Coalition negotiates steep learning curve

• CAMERON STEWART
• THE AUSTRALIAN
• OCTOBER 05, 2013 12:00AM

Both are on a steep learning curve as they make the transition from the chest-thumping unilateralists of the election campaign into decision-makers who must confront the limits of power as well as its potential.

So far Abbott has done this better than Morrison. The Prime Minister's visit to Jakarta this week was a pivotal moment in the asylum-seeker debate and one that would have caused untold damage to the government's hopes of stopping the boats had it been mishandled. This was Abbott's week of living dangerously, given the turbulent lead-up to his visit and Jakarta's clear discomfort with the tone and content of the Coalition's asylum-seeker policies.

But Abbott's visit succeeded because he saw the wisdom of strategic retreat, choosing to co-opt rather than confront Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on asylum-seekers.

Gone was the strident opposition leader pledging to turn back boats, buy back boats and offer bounties to Indonesians. In his place was Abbott as deferential statesman, promising "total respect for Indonesia's sovereignty, total respect for Indonesia's territorial integrity".

It was a necessary transformation that recognised the reality - seen with far greater clarity from the Lodge than from opposition - that the boats cannot be stopped without Indonesia's active support. Abbott used the visit to effectively shed some of the silly parts of the Coalition's asylum policies, while all but apologising for Labor's grave mismanagement of the issue and for his party's unilateralist rhetoric while in opposition.

"There have been times when all sides of Australian politics should have said less and done more," he said. "I am confident that these will soon seem like out-of-character aberrations."

The Coalition has all but retreated from the poorly considered policies of directly buying asylum-seeker boats from Indonesian fishermen and paying Indonesians for information on people-smugglers. These were announced in the final weeks of the election campaign, when the Coalition was spooked by Kevin Rudd's Papua New Guinea plan and felt a need to outflank him.

 Both policies upset Jakarta and, in addition to the contentious policy of turning around boats, contributed to Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa's warning ahead of Abbott's visit that "unilateral" actions by Australia could threaten bilateral co-operation on people-smuggling.

But it would be wrong to interpret Abbott's visit as some sort of surrender to Jakarta on asylum-seekers. On the contrary, Indonesia was left in no doubt this week that the Abbott government also views the asylum-seeker issue as a threat to Australian sovereignty.

On the eve of Abbott's visit, former foreign minister Alexander Downer gave voice to what the government thinks but cannot say publicly. "Let me make this point for Mr Natalegawa's benefit," Downer said. "Indonesian boats, Indonesian-flagged boats with Indonesian crews, are breaking our laws, bringing people into our territorial waters. This is a breach of our sovereignty."

Downer and Natalegawa playing bad cop for their respective countries made it easier for Abbott and SBY to play good cop, with a gracious SBY pledging "new bilateral co-operation" because "Australia and Indonesia are both victims of people-smugglers".

The most contentious bilateral asylum-seeker issue - Abbott's pledge to turn back boats - was left unresolved but it was downplayed, with Natalegawa describing it as a "technical issue".

The success of Abbott's visit was that it helped steer both countries away from a collision on asylum-seekers and left each with a better understanding of the other's position. Yet the good news that flowed from Abbott's Jakarta visit was undermined by Morrison's botched handling of last week's asylum-seeker tragedy. It was a mistake that exposed the unpalatable nature of the censorship Morrison has imposed on releasing real-time news on boats.

Morrison's controversial policy of releasing details about asylum-seeker activity only once a week backfired when news came through on Friday morning last week that an asylum-seeker boat was sinking near the coast of Java.

The tragedy, which claimed more than 50 lives, would have been reported that day under the previous government's policy, along with details of any assistance Australia was providing.

Instead, there was official silence from Canberra for almost 48 hours. That silence ensured the dominant news story last weekend contained inaccurate claims of a 26-hour delay in Australia's response to the tragedy. When questions about the incident were thrown at Abbott at an AFL grand final function last Saturday, he scuttled away without responding; that night Morrison finally broke his silence to release details.

Not until Morrison's weekly briefing on Monday was the full chronology of the incident released, making it clear there was nothing authorities could have done to avert the tragedy.

Brigadier Adrian D'Hage, a decorated soldier who headed Defence's media unit in the 1990s, says the episode shows why Morrison's new approach won't work. "For three days, the young men and women of the defence force, Customs et al had their professional dedication to doing the right thing by international law vis-a-vis boatpeople dragged through the mud. For three days, the only one who could defend them has been missing in action.

"They deserve a lot better defence than Morrison's once-a-week briefing. It is about time that someone with PR nous explained to Abbott, (Julie) Bishop, Morrison et al that 'no comment' will not suffice. In this day and age the arrivals, or the tragic non-arrivals, will be reported, but so will the claims that we did nothing."

Morrison says it's not the government's job to run a "shipping news" service for people-smugglers and that by controlling information it will deny people-smugglers the opportunity to exploit that knowledge. He says this approach is "not uncommon with military-style operations".

But Morrison has failed to explain how information about daily arrivals would advantage people-smugglers; and why, if he truly believes this, neither he nor Abbott raised it while in opposition, when they exploited news of daily boat arrivals for political gain.

It is hard not to conclude that the "operational reasons" cited by Morrison are a euphemism for political reasons. Many senior people in the military believe this to be the case. By reducing the flow of information to a weekly briefing - and even then releasing only carefully sanitised information - the Coalition hopes to limit media coverage and thereby foster a perception that the government is successfully tackling the problem, even if the number of arrivals remains high.

Perhaps most important, it gives the government a degree of political cover when it eventually chooses to turn back an asylum-seeker boat. The last time this was done, during the Howard government's Pacific Solution in 2001, sailors had to contend with riots, hostility and self-harm from asylum-seekers, who sought to scuttle their boats, jump overboard and do whatever they could to try to avoid being returned to Indonesian waters.

The navy has accepted this is likely to happen again when asylum-seeker boats are turned back, but the government wants to package and sanitise such incidents to reduce any backlash.

This may work to some degree, but it is unlikely any major incident will stay secret for long. Even in 2001, The Australian managed to break the "children overboard" affair amid tight secrecy and long before the communications revolution that has led to some asylum-seekers carrying smartphones and GPS equipment.

Morrison's approach will make people only more suspicious of the government, believing it has something to hide. It was elected with a mandate to stop the boats, and the government's policy will hamper the media's ability to properly scrutinise this core promise.

Behind the censorship wall, Inquirer understands important developments are taking place. Since Operation Sovereign Borders was enacted, and despite the arrival of at least four boats in the past 10 days, sources say there has been no attempt to turn back boats. Although several boats were considered too waterlogged to send back, there is also thought to have been reluctance to test this contentious policy ahead of Abbott's visit to Jakarta, where boat turnarounds continue to be an irritant.

Instead, officials have been encouraged by two events last week that suggest a renewed level of co-operation between Australian and Indonesian authorities.

In the space of two days, the RAN went to the aid of two asylum-seeker boats after they had radioed for help less than 50 nautical miles off the Indonesian coast. As the boats were much closer to Indonesia than to Christmas Island, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority told its Indonesian equivalent, Basarnas, that its "preference is for a transfer at sea" to Indonesian authorities.

Basarnas agreed, and in relation to one of the boats, the Australian Customs ship ACV Triton was given permission to enter Indonesian waters to offload 31 rescued asylum-seekers on to an Indonesian vessel.

Australian authorities have been encouraged by Indonesia's willingness to accept asylum-seekers under these circumstances, whereby asylum-seekers end up back in Indonesia without any need to forcibly turn back their boats. As a result, one of the tactical options being considered is to try to operate the navy's patrol-boat fleet further north of Christmas Island, so that if distress calls are received the boats can be intercepted closer to the Indonesian coast, making it likelier that Basarnas will accept their return.

But these are early days. The government is sorting out new tactics and new chains of command. It was sobering that Abbott's success in Jakarta and Morrison's stumble at home coincided with the arrival of at least four boats carrying more than 250 people. On every level, Operation Sovereign Borders is a work in progress.