This opinion poll, reported in the Oz is encouraging, and supports my view that the upsurge in support for Howard over Tampa was the result of a temporary panic, stirred up by a combination of racial/religious prejudice and law-and-order politics. Of course, Howard’s success was enhanced by the total failure of leadership on the Labor side, epitomised by Kim Beazley, who is quoted in the story, as lame as ever.
The poll (taken before the latest news showing Howard knew the children overboard story was false), shows that more voters now disagree with the Howard Government’s handling of the Tampa issue than agree with it — 43 per cent versus 35 per cent, and that most favor allowing at least some boatpeople into Australia.
I think the reaction against the policy has been driven in part by the obvious nastiness of the government’s campaign against asylum seekers, amplified a thousandfold in some sections of the press, not to mention the blogosphere. It is hard to imagine any decent person reading some of the stuff that has been turned out by pro-government commentators on this issue and not reacting with disgust.
It is now clear that the vast majority of those on the Tampa and other boats were genuine refugees. Even those who were not were desperate people willing to risk everything to make a better life for their families. None[1] had committed a crime justifying the kind of treatment of they received.
fn1. No doubt I’ll get someone pointing out that some of these people might have been criminals, political or common. I wonder if the same people protested when Ruddock used his ministerial power to allow a large group of members of the South Lebanese Army, an outfit with plenty of crimes on its record, to jump the refugee queue.
John Quiggin 
We’ve heard of “reform fatigue” and “compassion fatigue”. The Newspoll results suggest that the electoral has developed a welcome case of Fear Fatigue.
We’ve heard of “reform fatigue” and “compassion fatigue”. The Newspoll results suggest that the electoral has developed a welcome case of Fear Fatigue.
I would like to think that part of the opinion change is driven by popular disgust to the treatment the refugees have been receiving.
The more stories that come forward the less support the Governments policies will have. I don’t think Australians like to see Australia branded as an abuser of human rights.
This reminds me of hoWARd fatigue…
and the way Carr has been behaving… NSW Labour fatigue!
hoWARd = Carr ?
Spot the difference!
It is now clear that the vast majority of those on the Tampa and other boats were genuine refugees.
Ahh the benefit of hindsight.
Honestly though, how on earth does a poll taken recently give any support to this unlikely theory that Howard received an upsurge in support because of his handling of Tampa ?
That implies that there are a substantial number of people who are fickle swinging voters and just waiting for the “issue of the day” to sway them before an election. I find that pill very hard to swallow, most people (as shown on this blog) are dedicated to one side of politics and don’t change easily.
jono, with respect, i would suggest that the asylum seekers issue does not follow a left & right line exactly.
there are now, and have been for some time, a significant proportion of conservatives advocating for a more long sighted an compassionate approach. and conversely, i would propose am equally significant amount of leftish sorts who endorse border protection – the tougher the better.
yes..
“we will decides who’s human rights are abused and how..”
Actually, jono, no hindsight is needed. Most boatpeople before Tampa were winning their cases, and there was no reason to suppose the Tampa group would be different. But the government had various counter-arguments, that have proved false over time.
When i say “it’s now clear”, I merely mean that the evidence, always strong, is now sufficient to convince anyone capable of being convinced.
The poll was taken against the backdrop of no boats arriving. Indeed, none have for some considerable time. It’s therefore conceivable that poll respondents would be more focussed on the issue of longterm detention in relation to the individuals remaining from the pre-Tampa wave of arrivals rather than on the generic question of ‘boatpeople’ per se. I don’t think there are many Australians who would perceive incarceration forever as an equitable outcome.
However, were boatborne people-smuggling activity to resume, I suspect that you’d see a shift back in attitudes. I’m not persuaded that there’s been a sea change in thinking around illegal entry.
There haven’t been any boats arrive for a few years. No doubt this has changed people’s minds. Wait till more boats start coming and the opinion polls will go back to where they were.
Pr Q’s almost knocks himself out by self-administering a violent pat to his Howard-hating back on the subject of Howards politics and public attitudes towards aliens:
No. Pr Q gets exactly the wrong take-home message from this poll. The change in public heart on alien-intake has come about because of Howards policy virtues, not his political vices. As I have been saying all along, there is more public sympathy for fair-dinkum aliens because the people are confident that their acts of good-will are not going to be rorted or abused by “special interests”.
Howard’s fundamental policy shake-up is to have an alien intake policy that is effectively-regulated, majority-supported and national-interested. Most Australians are happy to let in more fair-dinkum reffos and ethnic immigrants because they have confidence in Howards more stringent vetting system.
Howard’s most significant alien intake reforms have been in verification, not reception or incarceration, procedures. He has improved the effectiveness of people-smuggling deterring, asylum-seeker verifying and immigrant-selecting procedures.
Howard has driven the lawyered-up Theophanoid Left off the public stage. Peter Walsh nailed the way Cultural Left rorts had compromised the humanitarian refugee program over the late eighties and early nineties:
Howard’s tough line on border-protection has reduced the rampant, illegal, and deadly-risk trade in people smuggling to a trickle. Pr Q derided Beazley, but Beazley has a point:
The same softening of heart shows up in public attitudes towards ethnic immigration. Hargrave, Minister for Multiculturalism, put his finger on why there has been a change in public heart:
Howards handling of the alien-intake issue provides a classic example of Machiavellian cross-wired politics (eg Nixon-to-China). The nice substance of a progressive policy may be advanced by the nasty style of a conservative politician. That is why I call John Howard The Noble Liar.
None are criminals then, eh? Here’s a local example.
I had extensive dealings with illegal immigrants, or to use the latest euphenism, “undocumented arrivals”, and some were genuine (although transitting through five or more other countries before landing here stretches the fleeing persecution line pretty thin), a good number were at best sleazy opportunists and at worst criminals fleeing due process or retribution. I still favour TPVs as refugees should be encouraged to return home when it is safe, mainly to assist in the reconstruction of their homeland. A fair few of the genuine refugees are educated ad qualified, factors usually in dire short supply in countries recovering from conflict.
Persecution as a valid ground for migration is illogical and unsupportable.
I suppose all the Albanian Kosovars should have been granted residence, rather than reptriated when safe to do so?
If your neighbour moves in after their house burns down, do you expect them to stay permamently?
Let’s cut to the chase: we are not talking economics or academic arguments here! and WHAT FOR?
hoWARd’s policies cost lives.
What price do we put on HONESTY!?
What price do we put on LIES!?
What price do we put on a FAMILY!?
What price do we put on children being jailed? and their trauma? Remember Tampa? Remember the SIEV X? Nobody can justify the sinking of a ship full of people. Or turning a bind eye when their danger is imminent.Can we just wash our hands when some refugee is sent back without documents (or with illegal ones!) to a foreign country to continue his detention there?!?
Too many opinions HERE just have no idea what all this costs in HUMAN LIVES. It’s too easy to be a couch-potato…
I recently visited the Detention Centre in Villawood, Sydney. It used to be called “IMMIGRATION” centre, now it’s “DETENTION” centre… just like it used to be called the NSW Police “SERVICE”, now: NSW POLICE “FORCE”…
It was my first time there since about 8 years ago, when some friends who came here as refugees from Eastern Europe and South-America took me there to show me where they first lived, received support and education (English lessons, school ILU’s and medical check ups). They are all professionals now, two have their own businesses, all work in very well paid jobs and pay a fair bit in tax (much, much more than I’ve ever make! –later on we can argue the academic and economic arguments…)
That was quite an illuminating trip since I had no idea. My parents came to Australia via the “professional” immigration route: including paying for application forms and waiting for over a year for feedback on status, points for language skills, health, age, etc.
What really striked me about the Villawood “IMMIGRATION CENTRE” was that it had no wall or fences on its outside. These kids used to just go across the road to play, to go to the shops, to go to school, etc. They had friends in the local community!
Sure there was a few complaints from Italians, Greeks and a few other older group of immigrants. Yet, that is fairly common: they are just protecting their turf… just like every wave of immigrants always has, against perceived competition over quite limited resources (migrant centres in NSW, language translators, english lessons, etc)
My recent visit was to attend a protest against the current kind of “Detention Centres”. Nowadays, the whole area looks worse than Silverwater or Longbail gaol. In fact there was more police then protesters: about 10 horse mounted police, about 30 riot police (special ops: incl gloves, blue overalls, helmets, etc), centre staff and uniformed police: another 30 or more. They had cars, vans, photo cameras, and video to identify all who attended. Quite intimidating… Some of us posed and pulled funny faces in front of the cameras…
In fact, initially we were not even allowed to approach the only access road that now exists. All other approaches have been blocked off and layers of fences surround parks, footpaths and other areas I walked through in my earlier visit.
After a more civilised interchange, the very high ranking police officer in charge, literally decided to ask one of the organisers if “it was true we were there to violently break through and try to free some refugees?”
If it wasn’t so sad it would be hilarious! Not only did they vastly outnumbered us but the huge show of force and overly protected facility was never in any risk…!
I guess that is why they did agree to authorise us to go up the access road to one of the very outside fences in the main gate (a good 150 metres away.)
In the last 15 years, Australia has changed in huge way. Our priorities leave a lot to be desired. And bureaucrats and academics have become even more irrelevant and complicit in the deceptions that ever before.
Watch for the swing of the pendulum: it may hit you in the head if you are caught looking the other way!
“Not only did they vastly outnumbered us but the huge show of force and overly protected facility was never in any risk…!”
but of course Carlos, some of your number may have been criminals…
I agree with Geoff and Jack: more boats, and that number would change very fast. I seriously doubt that the current perception that most of the recent arrivals were genuine refugees would translate into a presumption covering anyone who bobs up now.
You also have to say that there is at the very least strong circumstantial evidence that the drop in boats arriving coincides with the shift in government policy. To the extent that the success of the policy has led to a decrease in the perception that it is necessary, that would be ironic, to say the least.
Geoff and Mork are right. But what the poll shows is that most Australians have no problem with boat people being treated with dignity. I think a very good majority (80% perhaps) would allow them entry and want their applications to be carefully and respectfully considered, if they were not afraid that things were somehow at the point of getting out of control. And it was precisely that fear that Howard and Ruddock fuelled.
Think of the gain in utility if the Government used a small fraction of the money it spent on its Nauru and Manus adventures, for educating instead of panicking people. If people became aware that boat arivals constitute only a small fraction of the total who come without visas or overstay visas, that most of them are genuine refugess, that Australia has vastly more resources for processing refugees than our South East Asian neighbours, and that it is working constructively with those neighbours to share the load and regulate the traffic – if they understood all this – they will be far less susceptible to bouts of xenophobia when there is an increase in arrivals during any given period.
I don’t think too much can be read into this poll, since there are no criteria given for which boats should be let through and which turned back. The only coherent position here – let any boat in – is still languishing at 14%, above its lowest point of 8%, but still very low.
The very sad part is that a Government only has to push some buttons and the xenophobic Oz will re appear.My grandfather and two brothers came over to Aussie land in the early part of the 20th century (1916)from Malta.It was in Mackay QLD.The boat they arrived was pelted with rocks and threatened by ossies, not wanting non Anglo Saxons to come here.
Things havent changed much in 100 years.
MickM that’s my very point!
And before then it was English v/s Irish, Protestants v/s Catholics, etc
Divide and Conquer!
By he way, nobody has ever provided a decent answer: WHAT FOR?
It takes LEADERSHIP to stop xenophobia (not in peoples mind)in the way a nation reacts, to “others” or “those people”.Keating tried, he tried to use legislation, but that does not work, maybe he had the wrong approach.Then Hanson came along. Now this jerk has pinched all her bad policies just to help win elections and divide the nation.
By the way, I don’t have trouble with taking assylum seekers to one of our islands such as Christmas Island,for processing,detained but not locked up behind razor wire or walls.
MickM
What sort of leadership should we use on me mate The Hook. He can be a bit of a blowhard at times. But not to worry, he promised me when he takes over he won’t be as bad as he sounds, he just likes to frighten the gumbayas who want everyone to love everyone else. You should see his glass eye light up when he parodies them. He is a card.
Do I have bonza mates or what? not like Bonsi, the little racist git.
Mick I don’t think you can take people offshore or to remote parts of Australia and give them the assistance they need to make their case. They should have access to interpreters, community support, legal officers and be assigned a case worker who can see them through the whole process.
Sweden and Canada have the best models I’ve heard about and they have many of these features.
It’s the sort of help I’d like if I was fleeing persecution. It’s called care of strangers.
It’s also called expensive- of great benefit if you’re an activist lawyer. All applications should have to be lodged offshore.
“I seriously doubt that the current perception that most of the recent arrivals were genuine refugees would translate into a presumption covering anyone who bobs up now.”
That’s simply because people use their prejudices instead of any evidence to (superficially) judge new arrivals. Historically the overwhelming majority of arrivals are genuine refugees and we have no evidence of that changing. There’s no good justification for policy based on prejudice.
“It’s also called expensive- of great benefit if you’re an activist lawyer. All applications should have to be lodged offshore.”
Again that’s not fact, it’s prejudice. The current evidence is that offshore processing nearly doubles the cost of detention and processing.
You could try to exploit community concern about evil “activist lawyers.” I would have thought that a lawyer acting through a social conscience, though, would be more on the noble end of the legal profession. I can’t imagine a lawyer making much money out of people who’ve fled their countries leaving any property they may have had behind.
Guaranteed if funded by legal aid. There is noe extra cost in lodging application offshore- they are already lodged with our overseas legations and through the UNHCR, and considered on merit. The major difference is that offshore applications are not assisted by emotive co-ercion by applicants and their supporters, and refusal does not incur the costs associated with detention and deportation (and the costs involved with increased maritime surveillance).
The less spent on prevention of illegal arrivals, the more is available for genuine cases- you should be all for it.
Yeah Paul, that’s why so many asylum seekers have been found to be geniune refugees: the authorities have been emotively coerced into those decisions.
By the way, you’re perfectly entitled to say you don’t want your taxes to pay for this sort of thing. Just as I’m perfectly entitled to say I’m more than happy for my taxes to be spent in this way. You don’t hold some sort of moral high ground just because you whinge about taxes.
Never claimed any moral high ground; and since when is questioning the expenditure of sizeable amounts of public money “whinging”?
In prevous threads you’ve suggested that anyone who disagrees with you must be employed in the public sector or otherwise engaged in what you seem to think is unproductive labour, the implication being that because you’re in the private sector you somehow have more of a moral right to complain about how your taxes are spent.
Well, I’m employed in the private sector, I pay taxes and I’m just pointing out that I – and plenty of other people – am/are perfectly happy to have their taxes spent assisting refugees find sanctuary in this country. If that means some gets ‘wasted’ sorting out the wheat from the (extremely small amount of) chaff, so be it. It’s a price worth paying for living in a civilised country.
Anyway, I’d suspect that using the Navy to defend our vulnerable shores against invading hordes of unarmed children, women and men hell bent on attacking vital strategic assets such as Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef incurs costs far greater than simply letting them land and processing their applications in a calm and peaceful manner.
But this was never really about cost and decency, was it?
“But this was never really about cost and decency, was it?”
For some of us it was about rule of law and treating people equally under our law of deciding who shall come here.
Let’s assume that we all take the little bit pregnant position and are not calling each other sluts. ie None of us believe in the purity of, if you can fly, row or walk here you can stay. You can take that stance, but I would suggest that there would be no social security provisions, a la the third world, for our citizens very quickly if you did. Consequently I have seldom heard that position argued. Any takers?
Now we assume that we have as a humanitarian society, collectively decided we will offer about 12000 places per annum to refugees, which we know costs the taxpayer approximately $40k each to house and settle. Now you may say this is a bit stingy and advocate for more. However, whatever level we decide upon we all have to accept that it is a drop in the ocean of need, although Australia’s contribution here is fairly generous when viewed on an international per capita basis. That is your democratic right to lobby for a greater humanitarian intake, but you have to bear in mind the costs of asking ordinary wage earners to subsidise such an undertaking. Perhaps you could advocate introducing a levy on high net worth individuals, similar to the Medicare levy, to fund such an admirable undertaking.
Failing a political increase in the 12000pa intake, you need to recognise that with about 4200 boat arrivals pa in 2 yrs before Tampa, over a third of this intake was being imposed upon. Then on one hijacked rescue ship alone, 433 people were asking to jump this organised, albeit pitifully long refugee queue. Now as an opponent of this, I would say that I concede the majority would fit refugee status, although many of them would also technically fall foul of the UN refugee policy against country shopping. As well there are the inevitable odd undesirable or would be kebab shop owners among them. Nevertheless we could deal with that, although a no detention policy upon arrival would probably see most of these illegals abscond and be hard to deport. That aside, I would say that providing the fare paying refugees, did not exceed our quota of 12000pa, then they would be the pick of the crop among possible refugee applicants. Those who could afford the $10000 US to pay the people smugglers, would clearly be the middle classes from their poorer countries of origin. Why not let them take up the spots of our 12000pa then? For the same reason we should have standardised unemployment benefit rules for redundant workers, irrespective of whether they worked for Ansett or yours truly. It’s called rule of law, rather than the divine right of those in power at the time, who might decide a Sheik Hilayly seems like a good vote winner at the time. Also can we be sure, that in the absence of the current policy of deterrence, the number of boat arrivals would not grow beyond our mutually agreed 12000pa? The voters have answered that question previously and given the enormous emotional and political investment to answer it, I would suggest it would not be wise to dismantle the rule of law again. Particularly now that our detention centres are almost empty and the people smugglers have stopped drowning some of their clientele.
Fully agree with most of that, except for the enforced altruism; I’ve repeatedly called on people who loudly proclaim the rights of entry to all and sundry to put their money where their mouths are, and sponsor a few detainees- if as Warbo states he has no opposition to his money being spent on this, he could spend his money on it; if taxation was voluntary, I would have no objections to aything being funded, as you could fund what you support. The entire thing was about cost and decency in most people’s minds I think you’ll find; our resettlement program is already expensive without the add-on costs of blow ins, who do not respect our national soverignty or rule of law (and incur further costs through determination, review and appeal, and in many cases detention and deportation).
Perhaps rather than enforced altruism, Labor could advocate a Humanitarian Refugee Levy during the election campaign. This would be similar to the local water catchment levy we pay on our council rates, or the Save the Murray levy on our water rates here in SA. It could be voluntary like nominating yourself as an organ donor on your drivers licence, although we should observe the obligation to pay a mutually agreed compulsory levy. The various political Parties could include their intake level and levy in their platforms. This would be the most honest way of dealing with the electorate and demonstrating their true level of concern. Of course additional private benificence could add to the number of agreed levy funded intake places. That should take the political heat and dishonesty out of the issue once and for all.
how about a levy to pay for the Gov’t subsidisation of various locally situated industries (which may not necessarily be owned by locals)?
As long as it’s voluntary, fine. And while we’re at it, lets kill of the remaining tariffs, especially the motor industry (and the accompaying anti-free trade Australian Design Rules) and TCF (textile, clothing and footwear) who are both still highly cossetted; can’t see it going down too well with Doug Cameron of the MWU and the ACTU however. A sub 50K Porsche- nice.
Observa, your prim 12,000 line kills me.
When the whole world’s sinking, you’ll be tartly commanding the gods, “I paid good money for this berth, my man, now bring me a cup of tea.”
I’m with Carlos – you’re a moral couch-potato.
“Seen the news footage of Darfur, my dears – dreadful isn’t it? Oh yes, quite dreadful!
Something should be done about it. Now about this 12,000, I believe we are up to 9,675 this year. Take a number and rot over there please. Next!”
Such clean order. Nice little compartments. So legally and administratively lucid.
Mind your slip! The mud’s quite deep here.
Gosh, is that somebody’s hand …
Will the race card be played?
In keeping with the blogosphere’s reputation for discussing tomorrow’s news today, in this guest post Back Pages commenter Harry McBlighty asks the question that hovers at the back of every anti-Howardian mind. Please note, remember that we are running…