Election gambit: Australia, Sri Lanka and politicising asylum

No side in Australian politics has been able to avoid politicising the issue of refugee and asylum arrivals via boat. The moment Australia's Labor government made the arrival of individuals without formal authorisation a breach of law warranting mandatory detention, the issue became a political matter. It took the Liberal National Coalition led by Prime Minister John Howard to turn the issue into a form of feral, gonzo politics.

That form remains unforgettably marked by the use of SAS personnel against 400 individuals, rescued at sea by the Norwegian vessel, the MV Tampa, in August 2001. In defiance of maritime conventions and in blatant disregard for human safety, the Howard government held the asylum seekers at sea off Christmas Island for almost ten days. Those on the vessel were accused of piracy and economic opportunism. From this barbarism issued the Pacific Solution, a tropical concentration camp system which has had a few iterations since.

Governments, both Coalition and Labor, have drawn political capital from harsh policies against unwanted naval arrivals, smearing the merits of asylum and ignoring the obligations of international refugee law. The new Albanese government has the chance, however unlikely it is to pursue it, to extract the political and replace it with the humanitarian.