The smugglers arrive, unannounced, emerging from the ocean. They frighten me. I don't want them in Australia. They weren't invited. I'm not sure why we keep seeing them on television. I really wish the Liberal Party would do something about the smugglers. The Labor Party seems quite powerless. Let’s lock up the smugglers off-shore, that way we can be sure they are not a threat. We would know that Australia is safe. Or, someone could just beg Tony Abbott to stop wearing them.

So much of the hysteria surrounding refugees is reliant on how the debate has been framed; on the language used. ‘Border protection’, ‘people smuggling’, ‘boat people’, ‘illegals’. These phrases evoke an insidious threat, an invasion from the seas. They have been very effective. I am continually astounded by how such a relatively small issue can cause so much anger. By this statement I am no means belittling the plight of refugees. Far from it. Rather, I am noting that the issue of ‘boat people’ is unlike any other currently on the electoral agenda. Unlike climate change, industrial relations or the budget, asylum seekers are not likely to affect the day-to-day life of the average Australian. The number of people actually arriving by boat each year is such a small percentage of the population that, even if they are granted entry, refugees are unlikely to cause any significant shocks to the economy.

Yet people are angry about ‘queue jumpers’, ‘boat people’ and ‘illegal arrivals’. They resort to the moral high ground, talking about the importance of the legal process, and yet, almost in the same breath, affirm the primacy of off-shore detention centres, which deny detainees their basic legal rights.

The opposition and government have both seized on this furore. Abbott promises to stop the boats; Gillard’s iteration is a Timor Solution that looks uncannily like Howard’s Pacific version. Each party asserts that the other’s policy will be ineffective, or will cause more boats to come. (‘People smugglers’ must be pretty switched on to know the intimate details of foreign policies belonging to a relatively benign island nation on the other side of the world).

How desperate must a person be to risk their life in a rickety boat travelling thousands of kilometres across treacherous seas? I can’t answer this. All I can say is that neither party’s ‘solution’ is good enough. Yet, it seems that, for better or worse, Howard’s legacy, in one version or another, will continue beyond the 2010 election.

In the words of refugee activist Jessie Taylor, we will be remembered for this.

Marty Bortz
Masters Student
School of Social and Political Sciences
University of Melbourne