 Political
Corrections
with Margo Kingston
Turning the tide in Parliament
On Tuesday night just before 6pm Amanda Vanstone's representative in the House
of Representatives, Peter McGauran, introduced the Migration Amendment (Detention
Arrangements) Bill into the House of Representatives - the People's House.
Victorian MP Sophie Panopolous labelled as "political terrorists"
the four Liberal MPs who, against all the odds, had forced the Prime Minister
to allow Parliament to enact legislation softening the human impact of his mandatory
detention policy and his refusal to grant refugees permanent residence.
"There is an arrogance in the thinking by a few individuals... to hold
the Government to ransom on this," said Sophie, who had already told the
Party room that the duty of Coalition MPs was to marginal seat holders.
The Migration Amendment (Detention Arrangements) Bill was part of that ransom,
and I sat in the gallery of the House of Representatives to observe how the People's
House would play out such a momentous democratic moment.
McGauran played government duty officer. Apart from him, the only MPs on the
government side in attendance were the Rebel 4. All the other elected representatives
of Liberal and National Party seats across the nation were absent. All of them,
from the Prime Minister down, had turned their backs on the Rebel 4. They were
left in no doubt that they were pariahs.
Although Vanstone took no part in Howard's negotiations with the Rebel 4 to
stop the Australian people witnessing a split in the Coalition on the floor of
Parliament over their private members bills, her rep McGauran introduced the bill.
John Howard was prepared to do a press conference and endure an interview or two
on the matter, but he was not prepared to outline, discuss and recommend the bill
he personally negotiated to the people of Australia in the People's House.
Before debate on a bill, MPs put their names on a speakers list. Not one Coalition
frontbencher did so.
On the other side, Opposition leader Kim Beazley led the debate and said Labor
would move several amendments to bring the bill more in line with the Rebel 4's
initial bills.
Beazley related a version of Labor's ongoing nightmare history on the issue,
and gave credit to former leader Simon Crean and former immigration spokeswoman
Julia Gillard for pulling back from Labor's all-in support for Howard's post Tampa
policies madness, and helping to avoid a party split. Crean spoke too.
About 12 Labor MPs attended the House to listen to the entire debate. The debate
was respectful at all times. There were no interjections. Voices were not raised
in anger. Maybe, just maybe, Parliament that night began its redemption from the
depths it sunk to post-Tampa and from which it has never risen.
As an outsider to the demands and constraints and downright corruption of big
party politics, the independent MP for the regional NSW seat of Calare, Peter
Andren, gave a speech that spoke the truth of what I was observing. I believe
I witnessed a turning point.
"On 29 August 2001, after the introduction of the border protection bill
- introduced as the pre-election wedge to beat up the alleged threat posed by
the asylum seekers aboard the Tampa (I) read out a press release of mine to this
House:
'In the short term we have a humanitarian crisis on our doorstep, whatever
the law of the high seas, and in the absence of any other option we must accept
the people aboard the Norwegian ship the Tampa are our moral responsibility...
We cannot claim the high moral ground in sending our troops against Saddam, we
cannot condemn the Taliban extremists, if we aren't prepared to accept there are
thousands of persecuted victims of those regimes who manage to escape. Why wouldn't
they seek asylum in the most free nation on earth?'
"I retract the words 'most free nation on earth'. Since the shameful Tampa
episode we have seen a steady decline in our reputation as a fair go country,
and the treatment of asylum seekers has been the major contributor to that dramatic
decline.
"I said in August almost four years ago the Tampa episode was being exploited
to create the desired anti-asylum-seeker sentiment - indeed what was, in its effect,
an anti-Muslim sentiment. I said then that if that was the way to win government
in this country then whoever exploits that way holds a poisoned chalice.
"Fast forward to this bill: a response by a prime minister under enormous
pressure from the four dissident members doing the job of an opposition that is
locked into the mandatory detention process because it invented it, which has
been rigid with fear of a backlash from the electorate - so rigid that the opposition
to this obnoxious policy has gradually developed within the ranks of the government
itself.
"The Prime Minister suggests that, in hindsight, the changes he has put
into these bills should have been introduced some time ago. Why weren't they?
And, with the greatest respect to that endangered species, true liberals, why
weren't the dissident backbenchers introducing private member's bills almost four
years ago when these policies were tightened to the point of human rights abuses?
"It is quite simple: the linking of refugees or asylum seekers to border
security and the wider terrorism debate have served the Prime Minister's political
purposes for the time being. He now brings about some changes only when faced
with revolt from within his ranks - not reform driven by an opposition but by
the opposition growing from within the ranks of the Liberal Party."
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