Scott Morrison on air with Andrew Bolt pointed out that offshore processing will only work in partnersip with other things like turning back boats and temporary visas.
Given the Rudd and Gillard track record of bumbling and fumbling policy implementation, what can we expect?
Another concern is whether the Commonwealth public service is capable of administering good policy when it does arrive one day.
The Labor mob actually getting it right?
Only if ‘getting it right’ involves careening down the road to total distruction.
Everything they touch turns to crap so often there’s no way it’s accidental.
nilk
14 Aug 12 at 10:30 pm
Yes they can.
yes they will.
They have history in screwing things up.
Gab
14 Aug 12 at 10:34 pm
I have no doubt that the ALP actually don’t want this to work, they will do everything they can to ensure it doesn’t.
Gillard will be looking for it to fail so she can say “look, I told you the Pacific solution wouldn’t work, Abbott was wrong all along”
All designed to convince the gullible that the huge rise in boats wasn’t their fault in the first place.
Old Fridgie
14 Aug 12 at 10:37 pm
I agree, Fridgie.
That’s the objective.
C.L.
14 Aug 12 at 10:41 pm
It doesn’t impact the Libs if they fail as they will tell the punters what’s going on and they are seen as more credible than those lying turkeys.
JC
14 Aug 12 at 10:45 pm
I agree but that won’t stop those clowns rolling out the all Abbotts fault bullshit anyway.
That is their only fallback position.
Old Fridgie
14 Aug 12 at 10:47 pm
The Libs will be blamed – it’s always Abbott’s fault – despite the Houston report “expert panel” recommending a watered-down version of the Pacific Solution. Labor has no intention of removing the incentives. Off-shore processing as a stand alone is not the magical solution.
Gab
14 Aug 12 at 10:48 pm
From Old Fridgie.
+1. I get the distinct impression of any commitment on the Ranga’s part to stem or even slow the flow of uninvited bludgers into the country. The lack of temporary protection visas and absence of any instructions to return boats to their departure points is a good indicator of the usual half hearted clusterf*ck for which these ALP clowns have become renowned.
I also suspect Greenslime collusion here.
Pedro the Ignorant
14 Aug 12 at 11:04 pm
After five years of lives lost and huge financial burden placed on taxpayers, Gillard now wants to rush through the bill for off shore processing. Like she rushed through the bill for the tax on carbon dioxide.
Apart from the first hurdle being Manus Is. is now in doubt, those meany Libs won’t slavishly do her bidding, preferring instead to debate the issue. The Greens will hold up it in the Senate of course.
Meanwhile, Gillard claims both Manus Is. and Nauru will be operational “within a month”.
Clouds of the East Timor debacle looming.
Gab
14 Aug 12 at 11:05 pm
Rudd, Gillard and the rest of the labor cluster f*@#% should be called to account for the damage their policies have caused.
I would like to see treason charges laid for the defunding of Defence.
Eddystone
14 Aug 12 at 11:18 pm
Gillard has no intention of stemming the flow of illegal immigrants. She’s figured out the illegals are the only possible source of additional Labor voters. It’d be no surprise if it turned out that Gillard has been secretly funding the construction of boats in Indonesia to help fuel the supply of illegals.
Ubique
14 Aug 12 at 11:37 pm
Book the look of those boats, Ubique, I’d say she also designed them and was in charge of outfitting them.
Gab
14 Aug 12 at 11:41 pm
“By the look”, damn.
Gab
14 Aug 12 at 11:42 pm
We’ll know they mean business if and when mariners “in distress” rescued in the Indonesian search-and-rescue zone are disembarked in the nearest port in Indonesia as is aleady legal and accepted by convention and the Law of the sea. I confidently predict this won’t happen until the first days of an Abbott government.
Cold-Hands
14 Aug 12 at 11:43 pm
They will sabotage this policy change with extreme prejudice, like Fridgie said. It will look like incompetence, because everyone is used to seeing it in the Liar’s party. But it will really be malice at work. And then it will be : “look we did everything Abbott wanted and it didn’t work”.
They only want to implement one part of the original pacific solution anyway. Might as well be driving a four cylinder car on one functioning cylinder.
They’ve already tried to poke Nauru in the eye by not briefing them and then saying that the inmates of the detention centre will be allowed to roam freely around the island, but will be locked up at night. Yeah that’s not going to work.
The coalition should insist on the TPV measures, and Houston really only said that turning the boats around would really hard, not don’t do it.
The coalition should also insist that Ruddock, Morrison, with Hill, Downer and Vanstone as consultants, be given full operational control for setting up and running this change of heart, and Bowen, Carr and Smith to be sat in corner told to shut up, don’t touch anything, and learn.
Keith
15 Aug 12 at 12:24 am
The Coalition needs to get on the front foot and at every available opportunity make the case that after Gillard finally – finally – has accepted one third of the key elements of the Pacific Solution there should be no further delay in implementing the other two planks. Morrison needs to hammer the point that Gillard has said the time for politics is over, she has said that this is the time for compromise and therefore the hope and expectation is that she’s true to her word and she won’t have to be dragged kicking and screaming to TPVs and turning back the boats. The Coalition really need to be aggressive and persistent about this because the love media are not going to want to give it air and there is every justification for being suspicious about Labor’s motives given its form in prioritising the politics of this issue.
Having said that I think Gillard will resist because the logic is inescapable if a return to the Pacific Solution in full were to occur and be again successful – namely, that Gillard is culpable in the deaths of hundreds and the misery of thousands.
Ivan Denisovich
15 Aug 12 at 2:23 am
Does anyone have a link to the report? I want to check what it actually says regarding TPV’s.
2dogs
15 Aug 12 at 6:38 am
Once again you’ll be able to take a quick measure of the intent of all the media who comment on this. Those that are partisan will pretend it’s all about the offshore bit, or make other excuses like Linda Mottram’s false assertion yesterday: “All the ones sent to Nauru ended up here anyway.”
Or even better, like Leigh Sales last night putting it to Morrison that now the coalition was equally answerable for the results, then telling him his response about the other two necessary planks was ” an easy out”.
There’s no properly functioning democracy while dishonest media have sway.
Blogstrop
15 Aug 12 at 6:40 am
“Administration”??
I thought we were talking about America there for a minute..
Ooh Honey Honey
15 Aug 12 at 7:28 am
If they don’t have TPVs and turnback, it’s not the Howard solution and the Coalition’s hands are clean if what happens fails. That’s my 2c worth.
The only conditions that work are:
NO family reunion if you arrive without papers.
NO citizenship ever if you arrive without papers and NO right to sponsor an overseas spouse when you get granted permanent residence.
NO re-entry into Australia if you return to the home country.
Automatic deportation upon breaching criminal law or visa conditions.
perturbed
15 Aug 12 at 7:37 am
If TPVs are not included in the ‘solution’, then wont the Coallition propose an ammendment to include them? Something along the lines of ‘no papers no permanent residency ever’. That makes it clear what their policies are.
Can someone with some idea of how parliament works tell me, how could the govt already have drawn up the legislation with only 1 days notice?
dianeh
15 Aug 12 at 7:49 am
Fran & Michelle’s Daily Reunion
The coalition is “not taking onboard the centrepiece of the expert panel’s report, the Regional Solution.”
On the other hand, Fran and her mates at the ABC are not keen to take onboard the “no advantage by coming by boat” aspect of the report. Who’s cherry-picking now?
A new shock-horror meme is “people in tents in the tropics”.
RN Life Matters will talk to “someone who has made that voyage”. Wow.
blogstrop
15 Aug 12 at 7:54 am
If Julia implements a regime that doesn’t work, although she will be able to point to the Libs and say they were wrong all along, she will also have to concede that she can’t set up effective committees and/or she has so little instinct that she accepts defective policies from them.
It would be to her advantage to include something extra, not TPVs but something with a similar deterrent effect. Then she can say there is no proof that the coalition suite of policies would have worked but (should there be a minor reduction of the influx) but that hers did. She can then demonise things such as TPVs with lies – her only relative strength.
Given her beliefs she could cancel the CO2 Tax, and then allow the ensuing ‘increase in extreme weather events’ to discourage boaties – an extremely unlikely and tenuous seeming connection of cause and effect, but still stronger than anything she has offered up before.
Aqualung
15 Aug 12 at 8:23 am
A question that hardly requires asking.
Just remember why we are in this mess in the first place.
My prediction?
There will be no offshore processing under a gubberment dullard leads.
Rabz
15 Aug 12 at 8:31 am
‘Another concern is whether the Commonwealth public service is capable of administering good policy when it does arrive one day’.
I wouldn’t bet on it. DIAC (Immigration and Citizenship) is one of the ‘dumb’ departments, mediochre people operating within a narrow and inflexible culture. Secretary Metcalf tried for years to paper this over, but DIAC remains one of the agencies (Tax is another) where the untalented go to get promoted.
I don’t know what the political culture is like now,
but when I worked with some senior DIAC people in the early oughties, I was a little taken aback by the overt and gratuitious anti-Coalition bias of some of them. The majority of Commonwealth public servants are probabaly anti-Coalition in their private lives, but it’s not normally something they talk about openly in an official inter-departmental meeting!
Des Deskperson
15 Aug 12 at 8:34 am
Add to that a layer of content-free managers that have been added to high levels of some agencies.
Poor Old Rafe
15 Aug 12 at 9:08 am
She shouldn’t recover from this. Surely!?
http://youtu.be/IfafL0CMpC0
jules
15 Aug 12 at 9:33 am
Is anyone even mildly surprised?:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/had_labor_listened_three_years_ago/
The selective calls for bipartisanship (remembering that Labor opposed every major economic reform of the Howard Govt, for example) and silence illustrate that the collective sense of entitlement extends well beyond Labor to its acolytes in the media. The fact that they cheered on Labor’s dismantling of the Pacific Solution further stimulates demands for silence now in a shameless display of double standards.
Ivan Denisovich
15 Aug 12 at 10:02 am
Yes, that’s an additional pre-condition for coalition cooperation – Gillard resigns.
Keith
15 Aug 12 at 10:51 am
The problem is that the people smugglers don’t care about any of this. Why should they stop bringing people here? The gullibles in the boats will be told everything’s fine until the detention centres are once more overrun. It’s beginning to look like the best solution is to do a deal with Indonesia. We set up offshore processing in Indonesia and, in return, we will return to Indonesia any illegal immigrants who come by boat after this point to go to the back of the queue. Jakarta may see advantages in this. If we take the sugar off the table and if the processing times are long enough it may slow the flow of would-be economic immigrants to Indonesia.
Fred C Dobbs
15 Aug 12 at 4:43 pm
can I suggest a small edit.
The problem is that Qantas and Virgina (who carry a large number of refugees here) don’t care about any of this. Why should they stop bringing people here?
JC
15 Aug 12 at 4:47 pm
The plain truth of the matter is the people-smuggler business men and the country-shopping economic immigrants know Labor does not mean business. They know Labor will never turn the boats around, they know Labor will never ask Indonesia to do their own search and rescue in Indonesian waters, they know Australia will send the navy/customs vessels and taxi them to Christmas Is., they know TPV’s will not be the same as Howard’s version, they know Gillard will never take the sugar off the table. In short, they know Labor and the Greens will buckle and hence the boats will continue to arrive in unprecedented levels as currently the case.
We are the boil on the butt of Asia. We are laughed at for being the gullible human rights idiots we are. Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia all point to Gillard and blame her for the pull of “asylum” seekers through their countries. We are the laughing stock of the region.
Gab
15 Aug 12 at 4:53 pm
Harsh, but fair, Gabrielle.
blogstrop
15 Aug 12 at 9:03 pm
It’s so close to Galadriel it’s not funny!
blogstrop
15 Aug 12 at 9:04 pm