Piers Akerman, kicking the boat people can and a whiff of P. J. O'Rourke

(Above: always with the immigration question).

Here we go again, which is to say it's déjà vu all over again.

The kicking of the can of boats carrying asylum seekers.

Happily it was a Liberal Senator who recently crossed the floor to put in place a bill to stop charging detainees for the cost of their detention. Judith Troeth carried the can for a lot of other Liberals who knew the current practices were wrong, but who out of selfish political gain, wanted to keep the can kicking going, even though the scheme had recouped only 3% of what was owing and cost more to administer than it clawed back from people expected to pay for their time in a detention centre.

Which didn't stop the likes of Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi carrying on about it, as if somehow the mechanism discouraged people from trying to come to Australia and now the floodgates were open and we'd be flooded by foreigners.

It was a measure implemented by the Keating government, so Labor was undoing what Labor had started, but it also reflects a mild unstitching of the paranoia about aslyum seekers cultivated during the Howard Hanson years.

As if (a) boat people were or are the biggest problem, when in fact airports are the easiest way into the country for anybody intent on illegal entry; and (b) people didn't have any motivation to flee countries like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan at the moment, whereby the choice between staying or going would be solved by a little debt collection offering crucial motivation to stay and die.

But of course rationality and Piers Akerman have never been kissing cousins, and inevitably it's time for yet another rant by the fat owl of the remove about aliens, under the header Open-door policy on unwanted guests.

It's the same old tired old stuff, but I wonder whether the wedge will work quite the same way these days.

Here's the nub of it:

In just over a year, Rudd Labor has scrapped the Pacific Solution, which effectively deterred people from seeking out people smugglers to bring them to Australia.

Labor has abolished Temporary Protection Visas, giving permanent residency to more than 1000 people who had been on TPVs and it has dumped the 45-day rule which helped ensure Medicare and other benefits funded by taxpayers were not rorted.

This week the Rudd Labor Government will further erode border protection safeguards by introducing a new form of “complementary” protection visas that will give those currently ineligible to claim protection visas wider scope to claim refugee status when they do not meet the existing refugee criteria.

Since Rudd Labor softened border protection policies in the past 13 months, 31 boats carrying some 1456 asylum seekers have reached Australia.

After six years of extremely little illegal people smuggling traffic, the profiteers are back in business - and people are dying in Australian waters.

Rudd’s election eve interview is a constant reminder of his penchant for perfidy and the sad gullibility of a chunk of the electorate.

1,500 people, and the world is supposed to be coming to an end, with talk of perfidy, dying and sad gullibility.

Well a chunk more people are dying in Afghanistan right at this moment, and given the difficulties in the region it's remarkable that so few actually try the sea route. Somehow it's okay to go over there and bomb the hell out of them, while maintaining a bunker mentality here.

Last time that happened in the Vietnam war, we ended up with Vietnamese controlling the bakery and dry cleaning games in Sydney, and a mushrooming of restaurants dedicated to an excellent regional cuisine. So it goes, Australia strangely didn't collapse, and as a result, I can say a hearty thanks to my local supplier of excellent goi cuon.

Meantime, the likes of Akker Dakker will go on shedding crocodile tears about people dying in Australian waters, and the evils of people smugglers, but really it's just a way of having a go at Chairman Rudd.

Personally I find it refreshing to be deprived of images of people sewing their lips together, and of children locked behind razor wire, and the politics of fear being quietened just a little. Of course not that much has changed - asylum seekers are still being taken to Christmas island for processing, out of the eye of the storm - but the day someone holds up the Pacific solution as either a moral or sensible or practical policy to the issue is the day I day I laugh in their face.

Well I guess today is the day I laugh in the face of Piers Akerman. Please, no more humbug or fear mongering. Show a little grace. Show a little style. I know you can't ever manage the grace or style of a Liberal like Judith Troeth - a genuine liberal, like the sadly lost to us Petro Georgiou - but try ...

Meanwhile, let's remember the words of P. J. O'Rouke, a conservative with a sense of humor. Back in April on Q & A, as Julie Bishop tried to revive kicking the boat people can, possibly expecting a meathead endorsement of her fear mongering, O'Rouke found a different angle which sliced a little beef off the Liberal sacred cow:

PJ O'ROURKE: You know, we in the States have much, much more experience with being all wrong about immigration than you do. I mean 36,000 you said in Italy?

CRAIG EMERSON: For Italy, yes.

PJ O'ROURKE: We laugh. That's a day in the United States. And we are so wrong about it. I mean, build a fence on the border with Mexico, give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry, you know. Put US troops on the Rio Grande and know that the United States armed forces are standing between me and yard care, you know. I mean, it's just - the thing is when somebody gets on an exploding boat to come over here, they're willing to do that to get to Australia, you're missing out on some really good Australians if you don't let that person in.

JULIE BISHOP: (Indistinct) people smuggling (indistinct).

PJ O'ROURKE: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You know, if you open your borders, you don't have people smugglers. You know, I mean it's...

JULIE BISHOP: But the people who make money out of this misery...

PJ O'ROURKE: Wait. Wait a minute. Wait a minute...

JULIE BISHOP: (Indistinct).

PJ O'ROURKE: I mean, I'm not seeing...

TONY JONES: Hold on. Hold on. Julie, hang on

PJ O'ROURKE: I'm not seeing any Aborigines on the panel here. I am not a Comanche or a Sioux. You know, my people came over to the United States in a completely disorganised way. Doubtless by way of people smugglers, you know. You know, I really believe in immigration. The best...

JULIE BISHOP: So does Australia.

PJ O'ROURKE: The reason that this is a great nation...

JULIE BISHOP: So does Australia.

PJ O'ROURKE: ...the reason America is a great nation is because of immigration. Let them in. Let them in. These people are assets. You know, one or two of them might not be, but you can sort them out later ...

... JULIE BISHOP: Of course we believe in migration.

PJ O'ROURKE: But no O'Rourkes would have ever been allowed in the United States...

JULIE BISHOP: Our country...

PJ O'ROURKE: ...if there'd been an orderly immigration system.

JULIE BISHOP: Our country - our country was build on immigration.

PJ O'ROURKE: Stopped us right away.

(Transcript, viewing, etc available here).

There are conservatives with intelligence and empathy, and then there's Julie Bishop and Piers Akerman ... and the kicking of the can will never stop so long as they can see an edge or a wedge or a whiff of paranoia to exploit ...

(Below: an oldie but a goldie I enjoy re-running every so often whenever cans are being kicked).