Vietnamese Boat People, 1984. Credit: Phil Eggman.

By Rich Bowden:

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has signalled he will return to a hardline refugee policy accusing the Government of lacking “steel” against asylum seekers who attempt to arrive in the country on boats.

Speaking to reporters in the wake of the intervening of the third Australian-bound refugee boat in the last week, Mr Abbott said he would “turn back” boat people and accused the Government of lacking the political will to do so.

“An Australian government that doesn’t have the option of turning boats back in the right circumstances is a government that is not doing enough,” he said. “It’s got to be part of your policy arsenal.”

Mr Abbott maintained that, should he be elected prime minister, his Government would maintain offshore centres for processing asylum seekers but said turning the boats back would remain an option. He told The Australian that his hardline stance would be  similar to the policy carried out by the Howard Government, which was defeated by the current Labor administration in the 2007 election.

“If the circumstances permit it, you’ve got to be prepared to turn boats around,” Mr Abbott said yesterday. “John Howard was fiercely criticised for this. Nevertheless, Kevin Rudd said he would be more than tough enough to turn boats around were he prime minister, but he singularly failed to show any steel whatsoever since becoming our leader.”

Rekindling memories of the 2001 Tampa crisis, when the Howard Government was accused of manipulating media headlines in an election year to take advantage of a group of refugees picked up by a Norwegian ship, Mr Abbott said the refugee issue could play a role in the upcoming election year.

“I think it’s an important issue,” the Liberal leader said. “I’m not saying it’s the most important issue, I’m not saying it’s necessarily a decisive issue.”

“But I think it has been a significant issue in terms of illustrating the comparative weakness of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.”

The dispute over asylum seeker policy comes as British National Archive documents from the year 1979, released after 30 years, reveal then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher negotiated with the Australian PM Malcolm Fraser to purchase an Indonesian island to house Vietnamese refugees. The documents show that Mrs Thatcher considered Vietnamese people more difficult to assimilate than European refugees and looked to the proposed refugees’ island as ”not only as a staging post but as a place of settlement.”

Tags: asylum seekers australia, boat people australia, malcolm fraser, margaret thatcher, refugee, Tony Abbott