The sad politics of the Houston Report on asylum seekers

Greeting the findings of the Houston expert panel on asylum seekers, The Australian front page exclaimed At last, people put before politics. This is, of course, ridiculous. The Malaysian solution would not have been an issue had it not been plucked out of the air by Julia Gillard. The insistence on restoring Nauru to its previous role as a remote prison would not have survived, had Tony Abbott not refused to budge. Finding a solution to the problem of maritime asylum seekers would not have been so difficult if the advantages of blowing the issue up into a major political story had not been attractive to the conservatives and so frightening to the Labor Party. Whatever policies are adopted and whatever compromises are reached among Australian politicians, this dilemma will not disappear in the foreseeable future. In fact it may well become worse as the Muslim world continues to erupt politically.