Tony Abbott walks fine line on immigration stance

News Com AU 22/01/2010

Click this link for VIDEO: Abbott 'Some migrants resist equality'

TONY Abbott has suggested some recent migrants oppose equality and Australians are anxious that citizenship is given away too lightly, but insisted "boat people" are only "guilty of hope".

Mr Abbott has used an Australia Day Council address in Melbourne to raise controversial immigration issues and suggest he favours more migration to Australia to boost our population.

He stood by Howard-era tough lines against so-called boat people, but urged opponents of immigration to try to understand the desperation that prompts their journeys.

"Why wouldn't people who might otherwise wait in camps for years try to short-circuit the process, especially if they're plausibly told that getting to Australia means the beginning of a new life?" Mr Abbott said in his speech.

"At worst, boat people are guilty of choosing hope over fear."

Soon after his election as Liberal leader late last year, Mr Abbott vowed to turn back boat arrivals.

He attacked the Rudd Government's border protection measures, saying that while people smugglers were the main villains, governments which allowed desperate people to think that getting on a boat might be a short cut to permanent residency would not be blameless.

In the speech Mr Abbott evoked John Howard's 2001 re-election mantra, in which the then prime minister said: "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.''

"John Howard's declaration about Australians controlling who comes to this country resonated because it struck most people as self-evidently and robustly true,'' the Opposition Leader said.

While Mr Abbott conceded that Australia's problem with boat arrivals was smaller than in the US or Europe, he raised concerns about terrorism if new arrivals were not controlled.

"Still, in a world where crime and terrorism are international in scope and where every developed country's social security system is under pressure, a policy of benign indifference to new arrivals would defy common sense,'' he said.

He also suggested that unauthorised boat arrivals had raised fears that Australia's borders are again uncontrolled and said people were concerned about whether new arrivals were sufficiently committed to Australia.

"Some recent immigrants seem resistant to Australian notions of equality,'' Mr Abbott said, without elaborating on which groups he felt were to blame.

"There is, I suspect, an anxiety that the great prize of Australian citizenship is insufficiently appreciated and given away too lightly.''

Asylum seekers arriving by boat could not be compared to authorised visitors who overstayed their visas, he added.

"There is an important distinction between boat arrivals on the one hand and, on the other, people who arrive without putting themselves in peril, on a valid visa, and only subsequently become unauthorised overstayers.''

The Opposition Leader also hinted that recent attacks on Indians could be discriminatory.

"We should be especially concerned at the possibility that ethnic Indians have become the victims of racially motived crime.''

Immigration to Australia had been a success "almost unparalleled in history'' and appeared to support a growing population based on migration.

After Treasury predictions the population would rise from 22 million to 36 million by 2050, Mr Abbott said a bigger population built on 180,000 migrants a year could be achieved with infrastructure planning to make it sustainable.

"My instinct is to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia,'' Mr Abbott said.