Julia Gillard certainly got it right by returning from holidays to take charge, but things tailed away after that.
First, there was her botched announcement of an all-party committee to jointly gather the facts about the Christmas Island tragedy. She had phoned Tony Abbott in Tokyo to float the idea, reporters were told. Yet within hours the Opposition claimed the idea had not even been raised with Mr Abbott in the call.
So what was the point? Was it just a way of diverting pressure for an independent inquiry? If so it was an egregious error. If the deaths of at least 30 people because of systemic failure is not cause for an independent inquiry, what is?
The whole thing had a disturbingly familiar ring to it as, with her regional processing centre in East Timor, the proposal simply was not nailed down when announced.
At its best, the motive of taking some of the partisan heat out of an issue that has fuelled an ugly side of Australian politics, is worthy. Few believe, however, this really was the objective.
Rather, the suspicion is this was more like a boxer’s clinch - pulling in your opponent when you’re being pummelled so he can throw no punches.
In any event, what Ms Gillard flagged was virtually unprecedented: that the Opposition, which holds the current border protection policy in absolute contempt, partners with the Government in interrogating officials and agencies.
In the eyeball to eyeball argument over border protection, it was a clear blink betraying the Government’s sensitivity to Opposition attacks and its own lack of answers.
Labor MPs now are bracing for a storm. They know the Opposition, which blew the dog whistle on the very day the tragedy occurred, will capitalise on the attention this tragedy brings to highlight what it views as the Government’s culpability in attracting boats.
``What has occurred today off the cliffs of Christmas Island represents our worst fears realised,’’ Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison had said.
So craven is Labor’s disposition now it even praised Mr Morrison’s comment as honourable, not at all related to Mr Abbott’s incendiary ``stop the boats’’ slogan.
It’s a cynical interpretation but then, consistency has been thin on the ground in this debate. First there’s the Opposition. Its legions of moral guardians stand ready to fight to the death to oppose gay marriage but remain strangely mute on the immorality of demonising the world’s most dispossessed.
Most are more than happy to seek political advantage from the increased flow of boats.
Then there’s the Government. It now is clueless and paralysed, having adopted its opponent’s bellicose ``tough-on-boats’’ rhetoric while still getting whacked by voters for failing against this very same metric.
Labor’s abrogation of moral and political leadership is the direct result of allowing the Opposition to define the terms of the debate.
In office, it has refused to assert its policies or confront xenophobia for fear of alienating some voters.
Yet this weakness means it has banked little credit for the things it has done in the immigration and refugee space, such as ending the limbo status of temporary protection visas. The result is a kind of political limbo where it has failed to convince its conservative critics while simultaneously surrendering the opportunity to reframe the debate.
Former Hawke and Keating government minister Graham Richardson is as hard-nosed and pragmatic as they come and yet even he now is calling for Labor to dump its mimicry.
``These are boats that most of us wouldn’t use to cross Sydney Harbour, and these people are crossing vast tracts of ocean which obviously means there’s a fair degree of desperation and when you’ve got desperate people, you’re not going to stop them by wishing them away,’’ he said. ``I think Australia’s got to accept the fact that these boats are going to keep coming and that means you’re going to have to deal with the problem.’‘
Another ALP member who contacted me yesterday went further, branding Ms Gillard’s preference for a joint party committee over an independent inquiry as a ``fiasco’’ and a ``dog’s breakfast’‘.
As the year ends, there are growing concerns the PM’s strong parliamentary skills had masked a less reliable political instinct. Opponents cite a growing list of political miscalculations: Medicare Gold; urging Kevin Rudd to dump the emissions trading scheme; the 150-member citizens’ assembly; the East Timor processing centre; the ``Real Julia’’ declaration; the claim WikiLeaks founder Julia Assange had broken the law (debunked by the AFP); and, now, the refusal to commission an inquiry into the Christmas Island tragedy.
Scratchy indeed.
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