, but not say outright, that electing a Labor government would trigger a recession.
He didn’t use the word recession because the office gives those words the power to move financial markets. There was a recession-like implication in the speech that gained wide interpretation in subsequent reporting – but the fact is the prime minister chose his words judiciously, because the responsibility of the office demands you do that.
We are a long way from that caution now. That was so three weeks ago.
So Morrison on Wednesday stood in his courtyard, reported with the full authority of his office that border protection had been weakened, concrete measures were being taken to deal with the weaknesses, and he Morrison, would attempt to stop the boats that Shorten had summoned with his manifest recklessness.
As well as hanging a lantern over these alleged weaknesses, Morrison made another choice. The prime minister was invited to send a clear message to the people smugglers by confirming a central fact about the medical evacuations bill – that the new procedures would only apply to the current cohort of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island, not to any new arrivals. He was invited to rebuke clearly misleading statements from members of his team, like Tony Abbott, who said on social media the bill invited people to “get on a boat, get to Nauru, get sick, get to Australia” (and later in a radio interview, added: “Stay in Australia”).
People smugglers and their customers are the only winners from Labor’s weakening of our border protection policies because ample medical treatment offshore and onshore was already available. Under Labor, it’s get on a boat, get to Nauru, get sick and get to Australia
Bizarrely, reporters were then rebuked for attempting to keep statements factual, which is the practical test of whether or not a reporter has showed up for work.
“You fail to understand that people smugglers don’t deal with the nuance of the Canberra bubble,” the prime minister said. We needed to understand that people smugglers don’t care about facts.
The fact that new arrivals don’t get access to the medevac procedures was a “nuance which the people smugglers will ignore” – which could well be true, but didn’t in any way explain why Morrison, the prime minister of Australia, was declining to confirm basic facts pertinent to whether people smugglers have a product to market.
Newsflash. What the law says is not a “nuance”. It’s a fact.
By this point, it was clear we were so far down the truthy tunnel that we would all require a map, a floodlight and some grappling hooks to find our way back.
There is another element of recklessness about the current escalation that also needs to be highlighted.
Part of the sonic boom involves senior figures creating an impression that Nauru and Manus Island are full of dangerous people, furtive criminals, and we can’t have them coming here.
Small problem with this narrative. Senior figures in the government seem to have forgotten that Australia is trying to convince Donald Trump to take a bunch of people for resettlement in the US that he doesn’t want to take, and that we really need America to take some of these people to fix a mighty monstrosity we have created for ourselves because of our toxic politics on boat arrivals.
What will Donald do, pray tell, when he finds out that offshore detention is full of criminals?
Does anyone care?
Is anyone thinking more than five minutes ahead?
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