In a case of fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, the airy, nothing to see here, business as usual dismissal by Labor and articulated by Anne Aly on The Drum recently that it’s border policy is simply about ‘making the process more humane’ is slippery and misleading in the extreme.
Surely, such a policy would be necessary only if you were actually anticipating more boats (and why would that be) otherwise there’s nothing to be humane about. There have been no boats making landfall for almost five years so why would it be necessary to talk in terms of a more humane approach if you weren’t intent on dismantling Australia’s border protection regime?
Labor’s ‘make the policy more humane’ mantra is code and shorthand for onshore processing which would also be seen by people smugglers as further encouragement and confirmation that the Sovereign Borders policy had been totally dismantled.
Obviously given a Labor win, the people smugglers would take it as a green light for them to start up again and you can bet that Labor in coalition with The Greens, would say and do nothing to disabuse them of that notion.
Once onshore, it would again bring the refugees into the orbit of the usual suspect’s like the Refugee Activist Coalition, Labor Lawyers like Julian Burnside, and the ABC, Fairfax, Guardian activist collective.
As with most things Labor is wearing it’s best two faces of Janus, with their don’t frighten the horses, ‘more humane’ incantation. It is slippery, duplicitous and deceptive and if it fools you a second time, shame on you.