En Passant

 
Malcolm Turnbull, the flower of Australian liberalism, has banned asylum seekers who attempt to come to Australia by boat from ever setting foot in Australia.

My only conclusion form this is that the government’s polling shows support for the government, and for Turnbull has dropped even more than the last three disastrous polls and that Labor would romp in if an election were held now.

Not that Labor are any better on asylum seekers. Here is what ALP life member and former A.C.T. Labor chief minister Jon Stanhope said at Sunday’s rally for refugees in Canberra:

“You either support the policy or you don’t, and the silence of Labor Party members in the face of the overwhelming evidence of the devastating impact of indefinite offshore detention can only be interpreted in one way; as support for the policy,” he said.

Stanhope’s ‘solution’ was to join the major parties and work for change within. It is not a strategy but a capitulation. You won’t change the party. It will change change. Just ask Katy Gallagher, former leading Labor for Refugees member, former A.C.T. Chief Minister and current ACT Labor Senator what her position on refugees is. Her silence on this issue is, as the cliché says, deafening.

I have argued for some time that the refugee movement must radicalise and, for example, close down the centres of major cities to win the campaign to bring them here. Otherwise we are. like Sisyphus, trapped in the eternal boulder rolling of defeat.