By court reporter Jamelle Wells and state political reporter Sarah Gerathy Updated Wed Jul 31, 2013 3:56pm AEST

Video: Criminal charges recommended against Macdonald, Obeid (ABC News)

Photo: LtoR Former NSW ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald at the ICAC in Sydney, February 2013. (AAP)

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has recommended former Labor ministers Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid face criminal charges over a coal-mining deal.

In a marathon inquiry that ran for months with hundreds of witnesses, Commissioner David Ipp investigated if the pair conspired to defraud the state over the granting of a multi-million-dollar mining licence in the Bylong Valley.

The inquiry heard Mr Macdonald granted the lucrative Mount Penny coal mining lease over land owned by the Obeid family, and that the Obeids encouraged their friends to buy up land in the area and secretly hid their involvement in mining projects though complex company structures.

Today the ICAC found that both men acted corruptly and referred them to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Operation Jasper

• Investigated allegations then-mining minister Ian Macdonald rigged a 2008 tender process to put the Obeid family and their associates in a position to profit by up to $100 million.

Operation Jarilo

• Looked into claims accused murderer Ron Medich and former boxer Lucky Gattellari offered Ian Macdonald incentives - including the services of a prostitute called Tiffanie - to arrange business meetings.

Operation Indus

• Aired claims former treasurer and roads minister Eric Roozendaal got a $10,000 discount on a new car from the Obeid family as a bribe.

Operation Acacia (due in August)

• Looked at the Doyles Creek coal exploration licence Ian Macdonald granted without a tender to union boss John Maitland and others.

The same damning findings of corrupt conduct have been made against some of the business identities who bought into the deal and still control the suspect lease.

Eddie Obeid's son, Moses, and businessmen Travers Duncan, John McGuigan, John Kinghorn, Richard Poole, and John Atkinson, have all also been referred to the DPP.

The ICAC has also asked the Crime Commission of New South Wales to investigate the deal, raising the strong prospect that bank accounts will be frozen in an attempt to recover tens of millions of dollars.

The Tax Office has also been asked to investigate conduct by Eddie and Moses Obeid.

Eddie Obeid released a statement shortly after the findings were made public, criticising the "superficiality and bias" of the report.

"I reject the assertions of the Commissioner that I acted in any way that could amount to corrupt conduct," the statement read.

"It will be necessary for me to consult my legal representatives before any detailed response is to be published, but I wish to make it clear that I reserve my rights to seek judicial review in respect of the adverse findings."

In its report the ICAC criticised Mr Obeid's evidence, describing him as an "unimpressive" witness.

"He was an aggressive witness and seemed to be more concerned with imposing his will on proceedings than with simply telling the truth..." the report said.

"It was plain that, if he felt an honest answer could damage his position, he simply evaded providing an answer."

The commission was also scathing about Mr Macdonald, describing him as an "unsatisfactory witness".

"In some instances, the commission has come to the view that Mr Macdonald deliberately gave untrue evidence..." the report said.

"The commission came to a view that Mr Macdonald was tailoring his evidence to fit the evidence of other witnesses, and attempting to concoct an innocent explanation to explain away damning facts."

Impact of findings on federal Labor

Speaking to reporters today, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was disgusted by evidence from the ICAC hearings and insisted corruption would not be tolerated.

"I welcome this report. Anyone who is responsible for illegal or corrupt behaviour should face the full force of the law," he said.

Read the ICAC's Jasper report

Read the ICAC's report of investigations into the conduct of Ian MacDonald, Eddie Obeid and others.

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has seized on the findings and highlighted the links between NSW Labor and the federal ALP.

"Mr Rudd needs to come clean about all the dealings that senior members of his government have had with Mr Obeid and Mr Macdonald," he said.

He noted former NSW premier Bob Carr, now the Foreign Minister, elevated Eddie Obeid to the state ministry and also underlined the connections within the party's left faction between Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Mr Macdonald.

"Mr Rudd is only Prime Minister because the NSW Labor party put him there," Mr Abbott said.

"And if he ever seriously tackles the rotten-ness at the heart of the NSW Labor party he will be dealt with by the warlords of Sussex Street again, as he was back in June of 2010.

"Mr Rudd simply can't wash his hands of this."

Former NSW premier Nathan Rees said both Mr Macdonald and Eddie Obeid have tainted the reputation of the Labor party across Australia.

"I feel ashamed about the behaviours that have been aired, in the ICAC and I know many of my colleagues do," he said.

"I sacked Ian Macdonald so in a way I hold my head up high on this stuff. I believe I did the right thing at the time and if the circumstances arose again then I'd do exactly the same thing."

He added that he believed the ICAC findings will have a significant impact on the chances of Labor at the upcoming federal election.

"I make it my business to talk to lots of people in my electorate and the infamy of the characters involved has spread into the federal sphere and the federal election campaign," Mr Rees said.

Ex-treasurer Eric Roozendaal cleared of corruption

As part of a series of public hearings, the ICAC also investigated if former roads minister and treasurer Eric Roozendaal was bribed with a discount on a car.

Photo: Cleared: Eric Roozendaal. (AAP: Paul Miller)

Mr Roozendaal told the ICAC last year he was not very good with his personal finances.

The inquiry was told the Obeid family offered Mr Roozendaal a $10,000 discount on a new car as a bribe, primarily to fast-track roads projects.

Mr Roozendaal has been found not corrupt by the commission, but it found Moses Obeid acted corruptly by arranging the cheap car for him.

The ICAC says Mr Roozendaal's actions showed a lack of "judgement or insight" but the report says there is insufficient evidence to prove the former minister knew about the "various financial transactions" that were undertaken behind the scenes.

In a statement, Mr Roozendaal said he welcomed the ICAC "clearing me and restoring my reputation".

"I have always maintained that I acted appropriately and ethically during my parliamentary career and in the best interests for the people of NSW," he said.

"This time has been very difficult and traumatic for my family and friends and I thank them for their support and love.

"I am glad we can now move on."

Corrupt findings over prostitute bribe

In another hearing the ICAC considered whether Mr Macdonald had been bribed with the services of an escort.

The commission has found Mr Macdonald, businessman Ron Medich and former boxer Lucky Gatellari engaged in corrupt conduct over the case.

It found Mr Macdonald exercised his influence as the energy minister to arrange a meeting between Mr Medich and Country Energy executives at the Tuscany Restaurant in Leichardt in 2009.

Video: The ABC's Quentin Dempster analyses the ICAC's findings (ABC News)

At the time Mr Medich had business interests that he wanted to promote to the executives and the ICAC's found that he and his sidekick Lucky Gattelari also acted corruptly by arranging for the services of prostitute called Tiffanie for Mr Macdonald as a reward for setting up the meeting.

Commissioner David Ipp says the DPP should consider prosecuting Mr Macdonald on charges including misconduct in a public office and corruptly receiving benefits as a reward.

It also recommending charges against Mr Medich.

The offences being suggested carry jail terms of up to seven years.

The ICAC is also giving information from the inquiries to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over possible breaches of the Corporations Act.

And it says it will also bring to the attention of the Australian Stock Exchange evidence of attempts by some company directors to evade a request for information.

Findings of a fourth investigation over a mining licence Mr Macdonald granted without a tender are due to be handed down next month.

More on this story

• Obeid dragged in to 'Rum Corps' ICAC probe
• Macdonald 'accepted sexual favours', ICAC hears
• Inquiry hears minister received car without payment

ICAC recommends charges against former NSW Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

July 31, 2013 - 12:10PM

First Word: Letter of the Morning

Vietnamese asylum seekers spent many years in camps where conditions were rough and personal freedom was restricted. Photo: supplied Photo: Jason South JPS

Malcolm Fraser's claims regarding his government's record in managing asylum seekers are becoming increasingly extravagant ("Vietnamese refugees were a boon, not a burden", July 29). I was a health officer in UNHCR resettlement camps in South East Asia at this time. Certainly I was junior, but I was definitely on the front line, so I can raise some issues that Mr Fraser regularly omits.

Only a tiny proportion of Vietnamese asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat. This is partly because the Australian government at this time had an active program of physically disabling boats so they could not travel beyond Malaysia or Indonesia. This was undertaken mainly because Australia did not want boats of asylum seekers arriving – but it was also an attempt to prevent further deaths at sea.

The Agreement on Orderly Departure, commenced in 1979 when Mr Fraser was prime minister, gave priority resettlement to the families of Vietnamese-Australian residents who had stayed in Vietnam. Thousands of people who were classed as refugees languished for years in camps in South East Asia waiting to be resettled in a third country. It was not a benign system, and humanity was often lacking.

Mr Fraser should be well aware of the dangers to asylum seekers when they travel by sea with people smugglers. The number of Vietnamese asylum seekers who died at sea trying to ultimately reach countries like Australia during his period as prime minister was appalling; hundreds of thousands of people. A whole criminal trade in violent piracy developed.

During the period of Mr Fraser's government, Australia contributed to the maintenance of several UNHCR refugee camps in Malaysia and Indonesia. All the camps were rough settlements with basic infrastructure. Infant mortality was high and there was no personal freedom. Essentially, it was a system of offshore processing.

Australia's intake of Vietnamese asylum seekers from these camps during this period was acceptable – but not excessive. Other countries who had not been involved in the Vietnam War resettled more people per head of population.

Of course, the Vietnamese asylum seekers who have resettled have made great Australians. However, to suggest, as Mr Fraser does, that the policies of his government were more benign than now, is just rewriting history. I also find it a little insulting to the large numbers of Vietnamese who died at sea during this period or spent decades living in miserable refugee camps waiting to be resettled.

Kim McKenzie Rapid Creek (NT)

Fraser forgets the deaths and misery

 Malcolm Fraser July 29, 2013

Vietnamese refugees aboard the refugee boat Kien Giang in 1979. Photo: Fairfax Library

Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are proving there are no depths to which they will not sink to persuade the Australian people they are the toughest in relation to asylum seekers. The demonising of asylum seekers continues apace.

The Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has tried to suggest they are now all economic refugees. If they are, they are sent back, and Carr knows that. He had no information which would have justified that comment. When the Gillard government stopped processing in August of last year, more than 90 per cent of those processed up to that point were genuine refugees.

What we did in the past worked. It could work again. Why has nobody . . . tried to adapt that to today's circumstances?

The fact remains that, however unpleasant the Australian government tries to be, it cannot match the terror from which those who are genuine refugees are fleeing. That remains the fundamental flaw in the policy of deterrence.

On his visit to Indonesia, Prime Minister Rudd emphasised the importance of a regional solution and welcomed the fact that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had announced Indonesia would chair a meeting to discuss regional solutions to the problem. That decision, to work through the so-called Bali process, did not last very long and then Rudd came out with his Nauru and Manus Island solution. I am advised he did so without a cabinet decision, certainly not a full cabinet decision.

It was, again, a knee-jerk reaction giving the impression of fixing a problem, in a way that will likely only create many more problems.

We have all now been told what was happening on Manus Island and on Nauru. Again, it appears no one is responsible, but it is clear enough the most terrible conditions prevailed. Asylum seekers were abused and, for a long while, families were in an intolerable position.

The asylum seekers, who could have been asked about the misdeeds on Manus Island, have been moved to the mainland and probably dispersed. At the very least, they should have been closely questioned about the abuse, the victims and the perpetrators.

Instead of that, Immigration Minister Tony Burke visited Manus Island and says it is very much as he expected. It accorded with almost all the principles he thought were relevant. In other words, Manus Island as it is - with totally inadequate space, with tents that leak, with no space for separation of good from bad - is fine. Apparently, under the new policy, 500 asylum seekers are going to be sent there within weeks.

Meanwhile, the opposition has weighed in and announced a new policy to put a three-star general in charge of the border protection arrangements, in place of a two-star navy admiral, currently in charge of military efforts in the region.

The opposition is highly critical of Papua New Guinea and speaks of that nation in a way that has justifiably brought a sharp rebuke from the Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill. Former prime minister Michael Somare, whom I know well, has also weighed in; he says the arrangements will not work.

Our two major political parties should be congratulated on one thing: they both seem to have found new ways of taking Australia's approach to this problem to new depths, to new lows. And they do this even though they know a solution exists - but it is a solution they have never sought. After the end of the Vietnam War, with tens, even hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from Indo-China, procedures were put in place that did work.

This resulted, so far as Australia is concerned, in a dynamic Vietnamese Australian community, energetic, innovative and contributing enormously to the culture and development of this nation.

A holding centre was established in Malaysia, with Malaysian approval and the United Nations' involvement. Malaysia was happy to co-operate because it knew Australia, the United States and Canada were going to take tens of thousands of people out of that centre, so Malaysia would not be left with a settlement problem that would be quite beyond its capacity.

We now need the same kind of arrangement again, with a centre in Indonesia. We would need the agreement of other resettlement countries, such as the US and Canada, because the numbers are greater than Australia alone could handle.

That procedure worked before; there is no reason it should not work again. It might improve relations with Indonesia, which cannot be very happy because out of our increased humanitarian intake, only a couple of hundred have been allocated to relieve the pressure on Indonesia.

What we did in the past worked. It could work again. Why has nobody, in government or opposition, tried to adapt that to today's circumstances?

Malcolm Fraser was prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983.

Vietnamese refugees were a boon, not a burden

Tad Tietze theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 July 2013 12.03 AEST

When voters name their top vote-determining issues, asylum is near the bottom of the list – and yet, the mythology persists. Rudd knows this and uses it efficiently

Kevin Rudd signs a cricket bat during the official launch of the ICC Cricket World Cup to be held in Australia and New Zealand in 2015. Photograph: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/LNP

Does Kevin Rudd have a strategy, or is he just making it up as he goes along?

Much recent commentary seems to presume that Rudd – despite three years mercilessly pursuing a return to the top job – had no plan except to rely on his popularity. This view comes with talk of “sugar hits”, early election dates, policy shifts being part of “campaigning” and not “governing”, and the claim that he is just as poll-driven as the “faceless men” who ousted him in 2010.

Such an approach rests on the idea that politicians’ manoeuvres are mainly driven by voter opinion. This is nowhere more evident than on refugees where, since 2001, it has been gospel that being tough on boat arrivals is the key to “votes, votes and more votes”.

Yet there’s little evidence for this.

Take Rudd’s latest PNG solution. It has certainly improved the ALP’s standing on the issue. Newspoll showed Labor narrowed the gap with the Coalition on who is best to handle asylum by 20%, to be behind by 26 to 33%. Essential recorded an even bigger shift, of 24%, with Labor now behind by just 25 to 26%. And Galaxy actually had “Rudd Labor” ahead of the “Abbott Coalition” on the issue, by 40 to 38%.

Yet Labor’s vote has barely moved. Essential showed no shift in the Labor primary and a 1% rise in the two-party preferred (2PP). Galaxy showed a 2% rise in Labor’s primary but just 1% in the 2PP. Meanwhile, Newspoll recorded decreases of 1% primary and 2% 2PP.

This paradox – virtually ignored by journalists – shouldn’t surprise us. Serious analyses of the 2001 election (for example this, this and this) suggest that the “Tampa-as-election-winner” tale was little more than John Howard’s self-interested narrative, which then spooked ALP hardheads into becoming obsessed with pandering to allegedly racist voters, apparently mostly living in western Sydney. When voters are asked to name their top vote-determining issues, asylum continues to be near the bottom of the list. Yet the mythology persists, even after Labor’s NSW vote immediately recovered on Rudd’s return, despite him being seen as “soft on boats”.

Rather than being poll-obsessed, Rudd has been systematically out-manoeuvring his opponents in order to dominate them politically. These opponents include not just the Coalition and the Greens, but those in his party who represent the “old politics” he routinely attacks. To do this, Rudd deploys two key weapons — his popular appeal as an anti-politics outsider and the authority of the PM’s office.

Again, the refugee issue clarifies Rudd’s approach. Central to his strategy is the use of regional (international) statecraft to establish authority. By having Indonesia expose Abbott’s plan to “turn back the boats” as a dangerous fantasy and then convincing Papua New Guinea to resettle refugees, Rudd has called the Coalition’s bluff and shifted the terms of the debate. He brushes aside panic that his policy must show results overnight, instead counseling patient determination. And he has disoriented many on the left by answering their legal and humanitarian objections in brutal fashion.

Importantly, Rudd has neutralised troublesome internal forces – especially amongst his NSW right backers – who believe “tough on boats” is a vote-winner. This has given him space to refuse their demands for an early election, intended to “save the furniture” rather than win, which they have been trying to leverage by incessantly leaking dates. A later election will allow Rudd to be seen to govern, so that the contrast between him and Abbott – and between him and Gillard’s “Labor values” – is crystal clear.

For all their claims they had war-gamed Rudd’s return, the Coalition look shaken, off-message and whiney on almost every issue, unable to lay a glove on him. The Greens were similarly at sea until the PNG deal gave them something they could plausibly attack Rudd on.

Gillard’s politically disastrous prime ministership weakened the ALP power structures it was meant to restore. It has allowed Rudd, whose base within the party is very narrow, to be in a position to dominate opponents across the political spectrum and transform a near-certain Coalition landslide into a real contest. It has also allowed him to push through internal reforms to weaken the influence of the ALP machine and unions.

Perhaps it’s the scale of Rudd’s attack on Australia’s long-standing political arrangements that is leading many to be confused. Rudd is no left-wing radical in his social or economic policies. But there’s good reason for him to be always on the move: he still has much reshaping of politics to do before he’s finished. Those who don’t grasp this risk being swept aside in the rush.

Kevin Rudd: mastering paradoxical polling, politics and the press | Tad Tietze | Comment is free | theguardian.com

By Alan Stephens Posted Tue Jul 30, 2013 8:39am AEST

Photo: Under Abbott's plan the ADF would have a bigger role to play than is presently the case in 'deterring' people smugglers. (Submitted: Lyn Sinclair)

The Australian Defence Force holds a unique position in society. Tony Abbott's asylum seeker proposal attacks the fundamental ethos of the profession of arms, writes Alan Stephens.

Apparently spooked by Kevin Rudd's plan to send boat people to Papua New Guinea, Tony Abbott has come up with an equally crass proposal.

Under the Coalition's 'Operation Sovereign Borders', a three-star military officer appointed by the chief of the Defence Force would command Australia's so-called border protection campaign, in an attempt to control a situation described by Abbott as 'a national emergency'.

Other parts of his proposal make it certain that the ADF would have a bigger role to play than is presently the case in 'deterring' people smugglers and their desperate human cargo.

Disingenuous pronouncements from Abbott, shadow immigration minister Scott Morrison, and their plan's architect, retired general Jim Molan, that this would be an appropriate use of the ADF have been rejected by defence experts.

The media release from the respected chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, while (properly) not overtly criticising the plan, had a decidedly cool, even icy, undertone. The Australia Defence Association's Neil James condemned the policy for militarising 'what remains unequivocally a civil law enforcement issue'. Retired CDF Admiral Chris Barrie was unimpressed. Their common, unspoken concern was about the ethics of military service.

By militarising his 'stop-the-boats' mantra Abbott has, either through ignorance or wilful opportunism, attacked the fundamental ethos of the profession of arms.

The Australian constitution allows governments to seek approval from the Governor-General to call out the ADF to assist with 'law enforcement'. The fact that this provision has been invoked only three times indicates its sensitivity. Whose 'law enforcement'? When does the right to equality of 'law enforcement' cross a line and become socially biased and unjust? At what point is 'law enforcement' politicised? Are members of the Defence Force properly prepared practically, intellectually, and emotionally, to act against the citizens they are supposed to protect?

It must be clearly understood: Members of the ADF are not police, or immigration officers, or emergency workers, or any other kind of state official associated with civil law enforcement or good governance.

The sole justification for the existence of a defence force is to apply organised violence in the interests of the state - to protect its citizens from foreign military aggression. Australia's service personnel are educated and trained for that profoundly ethically challenging responsibility within a codified set of laws, to which every soldier, sailor, and airman is subject. Transgress those laws and they can be tried as war criminals.

Yet perhaps even more important than regulations such as the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Armed Conflict is the two-way trust - a compact if you will - that must exist between a defence force and the society it serves if the relationship is to be legitimate.

Best described in Samuel Huntington's classic study The Soldier and the State, that compact rests essentially on a moral base, and may be defined as much by unwritten norms as by any binding legal document. (Ironically, it was also Huntington who in 1993 coined the term 'The Clash of Civilisations' to foreshadow conflict between the West and Islam. Huntington's model did not, however, envisage the forced resettlement by wealthy, mostly white Australia of desperate, mostly Muslim boat-people, to poor, mostly black PNG, a clash of cultures of potentially alarming proportions.)

And it is those unwritten norms that expose the recklessness - indeed, the ignorance - of Tony Abbott's plan.

Helping out after floods or bushfires is one thing. When the ADF assists the community after natural disasters it is being a good citizen. But when it is ordered to conduct a morally dubious - some would say corrupt - operation that would inevitably involve human rights abuses, that is something else altogether.

To repeat: The ADF is not just any organisation. It has a unique role, a unique ethos, and a unique relationship with the society it serves.

War is intrinsically depraved. Regardless of what an enemy might or might not do, if we are not to fall into the abyss ourselves, our conduct must be guided by the highest ethical standards.

Australians can be proud of the ADF: of its professionalism; and of its conduct in war. For decades it has embraced a moral standard the equal of, if not better than, any other defence force in the world.

We should never allow that standard and the compact it enables between the military and society to be undermined; and we should never allow the ADF to be used as an election gimmick by an opportunistic politician.

Tony Abbott's plan to militarise Australia's refugee policy is more than crass, it is an attack on the ethos that gives legitimacy to the profession of arms.

Dr Alan Stephens is a visiting fellow at UNSW at Canberra and a member of the Williams Foundation. View his full profile here.

Abbott's asylum plan at odds with ADF purpose - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Chris Berg Posted Tue Jul 30, 2013 2:59pm AEST

Photo: A small country highly integrated into the global economy is going to be very sensitive to international crises. (ABC News)

The fate of the Australian economy - the big ups and downs of the economic cycle - will be determined by global conditions, not domestic ones, writes Chris Berg.

Australia is a very small country with a very open economy. These facts are sometimes easy to forget.

No matter what they say during the upcoming election campaign, neither Kevin Rudd nor Tony Abbott will have much control over Australia's economic fortunes in the next term of government.

Wrapping up his National Press Club address earlier this month, Kevin Rudd said Labor governments "manage transitions … sketch the future … harness the energy and ambition of our people" and "put the changes in place that best secures our future."

Tony Abbott has used the same sort of hyperbole. A Coalition victory would immediately trigger prosperity.

Such boldness is par for the course at election time. But it is a confidence trick.

The fate of the Australian economy - the big ups and downs of the economic cycle - will be determined by global conditions, not domestic ones.

No-one knows this better than the workers at Holden and Ford, for whom global exchange rates are more important than any subsidy or tariff our elected representatives can devise.

This has always been so.

A sudden increase in the cost of bank lending in London caused our first true depression - the largely forgotten Depression of the 1840s. We suffered along with the rest of the British Empire.

Our better-remembered second depression occurred in the 1890s. What little modern Australians know of the Depression of the 1890s is perhaps the housing boom in Melbourne which preceded bank failures and unemployment.

But the Australian episode is only part of a story that encompasses the near collapse of the London-based Barings Bank, sovereign debt crises in Latin America and the Mediterranean, a gold panic in New York, and a mining market collapse in South Africa. Our trouble - as traumatic as it was - was just one crisis among many.

The Great Depression was even more clearly imported. No way were we going to avoid suffering from the stock market crash of October 1929 or the collapse of world trade.

Historically our good times correspond with good times in the global economy too.

We boomed in the 1950s and 1960s along with everyone else. We suffered stagflation in the 1970s along with everyone else.

And the recession we had to have?

Well, that recession had to be had by the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Japan as well.

This all makes sense. Australia is tiny. Overseas there are cities with more people than our entire country. We're almost entirely dependent on imports for consumption and exports for economic growth. And we need foreign capital for investment. A small country highly integrated into the global economy is going to be very sensitive to international crises.

Yet for each of these historical episodes there exists a cottage industry trying to explain the unique Australian factors that caused them. The 1840s Depression is blamed on problems in the Australian wool industry. The 1890s Depression is blamed on reckless Australian banks. The depth of the Great Depression in Australia is blamed on our obsession with balanced budgets.

It goes on. We've all heard Paul Keating blamed for the recession of the early 1990s and John Howard credited for the subsequent growth.

If there is growth or recession in the next term Abbott or Rudd will take the blame or credit. They probably won't deserve either.

In the past I've mentioned research that suggests political success is more about dumb luck than virtue or competence. In truth Rudd or Abbott will win government then cross their fingers.

But political debate struggles with powerlessness. Voters like to assign blame and give credit for things that are actually outside any domestic politicians' control.

Kevin Rudd rightly points out the global financial crisis dumped a bucket on Labor's first term. The policy agenda of any party would have been drowned out by the global consequences of America's subprime collapse.

But then he claims his decision to artificially stimulate the economy was responsible for Australia's relative endurance.

Not, for instance, Chinese demand for West Australian minerals.

In other words, Rudd believes the disease was entirely foreign, but the cure was entirely domestic.

Yet even if you are a card-carrying Keynesian - that is, you believe the government can and should spend more to boost the economy in a downturn - it is just as plausible that China's enormous stimulus package in 2008 is responsible for our prosperity, rather than Labor's smattering of insulation and community projects.

Australia spent around $90 billion to stimulate its economy. Sounds like a lot? Well, China spent over half a trillion dollars. And nearly three quarters of that spending went towards the infrastructure whose raw materials we supply.

Our politicians pretend they can steer the economy like a ship. But we have a very small ship and it's a very big ocean. During an election, it pays to remember our economic future is determined by the wind, not the sails.

Chris Berg is a Research Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs. His most recent book is In Defence of Freedom of Speech: from Ancient Greece to Andrew Bolt. View his full profile here.

Politicians are powerless over Australia's economy - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Mungo MacCallum

Photo: Joe Hockey has decided to ignore both PEFO and the Charter of Budget Honesty. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Having not learnt his lesson at the last election, Joe Hockey has again decided that anyone could do a better job at costing the Coalition's policies than the one department actually designed to do this, writes Mungo MacCallum.

For many months now, Tony Abbott has been warning his colleagues not to take the voters for granted. The Coalition might have been a long way ahead in the polls, but things were bound to get closer as election day approached.

And indeed they have - a lot closer than Abbott anticipated. The return of Kevin Rudd has meant this is not a time for arrogance or hubris. But apparently his shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, has not got the message: not only has he decided to treat the punters like mugs, but he has apparently forgotten that just three years ago he tried the same trick, and it ended in disaster.

The problem is once again the costing of opposition promises. To date Hockey has released very few figures, and most of those are little better than guesstimates; he has, he said repeatedly, been waiting for PEFO before submitting everything to Treasury, as required by Peter Costello's Charter of Budget Honesty.

The unlovely acronym PEFO is another Costello innovation: the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. It was introduced to prevent incoming governments claiming that they had been dudded by their predecessors; in 1983, Bob Hawke purported to discover a huge shortfall in the books relinquished by Malcolm Fraser, and in 1996 John Howard did the same, christening it Beazley's black hole after the former finance minister turned opposition leader.

This was not Howard's only piece of creative wordplay; to deal with the black hole, he also invented the non-core promise, a phrase which was to haunt him and his party for many years.

PEFO is there to provide an up-to-date set of figures as close to polling day as possible; oppositions can no longer say they have been kept in the dark by a tricky and devious government.

But Hockey has decided to ignore both PEFO and the Charter of Budget Honesty, arguably the most useful legacy of the last Coalition budget. His excuse is that Treasurer Chris Bowen will be making an economic statement of his own in the near future, and he does not trust that: "Quite clearly, by flagging an economic statement, the government is trying to bully the public service into a set of numbers which clearly do not properly represent the state of the budget."

In other words, the shadow treasurer regards Treasury not only as incompetent but corrupt. Not only do Martin Parkinson and his colleagues get the numbers wrong, but they make them up to suit their political masters. So Hockey is going to bypass the only people in a position to know what is going on and get a few of his mates to do his costings for him - you can really trust them.

The trouble is that this is exactly what happened in 2010. Then, the excuse was that the Coalition had submitted some of its policy costings to Treasury for checking, and the results had leaked - highly embarrassing as Treasury found that Hockey and the shadow finance minister Andrew Robb had got things hopelessly wrong.

So they announced with some indignation that Treasury could not be trusted and instead they would go to private enterprise, a Perth firm of accountants called WHK Horwarth - the fifth largest in Australia, bragged Robb - who could possibly doubt their findings? And of course the Libs didn't especially when Howarth issued a very brief report saying, yes, it all added up.

But Howarth had simply accepted what Hockey had given them: all the assumptions and all the estimates. All they had done was to check the arithmetic. It was clear case of garbage in, garbage out; but with the election only days away, Hockey and Robb got away with it - until it turned out to be a hung parliament, and Abbott set out to woo the independents to make him prime minister.

The independents jacked up: they wanted proper costings and insisted Abbott submit his proposals to Treasury after all. Cornered, Abbott did so; and the answer came back that there appeared to have been questionable assumptions and double counting which added up to a Hockey black hole of nearly $11 billion.

In the Financial Review, Laura Tingle wrote that it proved that the whole gang of them were either liars or clunkheads (or both), and not fit to govern. Hockey, rather sheepishly, admitted that there was, it appeared, a difference of opinion. It wasn't the only factor that propelled Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Andrew Wilkie into Julia Gillard's camp, but it was certainly a significant one.

And the icing on the cake, from Labor's point of view, came when the Institute of Chartered Accountants found that the Horwath effort was not, as it purported to be, either an audit or a review, but simply an exercise in basic arithmetic, and as a consequence reprimanded and fined the fifth biggest firm in Australia. This time Hockey's comment was somewhat more terse: "I'm not getting into it, mate."

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. OK, this time Hockey plans not to go just to one firm, but to spread the burden of costing between the Parliamentary Budget Office, some friendly state treasurers, and a variety of private companies. But the fact remains that none of these agencies, however objective or well-intentioned they are, will have the same access and resources as does the federal Treasury; after all, evaluating both the broad picture and all the details is what it's there for.

And of course there is unlikely to be a hung parliament this time, with independents needing to be brought on side. But there just might be; and in any case, the electorate, having been badly stung three years ago, is likely to be a bit more sceptical of Hockey's and Abbott's claims to have found truly honest, transparent and believable endorsement this time around.

Still, they will have their defenders. While most of the media reported Hockey's announcement with some incredulity (one obvious comment was that if he did not trust or believe Treasury, he might have some difficulty administering the portfolio), The Australian ran a small story on page two by its economics editor, David Uren, under the heading: "Hockey weeds out rubbery figures."

Now there's one institution the Coalition can always rely on.

Mungo Wentworth MacCallum is a political journalist and commentator. View his full profile here.

Hockey's costings farce gets a second round - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Donald Rothwell

Photo: Identifying with precision Australia's maritime borders for the purposes of implementing 'Operation Sovereign Borders' is challenging. (Audience submitted: Adrian Yates)

The Coalition faces a potential conflict between its 'Operation Sovereign Borders' policy and the principle of freedom of navigation which underpins the law of the sea, writes Donald R Rothwell.

Last week's announcement by the Coalition of its 'Operation Sovereign Borders' policy, which incorporates its long-standing position on turning back asylum seekers boats when safe to do so, raises significant issues with respect to how an Abbott government would seek to protect Australia's borders consistently with international law.

It comes at a time when Australia's maritime borders have in recent years been expanding consistently with Australia's entitlements under the international law of the sea. But additional entitlements to Australia's maritime domain, which in total now encompasses a total of 11 million square kilometres of ocean space, also brings significant international responsibilities including respecting the rights of other users.

Border protection aligned with national security was at its height in Australia during World War II when both Darwin and Sydney were attacked, however, Australia's physical borders have not been threatened by hostile foreign forces since that time. This has partly been due to Australia's relative geographic isolation, the fact that the only land borders Australia shares are in Antarctica with friendly countries such as France and New Zealand, and the fact that the post-war military conflicts Australia has been involved in have predominantly been well beyond Australia's immediate borders.

As a predominantly island nation, Australia enjoys distinctive levels of land border security that do not apply to those countries who share land borders. The United States, for example, shares a 3000km long land border with Mexico which in recent years has been characterised by beefed up US border security in order to stop illegal immigrants. Over 1,000km of the border has been fenced by the US and there remain ongoing debates in Washington over the need for additional security measures.

While there has never been equivalent debates in Australia over the need to 'fence the border', Campbell Newman's recent comments over Queensland's concerns with respect to Torres Strait border security directly raised issues over the security of the Australia's maritime border with Papua New Guinea.

Debates in Australia since the 2001 Tampa incident have predominantly focussed on the security of Australia's maritime borders, yet there is little understanding that Australia claims four maritime zones which each have their own separate borders, some of which create boundaries with countries as diverse as Timor Leste and France.

As an active participant in debates that eventuated in the conclusion in 1982 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which Australia ratified in 1994, Australia has been able to proclaim four separate maritime zones over its adjacent maritime domain, each of which provides for distinctive rights and responsibilities. Patrol and protection of these zones and ultimately the borders that comprise their outer limits is coordinated by Border Protection Command, a multi-agency Commonwealth taskforce with significant engagement from Australian Customs and the Australian Defence Force. Australian law and Australia's maritime security is enforced within these different maritime borders consistently with a national and international legal framework.

Under the Convention, Australia claims a 12-mile territorial sea. Australia exercises sovereignty and enforces Australian law within those waters equivalent to that which applies on land subject only to the right of foreign shipping to exercise the right of freedom of navigation by way of innocent passage.

Between 12 and 24 miles, Australia claims a contiguous zone within which limited powers can be exercised over certain types of activities including immigration and customs matters. Conterminous with the contiguous zone and commencing at the 12-mile limit of the territorial sea are two related maritime zones - the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf.

These zones are principally areas of environmental jurisdiction and resource sovereignty where rights can be exercised with respect to natural resources such as fisheries, oil and gas. Australia claims both of these zones out to 200 miles consistently with the Convention, though in some places the continental shelf extends beyond 200 miles. In 2012, Australian proclaimed new outer limits for the continental shelf in line with international recommendations, the consequence of which was that Australia's maritime borders were expanded to encompass new areas of ocean space.

Identifying with precision Australia's maritime borders for the purposes of implementing the Coalition's proposed 'Operation Sovereign Borders' is therefore challenging and account needs to be taken of the differential rights and responsibilities Australia has under international law within each of the four maritime zones over which Australia can exercise sovereignty and jurisdiction.

Australia can consistently with international law use the Navy to enforce Australian fisheries law within the Australian exclusive economic zone, or to protect oil rigs located on the continental shelf. It currently uses a mix of defence and civilian assets to undertake these tasks at sea with coordination from Border Protection Command.

However, unlike the US response to Mexican immigration, Australia cannot metaphorically build fences at sea principally because international law recognises that all ships of all nations enjoy the freedom of navigation which particularly applies in the exclusive economic zone and above the continental shelf.

Likewise, intercepting vessels carrying asylum seekers beyond the limits of the 24-mile contiguous zone is not permissible under the law of the sea. Any adjustments to Australian law and policy as they apply to Australia's maritime border protection therefore needs to take these factors into account, lest Australia run the risk of infringing international law and find itself before an international court defending an aggressive maritime border policy.

Donald R Rothwell is Professor of International Law at the ANU College of Law, Australian National University. View his full profile here.

Australia can't simply build fences at sea - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Michael Brissenden

Posted Thu Jul 25, 2013 6:47pm AEST

Photo: Retired army general Jim Molan (left) talks with Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison at the launch of the Coalition's asylum seekers policy in Brisbane on July 25, 2013. (AAP: Dan Peled)

With the PNG solution and now Operation Sovereign Borders, the domestic politics of the asylum seeker crisis is driving policy more than ever before, writes Michael Brissenden. And despite all that’s been said over the past week, the boats keep coming.

Is it a political statement or is it a policy? That’s a legitimate question to ask about the Coalition’s new Operation Sovereign Borders.

With an election looming and political tensions surrounding the issue even more fractious than usual, the question of who has the right policy is now lost in a political Dutch auction.

At this stage it’s easy to read the Coalition’s announcement as catch-up politics by an Opposition Leader left flat-footed by the sheer audacity and unexpected political chicanery of Kevin Rudd’s PNG solution.

To be fair, the PNG solution left more than a few people gasping open-mouthed at the return of that familiar brand of chaos politics. After all there’s a lot of ground to make up. The “folk” in the seats that matter need reassuring. “Gotta zip.”

With Kevin Rudd sucking up the political oxygen, just getting noticed has been difficult for an Opposition Leader used to having a fairly easy run.

So he needed a “National Emergency” to be tackled - by no less than a three-star general who would oversee the 12 agencies that now have direct involvement in border security and would coordinate asylum seeker detention and offshore processing. The military leadership would report directly to the Immigration Minister, rather than the current arrangement which has a two-star admiral at the head of what’s called the “Border Protection Command”, who is only responsible for the intercept and detection of boats and who answers to the Minister for Home Affairs.

If you were going to give a department overall responsibility for such a difficult policy area, based on their track record, you wouldn’t think the Department of Immigration would be your first pick.

This is not a Defence problem. These people are not attacking Australia.

The Opposition’s new policy was informed by the retired major General Jim Molan, who says it will allow the Coalition, should it win government, to “give more refined direction the agencies and the agencies’ plans”.

Asked on ABC Radio about what he thought of the Rudd PNG solution, Jim Molan declared he was suspicious of the timing, given the Rudd announcement was made just a month or so from an election - although he admitted he was sounding much too “partisan” even for his own liking.

But now both sides are deliberately trying to inject the partisan into this issue.

Former Chief of Defence Force Admiral Chris Barrie is one who thinks it’s all a bit of political overkill.

“The job that I think we’re trying to resolve here is one of surveillance, patrol and response.” That’s not going to change because we’ve changed the bureaucratic arrangements in Canberra, he says.

Many of those like Barrie who’ve been around this policy argument for a long time are questioning the need to change the emphasis of how we approach it. Call it a “National Emergency” if you like, they say, but it’s not a military problem.

Alan Behm, a former senior Defence official, who has worked closely with both Coalition and Labor governments, says, “This is not a Defence problem. These people are not attacking Australia.”

The domestic politics of the asylum seeker crisis is now driving policy more than ever before.

But it seems nothing will stop desperate people looking to find a better life for themselves and their families. Despite all that’s been said over the past week, the boats keep coming. Manus Island won’t be able to hold them all and turning the boats back isn’t going to work without an agreement with the Indonesians.

Surely the only way to deal with this is not to look for quick-fix solutions but to work on regional agreements that will actually stand the test of time.

No doubt we’ll have to wait at least until the election is out of the way.

Michael Brissenden is the ABC's national defence correspondent. View his full profile here.

Quick fix solutions make poor asylum seeker policy - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Stephen Koukoulas

Updated Fri Jul 26, 2013 1:44pm AEST

Photo: What wrecking ball? Carbon pricing has had almost no impact on the macroeconomy and inflation remains very low. (Alan Porritt, file photo: AAP)

Despite the dire warnings about the carbon tax, Australia's economy is still growing, creating jobs and registering a quite stunning lift in wealth, writes Stephen Koukoulas.

The carbon price has been a dud. A dud that has supposedly been fuelling an inflation blowout and is wrecking the economy.

News on Wednesday that the annual inflation rate has been a miserly 2.4 per cent in the 12 months since the carbon price was introduced puts paid, once and for all, to the claims that it was going to be an oppressive addition to cost of living pressures.

Furthermore, since the price on carbon came into effect, more than half a trillion dollars has been added to the combined value of housing and stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. That is $500,000,000,000.00, or the equivalent of $22,000 for every man, woman and child, all of which has accrued in just over a year.

And this half a trillion dollar does not include dividends, in the case of stocks, or actual and imputed rent on dwellings. Dividend payments on stocks over that time are around an additional $65 billion or so.

This has been a period of stunning wealth creation in Australia, and more notable given many of the high-profile predictions that the introduction of a price on carbon would have on the economy.

Indeed, most of the high-profile doomsayers were in the leadership group of the Liberal and National Parties.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was forecasting that the carbon price would "act as a wrecking ball across the economy" or be an "absolutely catastrophic", and would "wipe out jobs big time" with towns like Whyalla "wiped off the map" because of it. Not only that, but it would create "ghost towns" and "discourage investment" in mining.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey was similarly alarmist, suggesting, "It's going to rip the heart and soul out of small business and families."

The half a trillion dollar lift in the stock market and house prices reflects a 23 per cent lift in the ASX since 1 July 2012 which had added approximately $275 billion to the value of stocks, while a 5.1 per cent rise in house prices has added approximately $235 billion to the value of housing over the same timeframe.

This is hardly the stuff of an economic wrecking ball or outcomes that are ripping the heart out of businesses and families. On the contrary, it is a stunning boost.

Mr Abbott also noted that "every time you buy an apple, buy a banana, you pay under Julia Gillard's carbon tax". The recently released inflation data shows fruit prices rose 0.2 per cent in the year to the June quarter 2013, which means that the price of a kilo of apples or bananas has risen by around 1 cent over the past year.

In terms of the jobs results, total employment has risen by 160,400 since the carbon price commenced, which again stands in contrast to the claims from the fear mongers.

Mr Abbott noted that "the truth about this carbon tax is that it's bad for business, it's bad for jobs".

The bottom line of all of this is that the economy is still growing, creating jobs and registering a quite stunning lift in wealth in the period since carbon was priced.

Also important is the recent policy decision of the government to move to an emissions trading scheme a year earlier than scheduled. Treasurer Bowen has estimated that this will cut the inflation rate by 0.5 per cent in 2014-15.

Carbon pricing has had almost no impact on the macro-economy and inflation remains very low. If it were a "wrecking ball", none of these outcomes would have been recorded.

And it is also worth noting that because of carbon pricing, emissions are falling and renewable energy generation is growing, which is exactly what the policy was meant to do!

It is a near perfect policy for a substantial problem.

Which begs the question: Why change it?

Stephen Koukoulas is a Research Fellow at Per Capita, a progressive think tank. View his full profile here.

Our wealth has only grown since the carbon tax - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Barrie Cassidy

Photo: In 2010 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd missed the moment to call an election. Will he get it right this time? (ABC News)

When Kevin Rudd last had a chance to run for re-election, he missed the boat. Will he exercise better judgment this time around, asks Barrie Cassidy.

In the week before Christmas 2009, those closest to Kevin Rudd thought the Prime Minister had not only lost some of his popularity, but his mojo as well, and only an early election would get it back.

Rudd had just returned from the Copenhagen climate change summit empty handed and saddled with a domestic policy that would hit Australians hard but contribute little to a global effort.

It was against that background that Rudd walked into a critical strategy meeting in the Cabinet room at the Commonwealth offices in Phillip Street, Sydney. Those present included Rudd's key staff, the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the Treasurer Wayne Swan, and two hardheads from the NSW Right, Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar.

All of them urged Rudd to take a short Christmas break and then return to work and call an election in early February.

Bitar, then the ALP national secretary, drew on research to warn of an escalating climate change problem through 2010.

There were passing references to how Rudd's overseas travel had been a negative, and that the standoff involving asylum seekers aboard the Oceanic Viking had revived a troublesome issue. But other than that, nobody doubted the government would win an early election against an untried and untested Tony Abbott.

Those at the meeting that day left satisfied that Rudd had listened, and once he returned from a holiday in Tasmania, he would call an election for the second week in February.

Acting on this, Bitar took just one week's leave at Christmas. Some of his staff took just three days. In fact, Bitar was instructed to book television space for advertisements.

To the astonishment of his colleagues, when Rudd did return to work in January 2010, he used his first day back to launch a children’s book.

But to the astonishment of his colleagues, when Rudd did return to work in January, he used his first day back to launch a children's book, Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle. There on the nightly news was the Prime Minister with the co-author Rhys Muldoon at Melbourne's children's hospital "encouraging the little ones to read".

Then Rudd set off around the country on a series of Australia Day speeches, in part talking of a population of 36 million by 2050 and embracing the concept of "a big Australia".

Suddenly, immigration and asylum seekers converged as an issue.

And slowly, Bitar started cancelling the advertising spots until they all disappeared.

Rudd missed the boat. And six months later, he lost the leadership. He never did get the chance to go for re-election, not until now that is.

The story is a sober reminder of his occasional lack of judgment, his unwillingness to listen to advice, and his propensity to tell very few people of what is on his mind.

So second guessing when the election will be is fraught with danger; just check the News Ltd newspapers which between them confidently predict August 31, September 21 "or October-November".

But one thing is certain: If Rudd does not go and see the Governor General this weekend, there will be plenty of people willing to say afterwards that he should have done so.

The essential work, post-Gillard, is done. The leadership is refreshed, party reform underway, the intervention in NSW announced, the carbon tax set to be abolished, and the asylum seekers issue in better shape than it was.

Any time now wasted outside a formal campaign can only erode the initial burst of support built on the departure of Gillard and the emergence of an alternative to Tony Abbott.

The asylum seekers initiative was clever politics; cleverer still if it had neutralised the issue and then killed it off. But it didn't. Instead, the subject has dominated the media for a week and it shows no sign of going away. While that is the case, the government, the body that has ultimate responsibility, will lose skin.

The only way to change the subject is to call an election and spread the conversation around.

It is often argued that a campaign simply elevates the opposition leader to equal leadership status. But that doesn't apply this time around. Because of the white hot nature of politics, Abbott has enjoyed equal status for three years.

It would be better for Rudd to move on now and engage Abbott directly on the big issues.

The task for the ALP is to improve, however narrowly, its primary vote and make some further progress in key marginal seats along the eastern seaboard. That is best done in a campaign. And Rudd, as an accomplished campaigner, can back himself to achieve that.

If he goes this weekend, and wins on August 31, he will be a Labor saviour, finally vindicated.

If he goes this weekend and loses, he can argue with some justification that picking up after Gillard proved to be too hard and too late.

But if he doesn't, if he leaves it very much longer, then his own judgment will be a significant factor in any loss.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.

Political judgment on the line in election call - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Jane Norman Updated Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:17pm AEST

Video: People smuggler's product 'no longer available': Burke (ABC News)

Video: Tony Abbott talks to 7.30 about Coalition asylum seeker policy (7.30)

Since the 2001 election few areas of public policy have attracted more debate than the treatment of asylum seekers.

While Labor repudiated much of the Coalition's policy when it won office in 2007, it has now shifted ground to embrace key parts of the Howard Government's approach, including offshore processing.

On July 19, Prime Minister Rudd unveiled a new "hardline" asylum seeker policy, announcing all asylum seekers who arrive by boat, without a visa, would be sent to Papua New Guinea and would never be settled in Australia.

The Coalition responded to Labor's plan on July 25, releasing more details about its own policy to put the military and the Immigration Minister in charge of border protection.

What aspects do the major parties agree on?

Both parties agree strong measures are needed to deter asylum seekers from getting on boats and that a ‘regional solution’ is needed to tackle the people smuggling trade at its core, in south-east Asia.

Even so, it remains one of the most contentious, divisive and emotive policy areas.

The key similarities are:

Mandatory detention

Both Labor and the Coalition support mandatory detention for all 'irregular maritime arrivals', arguing it is a necessary part of maintaining the integrity of Australia's immigration system. This policy was introduced by the Keating Government in 1992 and remains largely unchanged. The government currently operates 10 detention centres on the Australian mainland and on Christmas Island as well as a number of Immigration Transit Accommodation facilities.

Community detention

Community-based detention was introduced by the Howard Government in 2005 and expanded by the Gillard Government in 2010. It is used largely for unaccompanied minors and vulnerable families and enables these groups to be moved out of immigration detention centres and into community-based accommodation while their claims are being processed. Under the current scheme, asylum seekers are given housing, an allowance to meet daily living costs and a range of activities. Children also have access to schooling. The asylum seekers must report regularly to the Immigration Department or their service provider and must reside at a specified address.

Children in detention

Expert panel: the key points

• Establish offshore processing facilities in Nauru and PNG as part of a "comprehensive regional network".
• Pursue talks on the Malaysian solution but seek more reassurances about the treatment of people who are sent there.
• Increase co-operation with Indonesia on joint surveillance, law enforcement, and search and rescue.
• Increase Australia's humanitarian intake from 13,000 to 20,000 places a year, rising to 27,000 within five years.
• Those who arrive by boat should not be eligible to sponsor family members to join them.
• Consider turning back boats in the future but only if operational, safety and legal conditions are met.
• Future policy should be driven by a "sense of humanity as well as fairness".

It is both Labor and the Coalition's policy that children should only be detained as a measure of last resort. In 2008, Labor reaffirmed this commitment through its seven Key Immigration Detention Values, which stated "Children, including juvenile foreign fishers and, where possible, their families, will not be detained in an immigration detention centre." Despite Labor’s efforts to move more families into community detention, according to Australia's Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs there are now more children than ever in immigration detention centres.

Offshore processing

Although it dismantled the Howard-era Pacific Solution in 2007, Labor revived offshore processing in 2011 following a record number of boat arrivals, and a string of deaths at sea. This was one of 22 recommendations of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers. Within months of receiving this report, Labor re-opened the detention centres on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

In July, the newly reinstalled Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a major shift in Labor's policy: that all asylum seekers who arrive by boat would now be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and settlement.

Offshore processing remains a key plank of the Coalition's policy. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has promised to expand the capacity of the existing offshore processing facilities within 100 days of winning power. Under the Coalition's policy, re-settlement in Australia is not guaranteed. Mr Abbott has left the door open for the Coalition to maintain elements of Labor's PNG deal.

Click the graph to enlarge

What are the key differences between the major parties?

PNG deal: Key points

• Asylum seekers who arrive by boat will never be settled in Australia
• They will be sent to Manus Island or elsewhere in PNG for assessment
• Genuine refugees will be resettled in PNG
• The agreement will be in place for at least the next 12 months
• There will be no cap on the number of refugees to be settled in PNG
• Manus Island detention centre to be expanded to house 3,000, up from its original capacity of 600

Papua New Guinea

Under the deal signed by Mr Rudd and his PNG counterpart Peter O'Neill, all asylum seekers who arrive by boat will be sent to Papua New Guinea for processing and settlement. Those found not be refugees will either be held in detention, sent home or to a third country. The Government says the deal means boat arrivals will have no chance of being settled in Australia. The Manus Island detention centre will be expanded and the Government has left open the possibility of asylum seekers being detained in other parts of PNG. According to the Government, there's no limit on the number of people who can be transferred to PNG under the deal.

In return, Australia will provide ongoing assistance to Papua New Guinea, to help develop hospitals, the university sector, and to help provide education and law and order.
The Australian Government says these changes have been introduced to stop people smugglers and stop further loss of life at sea. But the Coalition has serious doubts about whether the deal is legally binding and says many questions remain unanswered.

Under the Coalition’s policy, asylum seekers who arrive by boat may be processed offshore but they can be re-settled in Australia.

No Advantage rule

The No Advantage rule was another recommendation by the expert panel on asylum seekers aimed at deterring boat arrivals. It applies to all asylum seekers who arrived by boat between August 2012 and July 2013, when the Papua New Guinea deal was signed. Under the No Advantage rule, all asylum seekers who arrived by boat without a valid visa ran the risk of being transferred to an offshore processing centre. The rule also meant that boat arrivals would have their claims processed no faster than a person waiting in an overseas refugee camp. The Government has not outlined what the average waiting time is.

Bridging visas

This policy applied to asylum seekers who arrived by boat between 2011 and 2013, when the PNG deal was announced.

In an effort to relieve the pressure on the detention network, Labor announced in 2011 that some asylum seekers would be released into the community on Bridging Visas while their claims are being processed. People on these visas cannot work, do not have access to family reunions and are provided with a limited amount of financial support from the Government. In early 2013, the scheme was expanded to include families with young children. Refugee advocates support the use of bridging visas but have voiced serious concerns about the Government's refusal to allow the visa holders to work, saying it could create an 'underclass' of poor in the community.

The Coalition has promised to strengthen the bridging visa program by imposing mandatory behaviour protocols on asylum seekers, and by notifying police and neighbours when they move into their community. Asylum seekers on bridging visas would also be subject to mandatory mutual obligation provisions in order to receive benefits, and in particular income support, as a new condition of their visa.

Operation Sovereign Borders

The Coalition has promised to establish a military-led response to deal with people smugglers and to protect Australia's borders. In announcing the policy, Mr Abbott said the continued arrival of asylum seekers in waters off Australia's north-west coast amounted to a "national emergency".

Under the proposal, the three-star commander would be recommended by the Chief of the Defence Force and would report directly to the Immigration Minister. The commander - either a Vice Admiral, Lieutenant General, or Air Marshal - would be responsible for leading a joint taskforce involving all 12 government agencies with direct involvement in border security.

The Coalition has also promised to lease and deploy more boats under this Operation to relieve Customs and Navy patrol vessels of passenger transfer duties. Mr Abbott said the new system would be up and running within 100 days of a Coalition government coming to power.

Temporary protection visas

The Coalition has pledged to bring back temporary protection visas for those found to be refugees – a scheme Labor abolished in 2008. These visas allow refugees to be released into the community for three years, after which time their need for protection can be re-assessed depending on the security situation in their home country. TPV holders would not have access to family reunions but they would be able to work for the dole. This policy is designed to discourage boat arrivals by giving them no certainty about their future.

Turn back boats

The Coalition has also promised to revive the Howard-era policy and direct the Navy the turn boats back to Indonesia when it's safe to do so. As part of this policy, the Coalition has pledged to provide support to transit countries including Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where possible, to intercept boats leaving their shores.

Under the Howard Government, a total of 12 boats were intercepted by the Navy as part of this policy – named Operation Relex. Of those, four were successfully turned back to Indonesia, three sank at some point during the process (most passengers were rescued but two died) and the remaining five boats were transferred to an Australian-run Immigration Detention Centre for processing. This was a highly contentious policy.

Maritime Commander Rear Admiral Geoffrey Smith outlined some of the risks involved for Navy personnel in evidence before a Senate Select Committee in 2002.

"ADF personnel had not previously encountered these circumstances during non-warlike operations. They were extremely hazardous and volatile situations. What was a law enforcement activity had real potential to rapidly escalate into a violent situation or just as quickly deteriorate into a major safety or preservation of life situation or, worse, both.

"Numerous incidents of threatened or actual violent actions against Australian Defence Force personnel occurred, as well as various acts of threatened or actual self harm and the inciting of violence."

Despite these concerns, several senior Navy officers say turning back the boats can be done again, if it's done right. Retired Vice Admiral Chris Ritchie was Chief of Navy between 2002 and 2005 and was responsible for the planning and conduct of all navy operations. He told the ABC's AM program "the turn-back operation as it was practised in 2001 is a hazardous, risky task because of the nature of the people that you're dealing with. They're people who are intent on getting to Australia and you're trying to turn them back from Australia.

"But nevertheless it's a legitimate Navy operation. It's something that navies have done over centuries. And in that sense, if the government gives a direction to do it, then Navy people will do it and they'll do it well."

While the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott insists Indonesia will co-operate with a Coalition government to turn back asylum seeker boats, the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia Nadjib Riphat Kesoema said in May that no such collaboration would happen. The ambassador noted that Indonesia was a transit country and not the country of origin of the asylum seekers heading to Australia.

Infographic: Australia's humanitarian program.

Refugee Intake

Labor will increase Australia's refugee intake from 13,750 to 20,000 per year; at least 12,000 of those places to be quarantined for those refugees in overseas camps. This was also a recommendation of the Expert Panel of Asylum Seekers.

The Coalition says it will maintain the status quo, arguing any increase in the quota is both unaffordable and would send the wrong message to people smugglers. The Coalition will also quarantine most places of the 13,750 places for refugees in overseas camps.

The need to quarantine places has become an issue recently, because for the first time ever, the number of people granted a protection visa after arriving in Australia by boat was higher last financial year than the number of people resettled from overseas refugee camps.

What we know

ALP

• Mandatory detention for all boat arrivals
• All asylum seekers arriving by boat will be sent to PNG for processing and settlement
• No asylum seekers arriving by boat will ever be settled in Australia
• Offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island and possibly other sites within PNG
• Expand Manus Island detention centre to accommodate up to 3000 people
• Increase refugee intake to 20,000 per year
• Excise the mainland from Australia's migration zone

Coalition

• Mandatory detention for all boat arrivals
• Offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island
• Establish a military-led response to border protection called Operation Sovereign Borders
• Direct Navy to turn boats back when safe to do so
• Reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas
• Impose behaviour protocols on asylum seekers on bridging visas
• Prioritise claims of asylum seekers in refugee camps over claims of boat arrivals
• Maintain refugee intake at 13,750 per year

Greens

• Abolish offshore processing
• Restore Australia’s migration zone
• Increase refugee quota to 25, 000 per year
• Urgently resettle 1000 refugees from Indonesia and 4000 from Malaysia
• Increase UN capacity to assess claims in Indonesia
• Release asylum seekers into  community detention after 30 days
• Give asylum seekers have access to work rights, health care and welfare

What we don't know

ALP

Many questions remain unanswered about the new Papua New Guinea deal:

• The cost of the policy
• What aid has been promised to PNG under the new deal
• Whether the policy will stand up to a legal challenge
• How long it will take to expand capacity on Manus Island
• Where people will be held in PNG if the centre reaches capacity
• Where in PNG refugees will be settled
• Whether those found not to be genuine refugees could end up being Australia's responsibility

Coalition

• What elements of the PNG deal the Coalition would retain
• What behaviour protocols would be imposed on asylum seekers on bridging visas
• Whether the Coalition will maintain the bridging visa program alongside TPVs
• Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has promised to stem the flow of boats within weeks of winning. How would this be achieved and would it indeed happen?

Greens

• Whether asylum seekers will be deterred from getting on boats
• Whether it will lead to an influx of boat arrivals
• How much it will cost to give asylum seekers in the community access to healthcare and welfare
• Whether there is  the capacity to accommodate all asylum seekers arriving by boat in the community
• How the Australian Government will increase the UN's capacity to process asylum seekers in Indonesia

Useful links

Papua New Guinea deal - Department of Immigration and Citizenship; July 2013

Operation Sovereign Borders - Liberal Party; July 2013

Immigration Detention in Australia – Australian Parliamentary Library; updated 20 Mar 2013

Boat arrivals in Australia since 1976 – Australian Parliamentary Library; updated 29 Jan 2013

UNHCR Global Trends – June 2013

Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers report August 2012

Select Committee on A Certain Maritime Incident – Operation Relex - Oct 2002

Asylum seekers: where the parties stand - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Tim Dunlop Posted Thu Jul 25, 2013 2:11pm AEST

Photo: "Border control" and "security" more generally has become ground zero in governments' fight for relevance. (Darren Marsh)

"National security" is the last shot in the locker of governments who have actively ceded control of nearly everything else they do to corporations, writes Tim Dunlop.

We live in independent nations of peoples that operate within an interdependent globalised economy of trade and finance.

As barriers to trade have evaporated over the last 30 years, barriers to the movements of people have, by and large, remained.

The two matters are related.

Governments, like the Rudd government and the Howard government before it, are in thrall to the demands of capital on everything except the movement of people.

Big business, multinational corporations, international finance and the various think tanks that provide them with their intellectual rationalisations would, in the name of cheap labour, be more than happy to see open borders, but it is the one wish otherwise obedient governments will not grant them.

Yes, business is thrown the occasional sop in the form of something like 457 Visas, but basically governments of all persuasions cling to Howard's mantra of "we will decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come".

Why? Because, in having gone down the path of trade "liberalisation", having created and accepted an elite consensus around some form of neo-liberalism, governments everywhere have gutted themselves. Their citizens still, rightly, demand that they "do something" in terms of ameliorating the risks and problems involved in everything from healthcare to education to retirement, but the elite consensus around neo-liberalism has robbed them of the tools (and the inclination) to do so.

Given this retreat from governing, "border control" and "security" more generally has become ground zero in governments' fight for relevance and in most nations' understanding of themselves as nations at all. Like most forms of nationalism, there is an element of racism present, but as Jason Wilson argued in a recent piece:

The decision by the Australian Prime Minister to no longer accept refugees who arrive by boat is not a demonstration of power, but of impotence.

What it is not is a sign of a politicised racism among the Australian people. This specific policy is an artefact of political strategy, no more and no less. There is no mass political or social movement calling for the sequestration of refugees in another country. The idea that this is a response to democratic pressures, or a "populist" gesture, is a blasphemy that seeks to absolve the decision-makers by blaming the people. Accepting that would mean renouncing our faith in those around us, and placing it in the those who, in our own names, offer to hold democracy at bay.

Pieces like this rant from David Marr miss that essential point, a point that has been apparent for a long time.

In 2002, in the aftermath of the Tampa incident, academic Rob Schaap and I wrote a piece that said:

We have an unprovable and unpopular theory arguing that when John Howard announced in the lead up to the 2001 Federal election that we will decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come that people responded less out of any actual racist antipathy to 'dangerous foreigners' than out of a sense of relief that someone had at last said something that put the country first.

For nearly thirty years the public have been told that due to the 'forces of globalisation' we had to privatise government services, sell off public assets, deregulate banking and every other industry, reduce worker entitlements in order to remain 'competitive' and integrate ourselves into international institutions like the WTO - which by their nature undermine our own control over economic and social policy. In other words, having lived through a generation of neo-liberal reforms that were constantly presented to people as not only desirable despite the obvious pain they caused but also as 'inevitable' and for which they were told that there was 'no alternative', people were hanging out for someone to say, hey, what happens in our country matters and what's more, I'm going to act as if it did.

Nothing has changed.

We all know that the allure and promise of globalisation, of "free" trade across borders by minimally regulated and taxed corporations is an exercise in inequality. Yes, it means an avalanche of consumer goods, cheap overseas holidays and the chance to watch Game of Thrones at the same time as Americans, but it also means an erosion of the basic institution of the nation state and with it, the benefits of citizenship that most of us presume are the whole point of a nation state.

It means civil unrest in countries as various as Britain, Spain, Greece, Brazil and Turkey. It means the failure of "austerity" measures across the EU to address basic economic problems. It means the massive inequality in the US that has enriched a few at the expense of the many, something that is increasingly happening in Australia too. It means a degraded natural environment. And it means a degraded media environment where it is almost impossible to even have these discussions in other than the most cartoonish terms.

"National security" is the last shot in the locker of governments who have actively ceded control of nearly everything else they do to empowered corporations at the expense of citizens. It is the one major area of public policy where an otherwise disempowered government (of whatever political persuasion) gets to tell its people that "we we will decide" what's going on.

For those outside the developed world, in failed states trying to escape persecution, it means the sort of humane globalisation provided by instruments such as the United Nation's Convention on Refugees is increasingly worthless. For those inside them it means endless surveillance by states themselves, as governments invade our privacy, all in the name of "security".

Immanuel Wallerstein recently summed up what is happening:

[W]e are in the midst of a structural transition from a fading capitalist world-economy to a new kind of system. But that new kind of system could be better or worse. That is the real battle of the next 20-40 years... [and] how we behave here, there, and everywhere must be decided in [regard to] this fundamental and major worldwide political battle.

Policies like John Howard's Pacific "solution" and Kevin Rudd's PNG "solution" are immoral because they treat asylum seekers as means (pawns, scapegoats) rather than ends (individuals with their own rights), and we are right be concerned about the wretched of the earth.

But such policies are also a symptom of a fundamental problem with our entire political system and we need to focus on that too.

Tim Dunlop writes regularly for The Drum and other publications. You can follow him on Twitter. His book, The New Front Page: New Media and the Rise of the Audience, will be released August 26. View his full profile here.

The only border security we have left - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)