 —  October – November 2013
T
he Australian Federal Election
in September saw Tony Abbott’s
Liberal/National Coalition party
perpetrate a landslide victory over
the embattled ALP (Labor) party under then
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Of the issues that dominated the election
campaign, it was immigration and border
protection that sucked the imagination of
both the media and the public; as both can-
didates seemed determined to fix attention
on their policy, it was clear that immigration
had become a pivotal issue.
Rudd’s Labor government, formerly
under Julia Gillard, had indulged an influx
in asylum-seekers to Australia’s shores that
in the endsaw the party’s reformist policies
perform a U-turn towards draconian meas-
ures of border control. From January to
August of this year, almost , asylum-
seekers travelled by boat from Indonesia,
largely in the hands of well-paid peo-
ple-smugglers. Overloaded fishing boats
hazarding the treacherous trip to Australia
had occasioned numerous deaths, includ-
ing of women and children, fuelling public
unrest on the crisis.
In July of this year, following intense
media coverage and growing public pressure
in the wake of recent ‘boat’ deaths, Rudd
introduced the ‘Papua New Guinea [PNG]
solution’. Under this scheme, all ‘boat people’
arriving on Australia’s Indian Ocean territory,
Christmas Island, would no longer be reset-
tled in Australia but would be sent instead to
Papua New Guinea for processing and pos-
sible resettlement,with Rudd announcing
to the media at the time “From now on, any
asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by
boat will have no chance of being settled in
Australia”.
The first group of asylum-seekers under
the PNG solution ‒ including the first fam-
ily group ‒ were transferred to the Nauru
detention centre later in July. Included in
the group were twelve children ‒ four girls
and eight boys ranging in age from  to 
years. In the run-up to the Federal Election,
the PNG solution was Rudd’s very public
demonstration of machismo on border
control.
Tony Abbott’s testosterone-corroborator,
as part of his election manifesto proposed
‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, a military-
led taskforce for border security to patrol
Australia’s coastline. He also promised a re-
introduction of Temporary Protection Visas,
where recognised refugees were granted
visas ‒ subject to review every three years.
Most controversial though was Abbott’s
‘Turn Back Boats’ policy, a cynical electoral
ploy where boats with asylum-seekers enter-
ing Australian waters ‒ many overloaded
Uncivilised White
Australia
Competitive anti-immigration platforms, including
‘Turn Back Boats’ and the ‘Papua New Guinea solution’
dominated the recent election.
By Ken Phelan
Pic
captions
here
INTERNATIONAL AUSTRALIA