This – like so much of what Abbott said – bordered on parody. So when,last week,pictures appeared of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak bearing Abbott’s catchphrase,“STOP THE BOATS”,I thought it was a joke.
On Twitter,I scrolled quickly past,assuming it was photoshopped. Then someone posted the same picture in a groupchat. I asked:“Is that lectern real?” Unfortunately it was.
Illustration:Joe Benke
It would be too easy to pin this on one man. We should remember Abbott came close to winning that election. He won the next. We voted for this slogan,meaning this is Australia’s gift to the world as much as Abbott’s. Nor was the resemblance only aesthetic. At his press conference,Sunak was announcing actual policy,the genesis of which he made clear:“Once you are removed,you will be banned,like you are in America and Australia,from ever re-entering our country.”
Think you are excused if you did not vote for Abbott? That ban was put in place by Labor.
An idea common in this country is that Australia punches above its weight. This seems to me in line with so many of Australia’s self-descriptions:the lady doth protest too much. Our very eagerness to make the boast points to our deep insecurity that the opposite is the case.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks from his “Stop the boats” lectern.Getty Images
Increasingly,though,I think the greater problem is our easy belief that punching above our weight is a good thing. It assumes a certain moral authority that we surely do not have;it carries the assumption that our influence is good,and that imposing it on the world is a useful thing to do.
Abbott’s recent influence is one example. There are,perhaps,darker ones. In 1990,a Swedish author,Sven Lindqvist,made the case that when Hitler and his colleagues arrived at the series of decisions that created the Holocaust,their horrific plan drew,in certain respects,on the genocidal colonialism that had come earlier,and the ideas that had informed those acts,including Darwinism,racial hierarchies and expansionism. One of those earlier genocides was the extermination of the Indigenous people of Tasmania.
Arguments like this are controversial,on both substantive and moral grounds:there is understandable caution over statements that might be seen to compromise the unique status of the Holocaust. As Thomas Rogers detailed recently,Germany itself remains engaged in a fierce debate over its own colonial history and arguments that it may have created,in the words of one historian,a “reservoir of cultural practices from which those serving the National Socialists could avail themselves”.
We don’t have to arrive at an answer to recognise that Australia is not particularly good even at having such debates – or of thinking seriously about its past at all. And if we are no good at thinking about harms white people have inflicted on people in this country,it is no surprise that we are awful at thinking about harms we have inflicted on people elsewhere.
We do not hear much about the thousands of refugees from Afghanistan attempting to come here,their plight partly a consequence of a war we joined in our ongoing attempt to “punch above our weight” – not a matter of history but an ongoing event.
When Yassmin Abdel-Magied tweeted a reasonable provocation about the costs of foreign policy – “LEST. WE. FORGET. (Manus,Nauru,Syria,Palestine ...)” – the subsequent media storm effectively drove her out of the country.
Or take last week’s reporting on the STOP THE BOATS lectern. It has hardly received the attention in this country it should have. But what should truly shame us – and what is barely in the nation’s consciousness – is that this is only the latest illustration of Australia’s influence on the cruel refugee policies of other nations.
In 2020,British writer Robert Verkaik that,while Australia had not invented offshore processing,we had given it new life in his country:“The government seems to believe that if this can work for Australia,there is no reason to stop Britain doing the same.”
The Italian interior minister,having refused to let a ship carrying hundreds of migrants dock – which British press – later cited Australia’s “no way” principle. In 2016,it was reported that the German government was considering a “hardline ‘Australian-style’ asylum policy”. Meanwhile,an influential right-wing party in Denmark started promoting its “Australia solution”. In 2019,Donald Trump tweeted a picture of our “NO WAY” posters,writing:“These flyers depict Australia’s policy on Illegal Immigration. Much can be learned!”
Last week,the football figure Gary Lineker tweeted that the British government had used “language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”. A media storm erupted in Britain – noticeably different from that directed at Abdel-Magied six years ago. Lineker was the original target. But now the BBC, from a hosting position,. Other BBC presenters,as well as football stars,have shown solidarity with Lineker by refusing to appear. There have been calls for the BBC’s chief to resign. It is hard to imagine the same happening here. Attempts to open up historical debate are simply shut down.
Australia’s approach towards refugees has already inflicted enormous harm on scared people who asked for our help. Now that approach is harming people elsewhere,too.
What makes the export of Australia’s approach so easy is its cruel simplicity. People who come by boat are “illegal”;they are doing the wrong thing. They must be stopped;and anything that can stop them is acceptable. But there is nothing simple about this issue. The causes of the refugee crisis are complex,as are the ways this crisis might be met,and the ways it should engage our consciousness of history.
There is,however,one simple thing to say. If we insist on taking pride in the more straightforwardly positive ways in which this nation punches above its weight,then we must take responsibility,too,for those that are more troubling.
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