Quietly, Malcolm Turnbull began working on a solution to the intractable puzzle of asylum seekers, people smuggling, resettlement, and indefinite detention, as a first priority of his new leadership. Public acknowledgement has had to wait a year.
That's an eternity in a game in which a week is a long time. All the more so because during this time, Turnbull's personal standing has been battered, and his nearly extinguished government has been depicted as every bit as unfeeling as its steely-jawed predecessor.
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Refugee plan unites political foes
Following the US refugee resettlement announcement, Labor leader Bill Shorten says it's welcome news, a clear sign of cross party unity but the Greens are still not happy. Courtesy ABC News 24.
Yet such are the complicated causal links between desperation, hope, misrepresentation, and official policy resolve, that secrecy was considered paramount.
Turnbull agreed with Barack Obama at his first White House meeting in January. The trip, fast, and deliberately low key amid an unusually harsh DC snow storm, garnered less than the usual attention. Passed off mainly as a pro-forma meet-and-greet for the new Australian leader.
Nothing more was said about possible new solutions to people smuggling and resettlement. Not even in New York in September, when Turnbull announced the seemingly bizarre agreement to take an undisclosed number of refugees from the UN's processing facility in Costa Rica. This newspaper speculated at the time that it may have been part of a US deal, or at least an understanding, that could bring a breakthrough for the 1600 permanent off-shore detainees stuck in Manus and Nauru.
Again, this was denied, even though it would have been favourable coverage for a government struggling to put runs on the board.
What we now know is that it was true. Broadly.
To succeed, Turnbull was advised that the order of 'logistics before announcement' were critical to success. The government and its agencies, Defence and Operations Sovereign Borders, wanted to have the full strength operation in place - the ring of steel.
A renewal of boat arrivals would be a disaster.
Officials told Turnbull that once America came into the picture, the criminal smuggling operations would sell that destination as a prize of reaching Australia - a new incentive, more sugar on the table.
Thus, since the initial White House agreement, sources say reinforcements have been brought in: more ships, planes, personnel.
It is not at all clear how comprehensive the "one-off" US-Australia arrangements are, or how long it will take for those lucky enough to secure American resettlement. Nor are the implications wrought by the US election, yet known.
What is clear is that the US is not planning to increase its humanitarian intake overall. Beneficiaries from our beleaguered system, will take places of others escaping violence and persecution elsewhere. These are harsh moral realities.
And here's another. After the Coalition's shamelessly "political" rejection of Labor's people-swap with Malaysia, it has now engineered something similar.
Labor will not block it, viewing it like most Australians will, as the only hopeful development in this space for many years.
That's despite the fact that it might well save the Turnbull government on the way to saving the lives of people who have already suffered immeasurably.
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