“Stop the boats”

MULTICULTURAL and prosperous, Australia is notable for its welcome to migrants—and for its intolerance of boat people. In 1992, the Labor government of Paul Keating introduced a policy of “mandatory detention”: asylum-seekers in boats would be locked up, pending assessment of their claims.

But the number of boat people only rose. By the turn of the millennium it was 4,000 a year, at which point John Howard, head of the (conservative) Liberal government, resorted to his “Pacific solution”. Boat people would be sent to new detention camps on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, and on the island-state of Nauru. The contentious policy was overturned in 2008 by the Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd, but reinstated by Julia Gillard, his Labor successor.

Tony Abbott, the current Liberal prime minister, campaigned on a promise to “stop the boats”. He has been tougher even than Mr Howard. On April 17th an Australian naval vessel offloaded 46 Vietnamese asylum-seekers in Vung Tau in southern Vietnam after intercepting them at sea. The UN and others question whether their asylum claims had been screened properly. Australia has struck a deal with Cambodia to resettle some of the 485 people in Nauru now recognised as refugees (about four-fifths of those assessed). But those offered this “new life in a safe country, free from persecution and violence” have not taken the offer up.

Australia admits about 200,000 immigrants a year through regular channels. It also resettles some 13,750 refugees a year from other parts of the world. But when it comes to boat people, it is bent on deterring irregular migration.

The government claims that just one “people smuggling venture” has made it to Australian waters since December 2013, and that boat’s passengers were transferred to Nauru. But the policy has financial and reputational costs. The detention centres cost A$3 billion ($2.3 billion) in the 2014-15 fiscal year. Human-rights groups chastise Australia for abandoning its obligation to protect asylum-seekers. Mr Abbott, though, is unrepentant and thinks Europe should get tougher. “The only way you can stop the deaths is in fact to stop the boats.”