On Sunday Anthony Albanese was asked if Labor supports the Coalition’s Operation Sovereign Borders policy and the retention of temporary protection visas.
The Labor leader replied “yes” but later clarified his answer, saying that although Labor supports offshore processing and resettlement in third countries: “We don’t support temporary protection visas.”
So which aspects of the Coalition’s policies towards asylum seekers and refugees does Labor support, and what are the remaining differences?
What is Operation Sovereign Borders?
Operation Sovereign Borders refers to a military-led response to asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Australia by boat, proposed by the Tony Abbott-led opposition in mid-2013 and then enacted by the Coalition once in government.
According to the Coalition’s policy document, the main measures were to:
Reintroduce temporary protection visas for people found to be refugees
Hold asylum seekers in detention on Manus Island and Nauru while processing their refugee claims
Instruct the Australian defence force to turn back boats “where it is safe to do so”
Did Labor always support this?
No. In 2007 Labor was elected promising to end the “Pacific solution” of offshore processing, and instead hold asylum seekers at Christmas Island while processing their refugee applications.
After asylum seeker boats restarted, Labor reintroduced offshore processing – so this element of the policy was bipartisan by the time of the 2013 election.
Labor didn’t fully close the door on boat turnbacks but they were an ambiguous feature of Labor policy until a change championed by the then leader, Bill Shorten, at the party’s 2015 conference.
Before that conference Albanese criticised the change, and he voted against it, explaining that he “couldn’t ask someone else to do something that [he] couldn’t”.
But in 2018 Albanese reversed his position, explaining that “circumstances had changed”. “The government’s policies have stopped the boats,” he said. “They’re not coming, so the circumstances of rejecting boat arrivals has been achieved.”
And now?
The shadow home affairs minister, Kristina Keneally, confirmed on Tuesday that Labor “completely supports Operation Sovereign Borders – offshore processing, regional resettlement and boat turnbacks where safe to do so”.
“No one who has attempted to come by boat since the operation of Sovereign Borders will be allowed to settle in Australia.”
What about TPVs?
The Rudd government abolished temporary protection visas in 2008, opposed efforts to reintroduce them in 2013, and Labor reconfirmed its opposition to them at the 2015 conference.
Nevertheless, the Abbott government reintroduced TPVs in December 2014.
On Monday Scott Morrison seized on Albanese’s answer to argue that Labor had “learned nothing when it comes to border protection” because axing TPVs had been a “green light” to people smugglers under the Rudd government.
On Tuesday the home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, claimed: “You can’t say that you support Operation Sovereign Borders if you don’t support temporary protection visas, because it is one of the three pillars.”
This depends how Operation Sovereign Borders is defined. On the one hand, TPVs are included in the Coalition’s 2013 policy document. On the other, TPVs pre-date the operation and are not given to unauthorised maritime arrivals who arrived after the deadline in 2013, when both major parties agreed people would not be resettled in Australia.
Andrews told Radio National they were a “key part of the deterrent” – even though both major parties support turnbacks, and people who come by boat cannot settle in Australia on a TPV.
“It is part of the deterrent message … We want to make it very very clear you will never settle here in Australia,” she said. “You can’t undermine the policy by saying one part doesn’t matter any more.”
Why does Labor still oppose TPVs?
Keneally told Radio National TPVs were no longer necessary because people who come by boat “will be turned back or sent to Nauru”.
“Nobody has gone on a temporary protection visa who has attempted to come by boat since the introduction of Operation Sovereign Borders.
“The only people in Australia on TPVs came under the Liberal and Labor government before the introduction of Operation Sovereign Borders. They’ve been living in the country for more than a decade: they live, they work, they pay taxes, they employ Australians.”
Keneally said the only different between that cohort and other refugees was they had to reapply for their visas every three or five years, a “costly and wasteful exercise … for no good end”.
She said the idea that abolishing TPVs was a pull-factor was “desperate” and “a lie”.
What about third-party resettlement?
Despite the Coalition accusing Labor of flip-flopping on border protection, the Coalition had a flip-flop of its own shortly before the election was called.
The Morrison government reversed its opposition to the New Zealand resettlement deal, despite arguing for years this could provide a “back-door” to Australia and could restart boat arrivals.
Verdict
For better or worse, Labor has agreed with the Coalition that nobody who came by boat since 2013 will be resettled in Australia. There is bipartisan support for boat turnbacks, offshore detention and third-country resettlement.
The only remaining disagreement is TPVs, a policy plank that could semantically be considered part of Operation Sovereign Borders but is not logically connected to the deterrent because nobody who boards a boat now will be resettled in Australia.
The scary website designed to deter asylum seekers from coming to Australia makes no mention of visa categories. “No one who travels illegally to Australia by boat will be allowed to remain in Australia,” it says, and that seems deterrent enough.
