A pawn in Aussies’ machine
Hold tight, New Zealand. Australia’s Peter Dutton just flashed his Darth Vader snarl on Kiwi shores – and it may just backfire on him.
If our prime minister moves ahead with our offer to take 150 refugees from Manus and Nauru by dealing directly with PNG, Dutton warned thinly, we’d have to ‘‘think about our relationship with Australia and what impact it would have’’.
We sure are thinking about our trans-Tasman relationship this past week, weighing up at what point brotherly love becomes incest.
Being a team player on what will go down in Australian history as one of their saddest chapters in human rights abuses is not exactly on New Zealand’s to-do list. We are a funny lot; being threatened by our big cousins for trying to help doesn’t go down well with Kiwis who pride themselves on fairness.
Our previous government kept silent on Australia’s abuses in our back yard for years, out of ‘‘respect’’, as Bill English put it recently. I can’t think of a more obscene misuse of the word.
How will history read this, with the moral clarity of hindsight? NZ tried to help Australia clean up one of its greatest humanitarian messes in modern memory and instead of thanks, we got elbowed hard in the ribs for it.
Funny how that threat wasn’t wielded when the US offered to take 1250 refugees. Apparently, one only arm-twists the smaller player. Dutton can bluster away publicly all he wants.
But behind the scenes, Australia desperately needs the help of the US offer to go through under a dismissive Trump administration.
Offshore detention has cost Australia billions, with no end in sight. When the PNG Supreme Court forced Australia to close the camps recently, it gave Australia an out to shutter what has been a horribly expensive domestic political prop.
The truth is, NZ is doing the Australians a favour – and they know it, privately. It’s just not politically palatable to admit it publicly to domestic voters who lap up ‘‘stop the boats’’ at any cost, including creating concentration camps in their name.
Heads up, we are being played too. The Australians are masters at media chess.
What conveniently popped up in our news last week? Tuesday: Suddenly Australian-controlled intelligence reported through Australian press that four boats were headed to New Zealand shores. Only this week, our prime minister confirmed these were historical reports, not current ones.
This has been a recurring media tactic, consistently used in Australia.
Xenophobic-tinged fear works – because it wins votes. Political academics have long studied the technique. Every prime minister since John Howard has trotted out anti-refugee rhetoric to prop themselves up against flailing polls, particularly before an election.
Last week Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity numbers took a nosedive. Just 36 per cent see him as preferred prime minister. His government can now use NZ’s offer as a foil to bolster his own anti-refugee appearance of strength.
Peter Hosking, chairperson of the Human Rights Foundation, saw the familiar pattern waft across our shores four years ago too.
When the Key government suddenly instituted a policy to lock up future boat arrivals under pressure from Australia (even though we’ve never had any), a cry of ‘‘boats are coming!’’ conveniently got NZ press play the same week the bill was introduced.
‘‘We always know there is new restrictive legislation about refugees on its way when the media starts carrying stories about a boat arriving. The boat never arrives, but the legislation does,’’ Hosking said then.
We unwittingly fan the flames too. By mid-week our talkback suddenly filled with unsubstantiated claims that these men were criminals and deviants, a more convenient narrative than the UNHCR-documented abuses of their Australian captors.
By Friday, Australian intelligence ‘’leaked’’ that Manus men were alleged child sex abusers and drug takers. Conveniently, it was confirmed by the Australian Government immediately.
What’s in store this week – crimes against humanity perpetrated by the children on Nauru?
Our prime minister has to time her next step carefully. She has already agreed to ‘‘close the back door’’ into Australia. At what point does she ignore Dutton’s bluster about retaliation from a now fragile Australian administration?
Or, when does she leave her mark in the sand that NZ doesn’t appreciate being publicly bullied for doing our ‘‘best friend’’ a good turn?
We stood up to apartheid on the rugby field decades ago. NZ is clearly standing on the right side of history again today. This, too, can be a legacy of self-respect, a voice of reason and fairness – and the world knows it.
❚ Tracey Barnett is a journalist and founder of an initiative to keep Kiwis informed about refugee issues, WagePeaceNZ, on Facebook at facebook.com/ wagepeacenz.