manus asylum seeker refugee

“Not ever before have we had an election that is so important in terms of national security. We need to make sure that we have strong, secure borders.”

So said Peter Dutton yesterday. That should make it a pretty tight race, since Labor has shown no sign of departing its platform of me-tooism when it comes to national security.

“When it comes to national security, Labor and Liberal are in this together,” Bill Shorten said last week. “The truth is if you’re a cyber criminal, or you’re a people smuggler, or if you’re a terrorist, both Liberal and Labor are equally committed, and we work together.”

If the election will be fought on Australia’s asylum seeker policy, whom to support? The party that favours indefinite offshore detention and offloading our refugee obligations onto poorer Asian neighbours or …