Peter Hughes and I posted two blogs in September 2015 (‘Slogans versus facts on boat arrivals’ Part 1 and Part 2) that pointed out first, that Tony Abbott kept the door open for tens of thousands of boat arrivals by opposing legislation that would have enabled implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement of September 2011. Secondly, we pointed out that Tony Abbott’s role in ‘stopping the boats’ was at the margins and vastly overrated.
Since then, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have continued their spin about how they stopped the boats. They didn’t. Unfortunately, our mainstream media were duped in the first place by uncritically accepting the Coalition’s line in the confused period of the changeover of governments and in the drama and secrecy surrounding a small number of turnbacks.
Our main conclusion in those posts was that:
By the time Operation Sovereign Borders geared up for its first boat turnbacks on 19 December 2013, the number of boat arrivals was down from 48 in July 2013 to only seven in December 2013. OSB applied only to the tail end of the boat drama. The ‘game-changer’ was Kevin Rudd’s announcement in July 2013 that people arriving by boat after that time would not be settled in Australia.
Arguably boat turnbacks would not have been successful at all without the July 2013 decision. For example, the Navy and Customs were able to turn back three boats in December 2013 after the introduction of OSB. It’s hard to believe that it would have been physically possible to turn back 48 boats if they had continued at the monthly rate that occurred in July 2013 and that Indonesia would have quietly acquiesced.
In short, Tony Abbot in Opposition gave the green light to people smugglers by opposing the implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement in September 2011. In Government, Operation Sovereign Borders, had a marginal effect on boat arrivals. By the time OSB came into effect, the number of boat arrivals had been dramatically reduced.
John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
4 responses to “JOHN MENADUE. The ongoing spin that Tony Abbott and the Coalition stopped the boats.- A REPOST from August 3 2017”
Interesting discussion. A factor in the reduction of boat arrivals in December compared with December arrivals is the weather conditions. Fewer boat arrivals generally occur in December and January. There seem to be a number of factors contributing to “Stopping the boats” . These include the clear message from Rudd that boat people will not be permitted to enter Australia, offshore reception centres, turning back boats, and Indonesian cooperation, not to mention the changes in legislation to discourage crew and people smugglers in Indonesia as well as arrests of a number of smugglers in Indonesia, extradition changes and implementation and joint disruption activities in Indonesia. The failure of Abbott to support the Malaysia option was deplorable and purely political. The former Indochina CPA arrangements indicate that this option had very strong likelihood of success and stop the many deaths at sea.
Indeed the MSM were in collusion to promote the story that it was the coalition that alone turned back the boats. The on water secrecy act was purely to cover anything that went wrong.
Rejecting the Malaysia agreement was perhaps the worst crime committed by Abbott. Some say he was “good” opposition leader. I think he was the opposite. His personal antipathy to Julia Gillard has resulted in incalculable misery.
Really mainstream was duped that is being kind?