'Mr Prime Minister, Jesus weeps,' tweeted the disappointed Anglican bishop of Tasmania when the PNG Solution was announced last weekend.
When Kevin Rudd first came to office in 2007, he promised an end to the Howard Government's Pacific Island Solution.
The churches welcomed the policy reversal, guests at dinner parties in Sydney's Inner West acclaimed it, and urban sophisticates purred approvingly.
So did the people-smugglers. They loaded up their boats and sent them on to the high seas. The number of boat arrivals soared. So did the number of drownings.
But Rudd's decision in 2007 to dump his predecessor's scheme turned out to be a humanitarian tragedy and a political catastrophe.
The need now in 2013 to address the horrible mess, which is almost entirely of Rudd's own making, was not merely an opportunity but a burning political imperative.
But the Prime Minister is already feeling the heat of moral challenge, and it doesn't just come from critics on the Right.
Some of the most bitter criticism has come from the Left, from those who are dismayed by the apparent heartlessness and cruelty of the plan.
In Faith in Politics published in The Monthly in October 2006, Rudd paraded his Christian socialist credentials and declared that 'the biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear.
His verdict on the Pacific Solution was that it 'should be the cause of great ethical concern to all the Christian churches.'
It was that kind of language which kindled hope in the hearts of the Howard-haters. Rudd went on to topple Kim Beazley and then, a year later, to win the 2007 election.
But Rudd's PNG Solution now appears to be harsher than anything ever imposed by the Howard Government. Critics such as the bishop of Tasmania say Rudd has abandoned the very same Christian values of compassion and tolerance he once said were so important to him.
Yet 'compassion' and 'tolerance' don't necessarily mean only what the bishop says they mean. One can feel both compassion and tolerance for asylum-seekers while at the same time putting in place policies that prevent or deter illegal arrival by sea.
Sadly, Rudd has fallen into a trap of his own making. Christian moral teaching can inform the decisions we make, if we so choose. But it can never be commandeered to gild the edge of policy.
'The gap between political realities and their public face is so great that the term "paradox" tends to crop up from sentence to sentence,' observed the late Kenneth Minogue with characteristic understatement.
Politicians of any stripe who claim to establish the public face of policy by securing the Christian moral high ground will soon enough feel the tide of political reality lapping at their toes.
In The Sydney Morning Herald Paul Sheehan denounced the PNG Solution as having 'not a shred of functional credibility, policy consistency or moral coherence.'
Only time will tell if the PNG Solution can be made to work. Political and legal challenges almost certainly lie ahead.
The bishop of Tasmania may be right. Jesus may well be weeping. But the apparent readiness to dump all moral conviction may not play well with voters either.
Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > Playing the moral high ground on asylum seekers
Playing the moral high ground on asylum seekers
When Kevin Rudd first came to office in 2007, he promised an end to the Howard Government's Pacific Island Solution.
The churches welcomed the policy reversal, guests at dinner parties in Sydney's Inner West acclaimed it, and urban sophisticates purred approvingly.
So did the people-smugglers. They loaded up their boats and sent them on to the high seas. The number of boat arrivals soared. So did the number of drownings.
But Rudd's decision in 2007 to dump his predecessor's scheme turned out to be a humanitarian tragedy and a political catastrophe.
The need now in 2013 to address the horrible mess, which is almost entirely of Rudd's own making, was not merely an opportunity but a burning political imperative.
But the Prime Minister is already feeling the heat of moral challenge, and it doesn't just come from critics on the Right.
Some of the most bitter criticism has come from the Left, from those who are dismayed by the apparent heartlessness and cruelty of the plan.
In Faith in Politics published in The Monthly in October 2006, Rudd paraded his Christian socialist credentials and declared that 'the biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear.
His verdict on the Pacific Solution was that it 'should be the cause of great ethical concern to all the Christian churches.'
It was that kind of language which kindled hope in the hearts of the Howard-haters. Rudd went on to topple Kim Beazley and then, a year later, to win the 2007 election.
But Rudd's PNG Solution now appears to be harsher than anything ever imposed by the Howard Government. Critics such as the bishop of Tasmania say Rudd has abandoned the very same Christian values of compassion and tolerance he once said were so important to him.
Yet 'compassion' and 'tolerance' don't necessarily mean only what the bishop says they mean. One can feel both compassion and tolerance for asylum-seekers while at the same time putting in place policies that prevent or deter illegal arrival by sea.
Sadly, Rudd has fallen into a trap of his own making. Christian moral teaching can inform the decisions we make, if we so choose. But it can never be commandeered to gild the edge of policy.
'The gap between political realities and their public face is so great that the term "paradox" tends to crop up from sentence to sentence,' observed the late Kenneth Minogue with characteristic understatement.
Politicians of any stripe who claim to establish the public face of policy by securing the Christian moral high ground will soon enough feel the tide of political reality lapping at their toes.
In The Sydney Morning Herald Paul Sheehan denounced the PNG Solution as having 'not a shred of functional credibility, policy consistency or moral coherence.'
Only time will tell if the PNG Solution can be made to work. Political and legal challenges almost certainly lie ahead.
The bishop of Tasmania may be right. Jesus may well be weeping. But the apparent readiness to dump all moral conviction may not play well with voters either.
Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
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