Seat of the week: Lindsay

I’m a day behind schedule with Seat of the Week, owing to the extra work required to give due attention to the seat which matters more than any other. I speak of course of Lindsay, the western Sydney electorate which first emerged as a favoured barometer of national opinion after Labor’s surprise defeat off a double-digit swing in 1996. Its place in electoral folklore was cemented by the 2010 election, when Labor’s apparent obsession with it caused the party’s then national secretary, Karl Bitar, to demand that every proposed policy pass a “Lindsay test”. This was seen to have inspired the shift in prime ministerial rhetoric from Kevin Rudd’s “big Australia” to Julia Gillard’s “sustainable Australia”, and a tougher line on asylum seekers which was signalled in the first days of Gillard’s prime ministership through a photo opportunity with member David Bradbury aboard a warship off Darwin.

Lindsay is based around Penrith 50 kilometres to the west of central Sydney, from which it extends into conservative semi-rural territory to the north (Castlereagh and Llandilo) and south (Mulgoa and Orchard Hills). Labor had a 12.3% notional margin when the seat was created at the 1984 election, and its inaugural member Ross Free held it for margins of around 10% throughout the Hawke-Keating years, having previously been member for Macquarie from 1980. Free was most unpleasantly surprised to find himself turfed out by an 11.9% swing to Liberal candidate Jackie Kelly at the 1996 election, but was able to secure a re-match because Kelly, who had not expected to win, had failed to get her affairs in order before nominating (she was still serving as an RAAF officer, an “office for profit under the Crown”). Voters dragged back to the polls on a technicality rewarded Free with a further 6.8% drop in the primary vote, translating into a further 5.0% swing to the Liberals on two-party preferred.

The combined 16.9% swing to the Liberals meant the electorate’s demographic profile came to be seen as typifying John Howard’s constituency: high numbers of skilled workers on good incomes, low levels of tertiary education and a distinctly less multicultural flavour than suburbs closer to the city. This view was solidified by Kelly’s persistent electoral success despite the area remaining loyal to Labor at state level. The swing to Labor in 1998 was just 0.3% compared with the 1996 election result, producing one of a number of decisive marginal seat outcomes which secured the return of the Howard government from a minority of the two-party vote. This confirmed Kelly’s status as a prime ministerial favourite, helping her win promotion for a time to a junior ministerial position thought by many to have been beyond her competence. Kelly nonetheless continued to perform well electorally, picking up a 2.4% swing in 2001 and nearly holding even in 2004. To John Howard’s dismay, Kelly opted to retire at the 2007 election, at which the seat was further endangered by a redistribution which cut the Liberal margin from 5.3% to 2.9%. Any remaining Liberal hopes, both for Lindsay and the election as a whole, were demolished in the final days of the campaign when the husbands of Kelly and her successor candidate Karen Chijoff were among those caught distributing pamphlets purporting to be from Muslim extremists, in which Labor was praised for its support of the “unjustly” treated Bali bombers.

There followed a resounding 9.7% swing to Labor candidate David Bradbury, a Blake Dawson Waldron lawyer and former Penrith mayor who had run unsuccessfully in 2001 and 2004. There were reports in 2009, denied by Bradbury, that he was not of a mind to run in Lindsay for a fourth time, as he was concerned at the impact of the state government’s unpopularity and hopeful the departure of Roger Price might provide a safer berth for him in Chifley. Labor’s concerns were powerfully reinforced by a devastating 25.7% swing in a by-election for the state seat of Penrith on 19 June 2010, which preceded Kevin Rudd’s demise as Prime Minister by five days. The interruption of the by-election resulted in what seemed an inordinately long delay in the Liberals choosing a candidate, before marketing executive Fiona Scott was finally given the nod less than a week before the election date was announced. In the event the Liberals picked up a swing of 5.2% which only slightly exceeded the 4.8% statewide swing, falling 1.1% short of what was required. The post-election review conducted for the Liberal Party by Peter Reith identified the delay as a failing of the party’s campaign, and recommended the party’s federal executive be given a “last resort” power to ensure the selection of candidates for important seats in good time.

David Bradbury has twice won promotion since his re-election, first to parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer immediately after the election, and then to Assistant Treasurer and Minister Assisting for Deregulation in March 2012 after Kevin Rudd’s unsuccessful leadership challenge. The latter promotion was achieved at the expense of NSW Right colleague Robert McClelland, who was dumped from the ministry after publicly backing Rudd. Bradbury will again be opposed at the next election by Fiona Scott, who won a March 2012 preselection vote against Hills Shire councillor Robyn Preston by 62 votes to 42. It had been reported the previous September that Tony Abbott had approached Jackie Kelly with a view to making a comeback, but she was unequivocal in professing herself uninterested.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,296 comments on “Seat of the week: Lindsay”

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  1. [The Greens {…} believe their position {is} a vote winner.]

    We don’t care whether it wins votes or costs them. We only care that it is right. One cannot build a stable house on sand. Coherent and ethical principles are the foundation — a sine qua non — of good policy. Without these, a party stands for nothing and is as likely as not to prove utterly worthless when any serious matter arises.

  2. Rex Douglas

    What do you think of false claims by people trying to exploit deaths for political gain?
    There are a lot of people in this debate doing that.
    Instead all they have to do is leave the sinking boats and their rescue to the Maritime services and argue what is the best way to discourage people getting on boats.
    In other words what is the best long term policy fix.
    Amnesty International has presented one.
    The Greens have with their regional solution.
    Neither of the major parties have. They just have stop gap solutions.

  3. Pegasus asks “Why would they do it?” (take the risk on boats)

    Very simple answer: “It won’t happen to me”

    Just like when anyone speeds excessively on the roads “I know I could lose control and kill myself and my family but it won’t happen to me”

  4. [“Gillard’s majority in caucus down to 10 or less:…”

    Yawn, seen it all before.]

    Cos it’s NewsPoll week,
    Silly beat-ups on for sure,
    Shanner’s lies and so much more,
    Julia Gillard’s out the door
    It’s Newspoll week!

  5. fran

    anyone who’s spent more than a few years in a camp is someone waiting for resettlement in another country, not someone who has the wherewithal to pay people smugglers to take them there.

    Boat arrivals tend to consist either of people coming directly by sea from SE Asia (and thus rarely spending any time in a camp) or those who have paid people smugglers at their first point of refuge, and then come through several other countries before getting on a boat (again, often without having spent any time in a camp).

  6. [AS are a commodity flown around the world to situations where they can make a quick trip to wherever they are being sent. ]

    Hardly anyone would take the risks they are taking or bear the liabilities they’ve been said to bear if the camps were not as squalid as the best data suggests.

  7. Rex

    Sorry. I foot there is some talk that the Labor party one is the start of a regional solution,
    welcome if that is so.

  8. [Jill Favero ‏@JillFavero
    “@BorowitzReport: If Internet comments are any guide, the only thing the right wing hates more than Obama is spelling.” The same everywhere]

  9. fran

    look at the examples I referred to.

    Just as there’s no hint that these refugees particularly wanted to come to Australia, there’s no hint that they had any idea about what alternatives there were, other than paying someone.

    If you truly are concerned about the conditions in camps, then you’d welcome the Malaysian solution, which – the UNHCR concedes – has already improved conditions for refugees there, and also gets refugees out of camps more quickly.

  10. [Boat arrivals tend to consist either of people coming directly by sea from SE Asia (and thus rarely spending any time in a camp) or those who have paid people smugglers at their first point of refuge, and then come through several other countries before getting on a boat (again, often without having spent any time in a camp).]

    Leaving your home country is a desperate step. Your resources are by definition limited. You’ve probably sold off everything you couldn’t carry for a serious discount and essentially burned your bridges. You know what the camps are like and staying there is no option. Your best interest is to resolve your situation positively as soon as possible.

    As it happens though, there are any number of cases where long term camp dwellers have given up and accepted passage. Out of curiosity though — how long should they spend in squalor before “earning” your imprimatur for them to take their best shot?

  11. Meguire Bob

    To the extent that Nauru “worked” this was because of the way the Migration Act was used in the assessment process. No appeals were allowed. The result was a rejection rate of about one third ….. enormous when compared to the 5% or less usual rejection rate, and a bit of a disincentive.

    The HC on 11 November 2010 declared this selective application of the Act a joke, and invalidated it.

    Henceforth the acceptance rate for ASs via Nauru will be in the high 90%s.

    Plaintiff M61/2010E v Commonwealth of Australia; Plaintiff M69 of 2010 v Commonwealth of Australia [2010] HCA 41 (11 November 2010)

  12. Pegasus – “we need a durable long term solution” etc. I agree. I too I am appalled by the ongoing loss of the lives of refugees seeking to come to Australia to seek asylum. 

    But I don’t believe any of the current solutions are really workable – not Labor’s, nor the Coalition’s, not the Greens for that matter. We need to think more laterally to find an effective way of managing the dreadful humanitarian catastrophes that will continue to unfold.

    It is Interesting to look at the UNHCR website http://www.unhcr.org. Helps keeps things in perspective.

    One thing I did not realize is that Indonesia hosts only around 4,000 refugees. Given that most boat arrivals to Australia arrive via Indonesia, this is hardly surprising  – refugees do not see Indonesia as an attractive place to seek asylum, and instead merely transit (illegally) in Indonesia en route to Australia.

    The inter-governmental relationship between Australia and Indonesia has probably never been better than at present, but Indonesia fiercely resents any intrusion of foreign powers in its domestic affairs.

    So wherein lies the solution? My suspicion is that closer co-operation with Indonesia is key. Notwithstanding Indonesia’s massive coastline, it is a country which is surprisingly tightly regulated – it is inconceivable that the movement of large numbers of refugees would go un-noticed by Indonesian government officials in the communities through which they transit.

    But Indonesia is also a country where money talks. Clearly, at present, the Indonesian connections of people smugglers are able to pay sufficient bribes to officials to ensure their operations remain viable. Whilst balancing the need to respect Indonesian sovereignty, Australia needs to do everything conceivably possible to engage with the Indonesian government to intercept illegal immigrants whilst en route via Indonesia. This is the only way the human tragedy of lives lost at sea on dangerous boats can be prevented. Active enforcement of existing Indonesian immigration laws by Indonesian officials, funded via AUSAID, assisted by Australian intelligence capabilities, is the only realistic way to break the people smugglers’ business model.

    I don’t underestimate the diplomatic sensitivities. It will require substantial funding, as well as imagination and goodwill.

    But if we have a legitimate humanitarian concern, the only way of addressing it is at source: in the airports, and ports, and fishing villages of Indonesia, whence the boats originate.

    Of course this does nothing about the source of the problem: the appalling circumstances that lead people to leave their homes as refugees in the first place. But with the toxic political environment in Australia preventing other rational solutions being implemented, there is a strong case to tackle the problem via the Indonesian authorities.

    The point that is sometimes lost is that it is also illegal under Indonesian law for refugees to transit via Indonesia without passing through Indonesian immigration both on arrival and departure.  It is clear enough that this is what is happening at the moment, with corrupt Indonesian officials facilitating transit. Australia could legitimately provide additional aid to Indonesia to assist it in enforcing it’s own laws, without compromising Indonesia’s sovereignty.

    And if Indonesia can make a buck out of it, so much the better. To be 
    blunt, Australia has a lot more money to throw at the problem than the people smugglers have, and Australian funded detention centers and enforcement programs in Indonesia would create employment in Indonesia and inject money to the Indonesian economy. One means of breaking the cycle is to ensure that refugees do not get on dangerous boats in Indonesia in the first place.

    The evidence via the UNHCR numbers shows that Indonesia is not an attractive final destination for asylum seekers. What Indonesia does with illegal immigrants is a matter that can be dealt with under Indonesian laws. If they seek refugee status while in Indonesia, under UNHCR processes, so be it. But at that point they remain outside Australia’s jurisdiction. If the boats can be stopped in Indonesia, then the current people smuggling business model ceases to be viable. In a practical sense, Indonesia is the only place where boats can realistically originate, due to its proximity to Australia, and the fact that ALL boats that arrive in Australia are seized and destroyed.

    Therein lies another key component of the humanitarian crisis. It is only economically viable to use old and decrepit boats with little value – or at least a value less than the combined price desperate people are able to pay to get on them in the first place. For boats to originate in Thailand or other places much further from Australia, the boats required would need to be bigger, more sea-worthy, and far more valuable.

    I feel cynical writing these words, but the only hope of breaking the cycle of tragic deaths at sea is by breaking the people smuggling business model. The strict application of Indonesia’s existing laws, with Australian monetary aid, seems to me a logical way of doing this.  .

    But if we have a legitimate humanitarian concern, the only way of addressing it is at source: in the airports, and ports, and fishing villages of Indonesia, whence the boats originate.

    This approach requires no new Australian laws, or High Court challenges, or political engagement. Like it or not, both for humanitarian and political reasons, the only solution is to “stop the boats”. 

  13. The July 1st theory will be tested as Gillard has made that date a deadline for herself. If she can’t turn things around by September, she’ll have exhausted her political capital inside the caucus and things will flare up again.

    Anyone (including his supporters like McClelland) who thinks Rudd is going to somehow challenge again out of revenge is misreading what is going on. He’ll be drafted or he won’t. It’s a simple as that.

    The thing I fear the most is that some powerful factional people are thinking about a third leader

  14. guytaur

    No amount of dancing around the issue deflecting here there and everywhere will stop the people smuggling trade and the drownings

    If the govt were only interested in votes they would’ve simply re-instated the Pacific solution

    The Greens motives are being exposed

  15. I doubt whether any of the people who get onto substandard boats have any seamanship experience.

    Thus, they would believe the promises of the people smugglers that the trip is short, the seas are benign and the boats they are travelling on are, whilst obviously not brand new, ship shape enough for the trip, possibly after renovations – a lick of paint here, a bit of polish there – have been pointed out. Everyone gets a life vest anyway, so what could go wrong?

    Shirkers and doubters are heavied not to complain, probably by both the smugglers and their fellow passengers who “don’t want to make trouble”, especially after they’ve non-refundably handed over a good proportion of their life’s savings and have nowhere to go if they don’t get on board.

    While in transit they have their phones confiscated and their papers destroyed, so there’s no going back. Just before boarding they get their phone. Their relatives already in Australia didn’t have any problems, so why should they? They are reassured on this point. They’ve come this far. There’s no turning back.

    This idea that some savvy refugee, delegated for the task, who knows about things like seaworthiness gives the ship the once over and, if it’s found to be not quite right, can demand another boat, is a childish, fatal fantasy.

    All the above came out of the last disaster off the coast of Indonesia.
    Both the Greens’ and the Coalition’s policies rely for their entire raison d’etre on boat arrivals.

    The Greens reward people with enough money to fund the trip.

    The Coalition punishes them.

    But both need boats arriving as fuel for their policy positions.

    Once upon a time, many, if not all the refugees on boats were genuine. But, as with any process, eventually the lurk merchants and the chancers move in to corrupt it. It’s an easy way to get to Australia.

    The alternative – a visa and a plane trip – is literally not available to any country in the Middle East or Sri Lanka, even for tourism purposes. The few that get special dispensations only do so with rigorously policed sponsoring of and vouching for the traveller by an Australian citizen or organization, critically assessed on a case by case basis.

    So, forget coming here with a passport, visa and a plane ticket if you’re from the Middle East.

    The only way to get around the hurdles is to come by irregular boat entry. There is physically and legally no other way, as Australia has 100% maritime boundaries. It’s fly with approval, or sail without it.

    In sailing here, well-heeled refugees pay up big time, tens of thousand of dollars per family. They do jump queues, in that there are tens of thousand of refugees in Malaysia (for one example) that also want to come here, but do it in the approved manner, either because they’re law-abiding, don’t have any money or are terrified of a long boat trip for cultural reasons.

    The essential thing to recognize is that the romantic view of desperate refugees nobly escaping from oppressive regimes, while once maybe true (and forming the basis of the Greens’ nostalgic policy), no longer applies.

    In short, the Boat People industry has become a scam, just like any other unregulated industry. The crooks have moved in and taken over, offering safe passage to anyone with enough money, no questions asked. Even family reunions are on the cards. Nothing is too much trouble, if you can pay.

    If the relatively well-heeled travellers make it to Australia, at the moment they are welcomed.

    If the Coalition wins government, they will be punished.

    In both cases they will be here… if they have survived the trip, which, by definition they must make to qualify for either the Greens’ carrot or the Coalition’s stick.

    Only the government has a plan to deter these chancers from making the trip. It’s the Malaysian Solution.

    There have likely now been as many people drowned since the Malaysian Solution was first agreed on between the Australian and Malaysian governments as would have been sent to Malaysia. They have been saved from “canings” in Malaysia and have drowned in the Indian Ocean instead.

    Gerard Henderson’s glib assertion today that once 800 people have been sent to Malaysia the boats will start up again relies on this figure being reached and exceeded. No-one asked him who is going to volunteer to be among the 800 that don’t get in.

    Those who have drowned, as they went down for the last time would no doubt have appreciated the fine distinction between their brave deaths and their fate if they’d simply stayed home. I’m sure that, given the chance, every one of them would have rather drowned to suit either Tony Abbott’s intransigence or SHY’s hankering for the good old days before the rorters moved in.

    Times have changed, but the Greens’ and the Coalition’s policies have not adapted to them. They are living in the past: the Coalition wistfully seeking to reprise Tampa and Nauru (now killed off by the High Court) and the Greens’ for happier times when refugees were refugees, not just lurk merchants sailing through a legal loophole.

    They should be alloowed to keep drowning in their hundreds, if necessary. After all, it’s the moral thing to do. I’m sure that’s comforting to their families and friends.

  16. [If you truly are concerned about the conditions in camps, then you’d welcome the Malaysian solution, which – the UNHCR concedes – has already improved conditions for refugees there, and also gets refugees out of camps more quickly.]

    I’ve no problem at all with measures to improve conditions in camps. Anyone who is doing that has my support. Anyone who is getting displaced persons settled more quickly into acceptable circumstances also has my support. We don’t need a Malaysian people trade deal to do that though. We can just do it, in Malaysia, Indonesia and anywhere else handy to irregular maritime passage.

    I disagree with administrative punishment of vulnerable people, involuntary rendition and pandering to bigots.

  17. 240….Fran Barlow

    The point of the Malaysian arrangement is that persons arriving here by boat would be removed to another jurisdiction – with everything that entails in terms of the exercise of their legal rights. So, considering the cost and the risk involved, why would you embark on a sea-crossing from Indonesia to Australia if the eventual destination turned out to be Malaysia?

    Everything you say about the misery and desperation of asylum seekers rings true. They are in a dreadful, harrowing situation, and some will choose all kinds of perils. It is also true that when people have very little left to lose, they usually behave very conservatively: after all, if they lose the little they have, then they will have nothing at all. So while some will gamble with their own lives and the lives of their families, anyone making such a bet will still weigh up all the pros and cons. If the Malaysia solution was implemented, people would not sep taking risks, but they would certainly consider taking different risks – ones that did not expose them to putting out in overcrowded and unseaworthy hulks.

    We in Australia should do what we can do deter people from making such voyages. Saying this, we also have to live up to our own ideals, and find other ways to help those people whose lives have been ruined by violence, and who have no hope of either justice or peace.

    For the sake of contrast, it is worth comparing our performance in this respect with that of NZ. There is absolutely no question that we make a much greater contribution than do the kiwis, who have the advantage of being even more isolated than we are and who do not seem to feel these things quite as keenly as we do.

  18. Gary @244 re Samantha Maidens article in the Tele

    This has to win the award for the dumbest sentence I have read for a long time.

    KEVIN Rudd has been spotted in the parliamentary gym pumping iron in a sign Gillard supporters are interpreting as preparation for fresh leadership moves.
    Samantha Maiden The Sunday Telegraph June 24, 2012 12:00AM/i>

    The rest of the article goes down hill from there referring to Rudd’s “Dad jokes” and counting numbers that everyone agrees are not there for him, but could be if only people changed their minds.

  19. fran

    If it were up to me, people wouldn’t spend a single day in camps.

    However, in the real world, there are hundreds of thousands of refugees and limited places for them. (And if you created more places, there’d probably hundreds of thousands more claiming to be refugees in an effort to take up those places).

    What you keep ignoring, however, that those who come by boat – as a general rule – are a different demographic to those waiting in camps.

    Accepting those who come by boat does nothing to help those in camps. In fact, quite the reverse, because there are then less places for them.

    If you were truly concerned about those languishing in camps, you’d be even more interested in ‘stopping the boats’.

  20. psyclaw @ 262

    But nauru is now in a different ball park it is under the unchr, where under the howard government it wasnt

    So Abbott is lying where claims nauru will work the same way

  21. [265…..Rex Douglas….pacific solution]

    The pacific solution did not really work, was expensive and still resulted in most claimants being granted refugee status. What did work was the creation of temporary protection visas – a very cruel device of ever there was one.

  22. Just caught up with Meet the Press.
    Angelo Gavrielatos from the Australian Education Union was on.
    Some insight into our education system to see him using contemporary Australian language when talking about government taking money “off” schools rather than “from” schools.

  23. for those struggling to see the Greens policy as anything other than “open doors – get here by hook or by crook and you are welcome”, Jeremy Sear has had a go at knocking off some of the unfortunate consequences like drowning on the way.

    Yes, its the boat quality. If Australia did not insist on destroying the boats after impounding them, the people smugglers (travel agenst in the Green lexicon) would not need to choose the crappiest, cheapest vessel. Better boats would avoid sinking, and be more like a ferry service, rather than the Orwellian SIEV (Suspected Irregular Entry Vessel).

    the Green policy is Better Boats

  24. Rex Douglas

    I agree with the long post by Outsider. I have previously said processing in Indonesia would stop the boats if that really is what you want to do.

    As for Greens motives why is it when I pointed out Maritime Law on Responsible people for vessels did it go quiet.
    That exposed the motives of all those people trying to claim the Greens have no conscience and are responsible for deaths at sea.

    There is nothing wrong with the Greens policy. It is in fact the best long term solution put forward. The ALP one is a stop gap with the hope of regionalism in the future. The Noaliiton one is just a stop gap. The Greens policy is to get regionalism going and have on shore for those that arrive on our shores.

  25. [Pegasus asks “Why would they do it?” (take the risk on boats)]

    Because people have been taking to boats to find better land, a better way of life, better safety from natural & human predators – at the latest since the climate changed for the warmer and Ice Age’s ice melted.

    Today, we call the reasons they did so Push Factors. Though environment, tooling, boat-building etc have changed, reasons for people’s taking to boats haven’t.

    If datable evidence shows that the ancestors of our Indigenous Peoples were living at Narwala Gabarnmang 45,000 years ago, then hey, people have been coming to Oz in unsafe boats (prob, for the most part, hollowed out logs & outriggers) for 45,000 years.

    Personally, I’d rather today’s “pushed people” chose a much safer way of getting to Oz than crappy boats; but as long as there are so many push factors and far too many desperate refugees, people will continue to take to the sea in crappy boats; not because the believe it won’t happen to me – Oz’s own documented history clearly shows that, in post1787 migration to Oz, this is NOT the case – but because they are willing to risk everything for a better life.

  26. Mick Collins,

    What part of – the number of refugees that Australia can accept direct from the camps in Indonesia and Malaysia is not dependent on the Malaysia solution – do you not understand?

    If governments of both major political parties are so concerned about the welfare of asylum seekers and refugees, why during the last decade has Australia taken such a miniscule number of people from places such as Indonesia?

    Pegasus, the number of Refugees can accept is a separate issue to how to deal with refugees comming by boat.
    Can Australia accept more Refugees ?
    Absolutely, and so they should. You have no argument with me on that.
    It’s how Refugees arrive that concerns me, if they are comming by boat and drowning in the process, then I find that very disturbing.
    If there are other ways, where we take in more refugees and discourage then from risking thier lives on unseaworthy boats then we should persue that.
    This is what the “Malaysian Solution” at least attempts to achieve. Sure, superficially it may suck that Refugees who get on boats will be taken to a Malaysia camp. But for every on Refugee we take to Malayisa we take in more than one thats in those camps in return. At least those who are in the camps get a glimmer of hope.
    If other countries then get on board, such as Thailand, then it becomes win – win as you then take the boats out of the equation.
    Its surely better than the situation we have now

  27. @273 The measure of success of the Pacific Solution is not whether or not people received visas but how many boats were attempting the trip and how many we’re in detention in the end.

    When Rudd won in 2007 there was three people in detention and the ALP was attacking the Libs for having white elephant facilities in place.

    The Pacific solution worked – the ALP buggered it up and the Greens are up to their necks in dead bodies.

  28. oh dear. Gerard Henderson caught out by a media lie. Pity this did not come out before Insiders.
    @Jemima_Khan: I did NOT “tell Julian Assange to stop hiding and face his Swedish sex accusers” as this misleading headline claims
    http://t.co/HYAgGuHg

  29. Guytaur,

    The Greens non solution encourages people to chance their lives and as been amply demonstrated by recent tragic events, leads to deaths of AS.

  30. As far as I know, I have had no real dealings with boatpeople, but I have had several encounters with real refugees, particularly refugees from both east and west Africa. They generally don’t arrive here in boats, they can’t afford it. If they could afford it, the risks wouldn’t deter them for an instant. The camps they rot in awaiting acceptance from a country of asylum are so dangerous, particularly for women and children, and men who attempt to defend wives and relatives, that the death rate at sea would have to approach 30% to be any deterrant at all. The constant fear (and reality) of murder, rape, abduction or the usual diseases and starvation endemic in refugee camps in Africa is such as to make any chance of escape seem like a good option.

  31. CC

    The sucesss of the Pacfic Solution was in the ultimate destination being denied.
    Something like 90% accepted into the country.

  32. [The July 1st theory will be tested as Gillard has made that date a deadline for herself. If she can’t turn things around by September, she’ll have exhausted her political capital inside the caucus and things will flare up again.]
    Who mentioned September?

  33. re AS

    I wonder if we have to wait for the next election for the AS problem to be solved. Even then I don’t see any solution. If TA wins, he’ll be facing Nauru which doesn’t work; he’ll be trying to introduce the TPV but will be stopped in the Senate and probably by Labor. If JG wins, she still wouldn’t be able to implement the Malaysian solution. What then?

  34. guytaur,

    As has been amply demonstrated, the Greens just don’t give a damn about dying AS’s despite all the windy rhetoric you and your Greensters have tried to muster here on PB.

  35. GG

    As has been amply demonstrated you are lying about the Greens. In doing so you are exploiting the deaths of people who have drowned. Something even Tony Abbott has refrained from so far.

  36. Pegasus@205,

    It is the Australian Greens’ platform that the arrival of asylum seekers, whether by air or boat, is a humanitarian issue and cannot be dealt with in any practical or long-term sense while it continues to be conflated with border control or national security.

    Why not? Australia, as a sovereign nation, and her government, have a duty to protect our national borders, and as it intersects with it’s duty to provide national security.

    I put it to you, Pegasus, that if so much as a mouse gets past border control, then the government is rightly to blame.

    If asylum seekers wish to broach our borders, the government has every right and duty to seek to intercept them. Then to detain them for health, safety and security checks, followed by an assessment of their refugee status in due course.

    So, if The Greens refuse to deal with that in any practical or long term sense
    then that is a policy which suggests negligence wrt border control and national security. No serious national government can deal with a political party that has that position.

    Maybe if The Greens agreed to come down from their high ‘humanitarian’ horse and concede that, in essence, SIEVs are a national security and border control issue, some rational turkey may be able to be talked.

    Remember too that while politicians are talking about saving lives, when she launched the Malaysia swap deal on May 7, not once did the Prime Minister mention stopping deaths at sea or preventing another Christmas Island shipwreck. Nine times she said she wanted to send asylum seekers to the back of the supposed “queue” while she said ‘smash the people smugglers’ business model’ six times.

    So? Just because the PM did not mention deaths at sea when she was discussing the practicalities of her proposal, rend her garments and cry crocodile tears for the cameras, does not equate with the fact she doesn’t care or that it is not front of mind in her deliberations wrt a solution to the problem.

    Asylum seekers are not coming to Australia to breach our borders, but instead to invoke the protections of our borders.

    So they should not try to breach our borders in some sort of cynical exploitation of the ‘tired, poor and huddled masses’ ethos when we know they have just stepped off a plane in Jakarta and gone looking for Captain Emad to get on a boat to Australia.

    To seek the protection of our borders they should agree to participate in a regionally-agreed framework to assess the merits of their cases, as opposed to trying to game the system. Prove their bona fides, in other words.

    It is only the big parties’ obsession with appearing ‘tough’ on boat arrivals that creates a false dichotomy of Australia having to choose between cruel off-shore assessments, or the current scenario of unmitigated boat departures.

    No, it is the Labor government’s ‘obsession’ with trying to create a level, unexploitable playing field when it comes to refugees, involving a regional co-operative framework, not ‘cruel offshore assessments’, so as to forestall the unmitigated failure of the current system and to seek to prevent, as much as humanly possible, further tragedies at sea, in about 6 months time, as Phil Coorey most likely correctly predicted today on Insiders.

    The government is not wanting to appear ‘tough’ but be sensible.

    For the past decade Australia has taken roughly 60 refugees per year from Indonesia, despite knowing hundreds of asylum seekers are transiting through or waiting there.

    And guess what? The Gillard government’s Malaysia Solution was intended to remedy exactly that situation.

    A revamped version could see Asia-Pacific governments co-fund regional screening centres run by the UNHCR, with commitments to resettlement quotas upheld by participating countries. Australia can the lead the way.

    *cough* Bali Process much? Australia WAS leading the way.

    This is something the Australian Greens would be interested in supporting – adequately-resourced regional assessment centres which provide transitory protection in places like Indonesia and Malaysia, from where we could directly accept refugees and genuinely undercut people smugglers.

    Well, table, meet Greens.

    Crucially, such centres should never be used punitively as dumping grounds for asylum seekers who have managed to reach Australia, as in the government’s Malaysian swap deal. It was in no way a long-term response while the “queue” in Malaysia is effectively 53 years long.

    However, this is where The Greens, pie-in-the-sky policy comes crashing down to earth as it should acknowledge the reality that unless there is some form of deterrent built into the system, say the prospect of ‘a queue in Malaysia which is effectively 53 years long’, then there would simply be a shifting of the problem of numbers of asylum seekers getting off their planes in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur expecting to all be allowed to simply pass through the Regional Processing Centre on their way to Australia.

    As I have said previously, the Australian environment simply cannot cope with all the world’s refugees, and we do not have the infrastructure to cope with them in large numbers.

    We could cope with regional resettlement commitments by lifting our humanitarian quota to 25,000, including directly accepting an extra 5,000 -10,000 refugees from Indonesia and Malaysia. Giving individuals hope their families won’t be in unprotected limbo that is essentially a life-time sentence.

    Contradictory position to the previous statement but a welcome dose of reality nonetheless. Maybe The Greens should get around a table with the government to talk about it? 😉

    We must also consider improving assessment processes in the regions of origin or countries of origin such as Afghanistan. Again, there is precedent from the 1980s when internally displaced people from El Salvador and Chile were accepted into Australia through targeted in-country programs.

    The Gillard government has already agreed to accept the Bolt?Morrison suggestion for same. Good to see The Greens on board now too.

    Our challenge as a safe, peaceful and humanitarian country is to work with our neighbours to manage displaced people’s needs as best we can, offering a practical, humane and long-term response.

    It’s called ‘The Bali Process’.

    We need a durable, long-term solution and for that reason the Australian Greens will always be willing to discuss and consider a genuine regional framework based on compassion and humanity.

    I’ll be waiting with baited breath to see if the Australian Greens walk that walk instead of just talking the talk. I can’t see that they have any other alternative than getting around a table with the government, if all of the above quotes from them is the case in reality.

  37. Meguire Bob

    The other HC decision in August 2011 (the Malaysia case) said that aspects such as being a signatory to the UNHCR, and /or having domestic laws to protect ASs were indications of a “safe” country.

    But Nauru signed the INCR after and as a result of that case, and obviously too at the suggestion of Abbott/Morrison.

    If they ever use Nauru with the Act as it is writ now, it will be challenged on the same basis as Malaysia was, and it is possible that the HC will see the UNHCR sign-up as being hat ir was ….. expediency.

    Nauru of course is extremely interested for economic reasons. The detention centre was /would be one of that nation’s bigger industries.

    For these reasons and the fact that the Nauru rejection methodology is now invalid, it is a pretty poor option, as DIMA pointed out nearly a year back.

  38. [The Greens non solution encourages people to chance their lives and as been amply demonstrated by recent tragic events, leads to deaths of AS.]

    GG i think you have clearly won, you are consistent and logical. Guytaur is probably right too in that no amount of logic will stop the greens watching people drown (hey it isn’t their fault) while trying to make political hay.

    It is as disgusting as Abbott and my respect for the greens which had previously been strong, including sometimes in the senate ticket numbering all the boxes to include green preferences, was severely damaged by their stupid and dishonest approach to Rudds ETS. What respect I have for them, which would not include actually voting for them, is fast evaporating as they encourage, with the coalition the ongoing politicization and mistreatment of refugees for political gain. Disgusting.

  39. guytaur,

    As has been amply demonstrated, you just can’t handle the truth and need to resort to personal abuse to prove you can’t sustain your reprehensible arguments. Your guilt trip is all self inflicted, comrade.

  40. WeWantPaul

    No GG is wrong. You are too. This because you keep trying to claim a non existent moral high ground. Doing so at this time by exploiting the fact people have drowned at sea. Something even Tony Abbott has refrained from doing.

    You have no logic. The logic is get the processing centre at Indonesia or fly here to prevent death. So on all counts you fail.

  41. It is so very appropriate that the seat of Lindsay is the title of this thread.

    About time for the Member for Lindsay to do another stint on a Patrol Boat.

  42. [The Greens non solution encourages people to chance their lives and as been amply demonstrated by recent tragic events, leads to deaths of AS.]

    Least there is some sign of a conscience buried deeply below political expediency. But hey even Abbott has that.

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