On Borrowed Time

by Robert Manne

  What would be the consequences of such radical acts? Would we miss the kind of signals intelligence we now receive as part of the “five eyes” agreement struck at the end of World War II? Fraser tells me that he cannot think of one major decision his government had taken as a consequence of signals intelligence from the United States. In jest, I remind him of the American intelligence that led the Howard government into the invasion of Iraq. “Well, it was all a lie.”

  What about the protection provided by the ANZUS Treaty? Fraser thinks ANZUS was never more than an agreement to consult in time of military danger. The United States would never support Australia in a conflict with Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim state. Great powers do not reward loyalty; that is the abiding illusion on which our defence policy has been based for more than a century. The United States will do whatever is in its interests.

  As a close and trusted ally, might we not be able, as ANU academic Hugh White suggests, to influence the dangerous drift of the United States’ China policy? Fraser is sure our words will fall on deaf ears. The United States, in his experience, has no capacity to listen to other countries. Indeed the only thing that might give Washington pause for thought, he tells me, is if we withdrew from the military alliance.

  Our conversations are over. I mention to Fraser the comparison with Gladstone that has come to mind. He reminds me that Gladstone retired as prime minister when he was eighty-four, the age he will reach in 2015. After three hours of intense conversation, Fraser seems as full of energy and good humour as when we began.

  The Good Weekend, 26 April 2014

  MALCOLM TURNBULL: A BRIEF LAMENT

  There are two kinds of political people in today’s world: a minority who believe that climate change is the most consequential problem humans now face or have ever faced, and a majority for whom, for one reason or another, the penny has not dropped. I once held Malcolm Turnbull in some esteem because I believed he belonged sincerely to the minority. I now realise what a fool I was.

  During the 2010 federal election campaign, Turnbull, who some eight months earlier had lost the leadership of the Opposition on the question of climate change, strode onto the stage of a packed Sydney Town Hall at the launch of Beyond Zero Emissions’ Stationary Energy Plan. The person who introduced him mentioned that Turnbull was now a climate change “pariah” among his political colleagues. Turnbull welcomed the description as “distinctly” a privilege.

  To intermittent loud applause, Turnbull argued that there was a hunger among Australians for information about how their country might move “to a situation where all or almost all of our energy comes from zero- or very near zero-emission sources”. Turnbull argued that we must be “guided by science”; that humans were now “conducting a massive science experiment with this planet”, the only one we had; and that in their predictions about the “catastrophic” consequences of climate change the scientists might, if anything, very well be erring “on the conservative side”.

  Turnbull pointed out that 2010 was the “warmest year on record”. Although it might not be possible to link each weather disaster with the changes in the climate, “we know” that “extreme weather events are occurring with greater and greater frequency” and that “these trends are entirely consistent with the climate-change forecasts, with the climate models that the scientists are relying on”.

  Climate change was a “profound moral challenge”, Turnbull argued. It was a profound moral challenge because “we as a human species have a deep and abiding obligation to this planet and to the generations that will come after us”. There was loud applause in the Sydney Town Hall. “In order to discharge that obligation we must make a dramatic reduction in the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

  Of what order? What was necessary was a 50% global reduction of emissions by 2050 compared to what they were in the late twentieth century. “I promise you [that] you cannot achieve that cut without getting to a point by mid-century where all or almost all of our stationary energy … from power stations and big factories and so forth comes from zero-emission sources.”

  Turnbull admitted that he had once held out hopes for “clean coal”, by which he and everyone else in 2010 meant burning the coal but then capturing and storing underground the carbon dioxide that was released. He now had grave doubts. The future could equally lie with solar or wind or other zero-emissions technologies. The role of government was to put a price on carbon emissions, provide some modest research and development finance, and then leave it to the market to decide which zero-emissions technologies would win out. One thing only was clear: “The zero-emission future is absolutely essential if we are to leave a safe planet to our children and the generations that come after them.” At the Sydney Town Hall there was loud and sustained applause.

  *

  Some six years later in late September 2016, at a time when South Australians were still fighting the effects of wild winds and floods, Turnbull seized upon the opportunity presented not to dramatise the dangers of climate change but to discredit those who believed that the future of the Earth and of our children and our grandchildren relied on the progress of zero-emissions renewable technology.

  Turnbull lambasted his political opponents for their wildly irresponsible renewable-energy targets. “If you are stuck in an elevator, if the lights won’t go on, if your fridge is thawing out … you are not going to be concerned about the particular source of that power – whether it is hydro, wind, solar, coal or gas.” He continued, “I regret to say that a number of state Labor governments have over the years set priorities and renewable targets that are extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic.” The “incident” in South Australia was a “wake-up call”.

  Ambitious renewable-energy targets – of precisely the kind he championed with apparent conviction in 2010 – now represented for Turnbull the triumph of “ideology”, a political disease to which Labor was prone, over common sense and practical reality. Modest renewable-energy targets were certainly permissible. But only so far as they did not threaten what Turnbull emphasised must always be the “key priority” of his government and indeed of all governments, namely “energy security”. For Turnbull in 2016 energy security was more important than any nonsense about the zero-emissions targets that Turnbull in 2010 argued were vital.

  In October 2016, Turnbull was in Brisbane, touting the virtues of legislation aimed at preventing environmental groups from taking legal action against fossil-fuel developments. During a radio interview, the ABC’s Steve Austin put to Turnbull the arguments of the Queensland Resources Council. According to the council, the export of coal should be actively encouraged, because Australia produced “some of the cleanest coal in the world … [which] burns at a far cleaner rate, [with] less sulphur etc”. “Is that,” Austin asked Turnbull, “how you see it?”

  As it turned out, it indeed was. “The reality is that Australia’s coal compared to that from other countries is relatively clean,” Turnbull said. “The fact is if we stop all our coal exports tomorrow, you would simply have more coal exported from other countries … that would be filling the gap … Trying to strangle the Australian coal industry is not going to do anything … to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.” “Coal,” said Turnbull, “is going to be an important part of our energy mix – there’s no question about that – for many, many, many decades to come.”

  In 2010 Malcolm Turnbull had serious doubts about the viability of what clean coal then meant – that is to say, carbon capture and storage. By 2016 he had no doubts that a certain kind of coal, serendipitously found in Australia, could be burned comparatively safely without capturing and storing the carbon released, and could thus reasonably be described as clean.

  In 2010 Turnbull thought that we were recklessly conducting a dangerous experiment that was imperilling our planet, and that the only prudent course was to reduce the emissions of stationary energy sources to zero by 2050. By 2016 he was criticising the state Labor governments as ideolog
ical zealots because of their ambitious renewable-energy targets.

  Even more significantly, the man who in 2010 believed zero emissions for stationary energy was vital and achievable by 2050 was by 2016 cheerfully embracing the idea that coal would be part of the world’s energy mix, not for “many decades”, or even “many, many decades”, but for “many, many, many decades” into the future. Many, many, many decades is, by any calculation, a very long time. Turnbull did not show the slightest alarm at the thought that our species would be burning coal, preferably Australian coal, for our energy needs well into the twenty-second century. The zero-emissions pariah had seamlessly become the fossil-fuel realist-cum-enthusiast in the space of six short years. In its own way, this was a remarkable achievement.

  There is no need to argue why this metamorphosis has occurred. Everyone who follows Australian politics knows the reason: ambition. Without repudiating his earlier climate change views, Turnbull would never have become prime minister of Australia. What is more interesting is what it reveals about his character.

  Even when I still kind-of admired Turnbull, I had my doubts. How could someone, I wondered, who entered Australian politics as a supposedly passionate republican lose all apparent interest in the cause very shortly after the defeat of the referendum proposal, which he argued had broken Australia’s heart?

  I now think that this provides a clue. Malcolm Turnbull is a barrister by training and inclination. For him, causes are quasi-clients that he voluntarily and serially embraces – with the kind of sincerity barristers must routinely muster in a court of law – in order to advance his career. At a certain moment, however, Turnbull appears to realise that this or that cause poses a danger to his progress. At this moment, the cause is quietly dropped, with as much dignity and disguise as possible. It is dropped because in the end there is only one cause that ultimately counts for him – the cause of Malcolm Turnbull. Perhaps almost all successful politicians have this quality to some degree. But with Turnbull, it appears to be definitive.

  The Monthly, December 2016–January 2017

  AUSTRALIA AND ASYLUM SEEKERS

  TRAGEDY OF ERRORS

  Since 1976 fewer than 50,000 asylum seekers have reached Australia on boats. More than half have arrived since the election of the Rudd government; more than a third – over 17,000 – in the twelve months to March 2013. Until the Tampa incident in late August 2001, policy regarding asylum-seeker boat arrivals was bipartisan. Since then the question of boat asylum seekers has been fiercely contested and politically explosive. In 2001 the issue helped John Howard win an election. In 2010 it helped loosen Kevin Rudd’s grip on the Australian prime ministership. In 2013 it is very likely to contribute to the defeat of the Gillard government.

  Australia is in general a humane country. Usually it displays great skill in public policy. And yet, when it comes to the arrival of boats of asylum seekers without visas, in the past twenty years public policy has been cruel (as under Hawke, Keating and Howard), ineffective (as under Rudd) or, (as at present under Gillard), both cruel and ineffective. All this is rather puzzling. No one has shown that once accepted as citizens the relatively small numbers of non-repatriated refugees who have arrived by boat since 1976 have caused the country any harm.

  When trying to explain the gap between the relative insignificance of the problem for Australia posed by the arrival of asylum-seeker boats and the political and policy volatility of the response, scholars and commentators have usually referred to Australian political culture – to the long racist shadow cast by the White Australia policy and to what has been identified as the immigration department’s deeply entrenched “culture of control”. No doubt there is considerable truth in this explanation. But there is also a major problem.

  A few years after the abandonment of the White Australia policy, 2000 Vietnamese refugees reached Australia by boat. Despite popular anxiety and hostility, they were received by the government with real generosity. Comfortable hostel accommodation and comprehensive settlement services were provided. The detention of these refugees, let alone their expulsion, was unthinkable. Because of its involvement in the Vietnam War, the Fraser government felt a moral responsibility for these refugees. Because of enthusiasm for the dismantling of the White Australia policy, both the government and the Whitlam and Hayden Opposition were careful not to stir underlying racist sentiment, which anti–Vietnamese refugee rhetoric very easily could have done. The informal compact of decency between government and Opposition that arose as a result ensured that it was not public opinion or the political culture but wise and bipartisan political leadership that prevailed. The explanation of both the toxic nature of asylum-seeker politics and the shambles into which asylum-seeker policy has recently descended is in my opinion to be found not so much in the legacy of the White Australia policy as in four key political decisions – in 1992, 2001, 2008 and 2012 – taken since the successful and painless settlement of the Vietnamese boat arrivals in the late 1970s.

  1992

  The first decision occurred under the Hawke and Keating governments after the arrival in north-west Australia of some 600 mainly Cambodian asylum seekers aboard fifteen boats between November 1989 and November 1992. This is a story that was barely reported at the time, and is now almost entirely unremembered, but which deserves to be far better known.

  A boat of the Cambodian asylum seekers arrived at Pender Bay near Broome on 28 November 1989. Unlike the Vietnamese who arrived between 1976 and 1979, these asylum seekers and those who followed them over the next three years were offered not refuge but prolonged detention. In the language with which Australians would become all too familiar, the government publicly derided the Cambodians’ refugee claims. Prime Minister Hawke labelled them “queue jumpers”; a Keating government immigration minister “forum shoppers”. The asylum seekers were time and time again shunted across the country between detention centres in Broome, Sydney and Darwin until they were settled permanently at Port Hedland in the remote north-west. Throughout this period access to lawyers was deliberately made difficult. Decisions on their refugee claims were long delayed.

  For the Pender Bay Cambodians the final decision to turn down their plea for protection was not reached until April 1992. The asylum seekers’ lawyers appealed at once to the Federal Court. The case was set down for 7 May. Two days before the case was heard the Commonwealth parliament amended the Migration Act with bipartisan support. One amendment, which labelled all the asylum seekers who had arrived since November 1989 “designated persons”, provided the legal basis for their detention for a period of up to 272 days. Another amendment effectively excluded the courts from the asylum-seeker process. In December 1992, the 5 May Migration Act amendments were tested in the High Court. The right of the government to exclude the courts from asylum-seeker cases was rejected. Its right to detain asylum seekers for periods of up to 272 days succeeded. Lawyers representing the Cambodians took action for compensation for their clients’ unlawful imprisonment before 5 May 1992. Parliament responded with legislation to limit the claims to $1 a day. Not long after, further amendments to the Migration Act removed the 272-day limit and narrowed the grounds for the courts’ involvement in asylum-seeker cases. The era of indefinite mandatory detention for asylum seekers without visas had arrived.

  The vindictive behaviour of the Hawke and Keating governments towards the Cambodians contrasts starkly with the generosity the Fraser government showed to the Vietnamese. For this there are several explanations. During the Cold War, refugees (at least from communism) had a very powerful source of support from anti-communist politicians and intellectuals who saw vindication of their faith in the refugees’ flight. By 1989 that kind of support for refugees had evaporated. The Cambodian asylum seekers were championed only by left-leaning lawyers and activist Christians. No one else seemed much interested. Newspapers barely reported their plight. A few months before the arrival of the Cambodians, after the June 1989 Tiananmen massacre, a lachrymose Bob Hawke had
promised that none of the 20,000 Chinese students then in Australia would be forced to return home. Within the Department of Immigration this announcement created pandemonium. No more asylum seekers were wanted. More importantly, the arrival of the Cambodians coincided with Australia’s assumption of a pivotal role in the Cambodian peace process. One vital dimension of that process was the repatriation of the 300,000 Cambodians from the Thai border camps. If it was perfectly safe for these Cambodians to go home, how could the Australian government accept that the Cambodians who reached our shores were refugees in need of protection? In parliamentary debates, both government and Opposition MPs spoke about the dangers of an invasion should the government send the wrong signal over boat arrivals. Long-term detention was meant to deter future boats. This was probably the most important explanation for the ill treatment of the Cambodian asylum seekers.

  Eventually, after certain asylum seekers had been imprisoned for almost four years, the cases were settled in a way that allowed the government to save face. The asylum seekers were promised that if they voluntarily returned to Cambodia for twelve months, they would be allowed to migrate to Australia.

  This obscure episode is a vital part of the explanation for Australia’s current asylum-seeker mess. In the bitter set-piece battles between the government and the lawyers for the Cambodian asylum seekers, the legal foundation for indefinite mandatory detention had been laid. The amendments of 5 May were the government’s improvisatory response to the threat of asylum seekers being released. As the saying goes, however, there is nothing so permanent as the temporary. Between 1992 and 2008, this rushed parliamentary amendment formed the basis of the harsh Australian policy of prolonged mandatory detention for asylum seekers who arrive without visas. More subtly, as the most prescient writer on this episode, Father Andrew Hamilton, pointed out at the time in the Jesuit magazine Eureka Street, it was through this episode that both political parties made an important discovery – that governments could treat asylum seekers more or less as they wished. People could be transported from place to place in a “psychologically brutal” way. They could be imprisoned for several years without access to courts. And all this and more could take place without the slightest sign of “public outrage”. Reflecting on this episode Hamilton consoled himself with the thought that things could be even worse. At least, he argued, “the RAN does not push the boats back as the US Navy does the boats from Haiti”. He might have added: “At least, not yet”.