The Gillard Government’s legal miscalculation of its Malaysian enterprise will amplify Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s consistent theme that it is an administration which simply can’t get anything right.
It isn’t the first instance of clumsy handling of the asylum seeker debate and the political imperatives which are driving national attention on what is, essentially, a minor matter.
Against solid advice - including that of Kevin Rudd - the Government tried to get a detention centre deal with East Timor but had to limp away embarrassed from negotiations which were always destined to fail.
Mr Abbott’s attack - on what Liberal Scott Morrison yesterday called “a continuing pattern of failure” - has ramifications well beyond the puny numbers of asylum seekers arriving here by boat.
It will feed into Opposition attacks on the proposed carbon pricing laws, on management of the economy, on just about everything the Government does or says it will do.
The Malaysian deal collapse will join the home insulation debacle as Exhibits A and B of the Opposition’s prosecution of the Government on charges of incompetence.
Yesterday’s High Court judgment might not be all sweetness for the Opposition, either. Liberals argue the court gave a tick to sending asylum seekers to Nauru, but there is a counter interpretation of the critical paragraph 128 in the ruling.
That interpretation says the High Court was merely saying it was not dealing with Nauru - which like Malaysia has not signed the UN refugee convention - as a destination for asylum seekers. It might do at another time.
But whatever obstacles to Opposition policies the ruling might produce, they are nothing like those blocking the Government.
One difference is that the Opposition is in command of the politics on this issue. The Government has desperately been trying to play political catch-up since the election campaign last year.
It still is well behind the relentless and ruthless campaigning by Mr Abbott and Mr Morrison.
Many voters might think asylum seekers should be entitled to being processed on mainland Australia, but most of them do not live in the seats Labor has to capture or hold, such as in western Sydney.
A looming problem for the Government is that if its off-shore options are closed its alternatives might antagonise not only those voters, but those who believe the refugee claimants should be allowed to live in the community as their cases are reviewed.
The numbers involved are so small compared to the magnitude of the political issue.
So far this year, after eight months, 2183 people have arrived in the Australian jurisdiction by boat to apply for asylum - roughly a third of the total for 2010. Those who fly in are greater in number but are invisible in this debate.
So that’s not even 3000 people, which was around the number who protested against the Government’s carbon pricing plans on the lawns in front of Parliament House earlier in the year. But they have more political significance.
Scott Morrison has portrayed this little group as a massive drain on the exchequer by tallying the costs of everything from security to phone cards. This is designed to play on the insecurities of voters who think these blow-ins (or sail-ins) are enjoying benefits they can’t get.
It’s cynical but effective, and Mr Morrison has not been bothered by matching counter arguments from the Government.
There is another calculation to be considered. If Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is right, the court’s ruling will encourage people smugglers to get the boats launched again.
That means death at sea will again be a sad possibility.
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