EDITORIAL : THE AUSTRALIAN, AUSTRALIA

Testing the nation's patience

THE government is impotent in its border protection policy.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and his cabinet colleagues need to understand why Australians are angry about the chaos in our detention centres. We are a generous and welcoming immigrant nation but the patience of the populace has been stretched to breaking point by government incompetence and a clique of so-called human rights lawyers determined to usurp common sense in favour of interminable appeals. When desperate people are determined to reach our shores, border protection is never likely to be an easy policy area. But Australia's dilemma, in the main, had been fixed. The strong measures put in place by the Howard government were imperfect but they were effective. That government understood the need to send an unambiguous message to the people-smugglers and their customers that Australia was not a soft touch. Offshore processing, mandatory detention, temporary protection visas and regional disruption measures worked. The boats stopped.

All the while a generous humanitarian intake of refugees was maintained for those who applied through orderly processes. When Labor took power the number of asylum-seekers in detention could be counted on just two hands and none of them were children. Now almost 7000 people are in the system, including more than 1000 children. The facts are beyond doubt -- the boats started coming again when Labor softened the rules, abandoning third-country processing, abolishing temporary protection visas and promising to expedite asylum-seeker claims. The people-smugglers once more could market near-certain Australian residency to their never-ending stream of potential customers.

Rather than send a strong message to the region, Labor's message has been one of "compassion" directed at the domestic constituency of the progressive Left and the Greens. The influx of boats triggered by this approach has led to more than 50 deaths in two horrendous incidents, thousands of asylum-seekers crowded into an ever-expanding and over-stretched network of detention centres, and now violent riots at Christmas Island and Villawood. Talk about killing with kindness. Constantly, lawyers and other activists grandstand on the issue, invoking every legal nuance and UN reference they can to restrict the ability of the federal government to process applications fairly, so that those found not to be refugees can be returned to their country of origin. We are left with non-refugees detained at Villawood, their rights protected and their hopes raised by lawyers to the extent that they can chat on mobile phones while burning facilities to the ground.

Mr Bowen appears impotent in response. He should make clear those involved in these riots will be deported. Instead, the talk is of inquiries and investigations -- the triumph of process over common sense. This is what infuriates the public. The government's culpability goes beyond the reactivation of the people- smuggling trade, to the way it has extended the detainees some hope of negotiated outcomes. In 2009, when 56 rescued asylum-seekers refused to disembark from the Australian Customs vessel the Oceanic Viking in Indonesia, government officials began talks with them, and after some weeks they were rewarded with a deal for speedy processing and passage to Australia. Earlier that year five asylum-seekers were killed when their vessel allegedly was deliberately set alight near Ashmore Reef, leaving the survivors to be processed in Australia, with just one of them facing charges. Against this background, detainees might not see a downside to protesting or vandalism. The shamelessness of the Left is breathtaking. They should follow refugee campaigner Robert Manne and admit the softened policies have led to a resurgence of people-smuggling. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young prefers to press for faster processing that will only make us an even more attractive destination. The Greens also blame the private operators of the centres. Centre management properly will be examined but the private operators did nothing to increase the number of boat arrivals. It's a pity Labor and the Greens can't say the same.

The pure, clear light of a re-energised Anzac

IT is right that a new generation nurtures the flame.

For many different reasons, many of those who fought in the two great world wars of the 20th century put away their memories when they returned to their nations and to peace. While 100,000 people gathered in Sydney's Domain on the first anniversary of Anzac, over the following decades many veterans spoke little of their experiences, even to their families. That reticence was perhaps even more the case for those returning from World War II.

Distance was needed -- and indeed new generations -- for our military history to become a defining element of Australian culture. Today's Anzac memorial events will be embraced by people of all ages across the country. Yet it is those under 30, the great-grandchildren of the soldiers who fought in the 1914-18 conflict, and the grandchildren of those who fought in the 1939-45 war, who come to this national day without the horror and dread of those who served, or the Vietnam War baggage carried by so many baby boomers.

It is these young Australians who have played such an important role in what editor-at-large Paul Kelly, writing in The Weekend Australian, calls the "re-energising" of Anzac in the past 20 years. They are the new carriers of the pure, clear light of Anzac, mindful both of it place in our history and its role in creating a framework for our future. The Gallipoli centenary, just four years away, will see this generation of young adults truly assume a central role in the formal commemorations in Turkey and here at home.

There is an obvious reason for this. The last Gallipoli Anzac, Alec Campbell, died in 2002 at the age of 103. Jack Ross, the last of the 416, 809 Australians who signed up for World War I, died in 2009 at the age of 110. Over the next decade, many of those who survived World War II will die. The Anzac legacy must continue to be held and nurtured by the young. But this makes sense beyond the practical because it is to the young that every nation turns for its defence, it is to the young that we overwhelmingly entrust our protection, and it is with the young that we make the profound contract that underpins military engagement -- the obligation to kill in our defence.

The seriousness and reality of that contract with our service personnel has been brought home this year with the investiture of our second Victoria Cross winner from the Afghanistan war. Ben Roberts-Smith is an impressive member of the Special Air Service. So too is his colleague, Mark Donaldson, who was awarded the VC in 2009. The acknowledgment of their actions in this war adds to the Anzac story, a tangible link in the line that runs from World War I and II, through Korea and Vietnam to the current engagement in Afghanistan. Corporal Roberts-Smith speaks across those wars and across the generations when he explains his bravery by saying: "You are not going to sit there and watch your mates die." As a simple summary of mateship, it does not get much better than that and Australians can be proud both of these latest VC winners and of those inside and outside the armed services who share that code.

Indeed, Afghanistan and the sacrifices made by army members and their families are particularly worth mentioning at a time when the culture of the Australian Defence Force and particularly the Defence Force Academy is under intense scrutiny through a series of government-initiated reviews. Young men and women who enlist must be assured they will be treated correctly, but at the same time, our services deserve respect for the vital role they play in our society. There can be no excuse for criminal behaviour, bullying or discrimination in the services, but it is important in judging the defence culture that we maintain perspective and do not allow ideological views of the military to undermine public support. Similar balance should dictate our approach to the Anzac centenary. The commemorations should focus on the essential facts of Gallipoli and resist the temptation to sentimentality on one hand or to turning the milestone over to the naysayers of the legend on the other. Anzac will always be contested ground and we should not resile from such debate, but its place in our culture is beyond dispute.

Anzac Day underscores a national confidence that seems apparent too in today's Newspoll showing support for a republic at its lowest level since 1994. This newspaper has consistently argued for a non-hereditary and Australian head of state, but we acknowledge the views of those Australians who see little need for change. Like Anzac, a republic will be decided ultimately by the Australian people. It is they who will determine its importance and meaning to their lives.