Australian leftist academic Robert Manne expresses that which he believes the Left (and the Right) have refused to acknowledge about Australia’s policy on asylum seekers who arrive by boat in an article at Melbourne’s The Age.
While maintaining that the Right refuses to acknowledge that the ‘Pacific Solution undermined international law and was extraordinarily cruel,’ he observes that ‘the Pacific Solution succeeded in deterring the boats.’
The left’s unwillingness to acknowledge the obvious has been of great political significance. Following Kevin Rudd’s election in 2007 a wise asylum seeker policy would have involved leaving the Pacific Solution intact but humanising policy by increasing the annual quota of refugees and ending mandatory detention. The internment camps on Nauru were virtually empty. The undeniable cruelty of the policy had reached its natural end.
No one on the left with an interest in asylum seeker policy – and I include myself – was far-sighted or independent or courageous enough to offer the incoming Rudd government such advice.
I’m not certain what course of action that Manne is presently advocating.
I think it is offshore processing, run by Australia, with a significantly higher intake number.
Read his whole article at The Age online.
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