Promises, promises: what's in a promise?

... The Convention itself says that you can't penalise refugees for arriving without authorization". (ABC Radio National, 22 July 2013)

Howard stuck to his guns. His slogan, "We will decide..." got through to the majority of the Australian people, and contributed significantly to his re-election as Prime Minister. As it turned out the flow of boats slowed after the election―due to a range of national and international push/pull factors― and Howard was quick to proclaim the "success" of the "Pacific Solution". But in the process, the policy sent out mixed messages, and Australia's integrity as a standard bearer for human rights was seriously questioned nationally and internationally.

Fast forward to 2013.

Before losing the election in 2013, during its six years in government, Labor remained in a quandary over asylum seekers arriving by boat. Following backflips and contradictions, eventually, in desperation, Labor capitulated to the Coalition's "Pacific Solution", which it had previously condemned outright. As part of Australia's new deal with PNG and Nauru, both countries dutifully signed up to the UN Refugees Convention to draw attention away from PNG's questionable human rights record. Grasping the opportunity, Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, seized on Labor's equivocation over six years, repeatedly talking up the "deficit of trust" which had built up against the Labor Government on the matter. In back-to-the-future fashion Abbott resurrected the policy of the Howard Government, asserting that only his party (LNP) had the right policies, and the track record to "stop the boats". The LNP had done it once (under Howard), and he promised to follow the Howard script this time round. According to Abbott, only an LNP Government could be trusted to resolve this refractory issue once and for all.

I'll keep my word

the front page headline of The Sydney Morning Herald (6 September 2013) quoted Abbott as saying. In an adjacent column the paper made its own editorial contribution:

Australians deserve a government they can trust.

Thus the three-word slogan, "stop the boats", became a core promise and political mantra for the LNP a second time. "We will stop the boats.... stop the boats ... stop the boats... stop the boats..." echoed throughout the 2013 federal election campaign. By this time Abbott had shifted the focus from "illegal/unauthorized arrivals", ... to exploitative and unconscionable "people smugglers", "economic migrants", and tragic deaths at sea. It won support in the electorate and played a key role in the Abbott Government's electoral victory. Soon after, the "Pacific Solution" was refashioned as the "no advantage", "Third Country Processing Regimen", aka "Operation Sovereign Borders". In effect this meant indeterminate detention on Manus Island (PNG), or Nauru, with no prospect of processing or settlement in Australia―nor access to Australian justice.

Political agendas soon collided. Former Prime Minister and recipient of the Human Rights Medal, Malcolm Fraser, weighed in, calling the "Pacific Solution" an "abdication of Australia's responsibilities to our basic humanity." Meanwhile, Dr Daniel Webb, (Human Rights Law Centre) added a warning, that "the policy is the continuation of a really concerning trend of a deterrent-based approach to a difficult humanitarian issue." (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 August 2013)

However, the newly anointed Prime Minister soon found himself facing his own "deficit of trust" in relation to his core promise to stop the boats. The question being asked was: Are we seeing Tony Abbott retreating from his dogmatic rhetoric of opposition?

During an interview on Channel 10 (12 September 2013), Dr David McRae of the Lowy Institute for International Policy was asked to comment on Abbott's constantly repeated promise to stop the boats. He responded, saying:

These are the kind of things the Coalition would say to win an election rather than policies an Australian Government would implement when in office.

Now it remains to be seen if the Coalition puts these things aside as things that were said purely to win political office, and pursues a more cooperative asylum-seeker policy.