We know what the problem is

The first people (nine Sri Lankans) to be forcibly removed since Labor came to power are about to be flown home. The Government hopes this will send a message, but given the small number it is a muted one. The Opposition says the Government's policy changes have sent the wrong signals and encouraged the flow. Malcolm Turnbull this week declared arrivals were ''going through the roof''. He is calling for an inquiry, but Evans says: ''What is an inquiry going to achieve? We know what the problem is.'' Evans points out the Government has boosted resources in the budget, is working with the Indonesians and Malaysians to stop people setting out, and is engaging with the Sri Lankan government. ''This is a longterm challenge that every industrialised country is dealing with,'' he says. ''We will consider and are considering any other policy initiatives. We're open to new measures that help address the problem. If we need to put more resources in we will but I don't think resources is the issue at the moment,'' he told The Age, but declined to go into detail of what more might be done. For the Government, the unnerving reality is that there do not really seem to be many options other than jawboning and returning those who don't meet the refugee criteria without going back on aspects of its reforms. Evans concedes the ''Pacific Solution'' had some deterrence value but (fortunately) that's out for good. David Manne, coordinator of the Refugee and Immigration Centre in Melbourne, argues the numbers remain very small and ''any sense of panic is unjustified''. Manne strongly contests Joyce's interpretation Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) of what he saw. ''What someone wears or their relative wealth is completely irrelevant,'' he says. ''It is important the Government doesn't go weak at the knees and compromise protection for refugees. That's the real risk.'' Manne would like to see the Government move in the opposite direction, reversing the Howard excision of Christmas Island (and other islands), which denied asylum seekers access to full Australian legal rights. That's not going to happen. But with Christmas Island near to bursting, the Government expects to have to put people in accommodation in Darwin. It can do this while still confining their legal rights by sending them via Christmas Island. If significant numbers have to be partprocessed on the mainland, the political heat will probably rise. Is the issue at risk of returning to the divisive, destructive debate of earlier years? Evans says: ''It's slightly different this time. The Government is not seeking to promote fear.'' But ''I don't underestimate the political potency of a large number of arrivals''. People want the boats stopped, Evans says, although ''I don't think they want to return to the situation of (asylum seekers) languishing in camps for a long time, children behind razor wire''. Even though we're unlikely to see a repeat of the worst of the old debate, the issue could turn nasty. The surges of boat people Australia gets from time to time are less an objective test, because they are still comparatively modest, but a political one. Let's hope lessons have been learnt, one of which is the need to keep things in proportion. Michelle Grattan is political editor.

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