The first message comes from a senior lawyer. “Barbaric,” he writes. “Who are they? What are they?”
By the time he sends it, the Coalition is already boasting that it is running the immigration system for Labor. It doesn’t matter. There is no longer any difference between the major parties on refugees. The depravity is shared equally.
The treatment of asylum seekers is a national sickness. There are no limits to the vindictiveness. Nothing is too immoral. No measures are beyond the brutality of our ferret-eyed politicians.
The latest laws will allow the government to impose travel bans against entire countries. People will be deported to places they have never been, with Australia paying foreign governments to take them. There are prison sentences for anyone who does not comply. Those people currently in detention will have their phones confiscated.
Among the laws are new powers to cancel visas and overturn refugee assessments. Ankle monitors will again be used. The government is relieved of civil obligations and cannot be held liable for its negligence. The law has been filleted of its protections.
Among the laws are new powers to cancel visas and overturn refugee assessments. Ankle monitors will again be used. The government is relieved of civil obligations and cannot be held liable for its negligence. The law has been filleted of its protections.
“This government’s first priority is community safety…” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said when he began introducing the suite of bills. “The first priority is not ankle bracelets or detention for these people, our first priority is: we don’t want them in Australia at all.”
Taken together, the new laws are the most radical assault on migrants since the White Australia policy. All they lack is a dictation test. Advocates warn that they could be used to round up migrants before the election. Refugee services say they have been inundated with phone calls from people worried about what will happen to them.
At the heart of these policies there is only cruelty. The government has forced them through in the last sitting week of the year because it anticipates a panic on refugees will shape the next election. Instead of confronting this panic, Labor has decided to join it. They have no shame. They have only opportunism and moral glibness.
The laws give the minister powers to monster tens of thousands of people. They will split apart families and demonise foreigners. They will indulge the worst impulses of the electorate, the mad desire to punish the most vulnerable in the belief that it will somehow make the country safer.
Labor is recording the passage of its three migration bills as a win. It is the opposite. It is the loss of another small piece of the nation’s already diminished soul.