Stop Everything, Kevin Rudd Has Weighed in on the Asylum Seeker Ban

Kevin Rudd—former Prime Minister, un-nominated bidder for the position of United Nations Secretary General, and man who refuses to leave the public eye despite no longer being an elected MP—has penned a savage opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald that criticises Malcolm Turnbull's new plan to place a blanket ban on boat arrivals from ever obtaining Australian visas.

Rudd takes down Turnbull for repudiating "virtually everything he once stood for" because "he has concluded that in order to hang onto his job… he must now appease the mad right of his party in every domain."

"This is both bad policy and bad politics: on policy, the far right in Australia represent the worst of the xenophobic, nationalist, and protectionist wave that we now see raging across Europe and America," the man once known as "Kevin 07" writes.

He calls the proposed new laws "pure politics designed to appease the xenophobes."

"It is without any policy merit in dealing with the real policy challenges all countries face today in what is now a global refugees crisis. And it does nothing to help those refugees left to rot for more than three years, who should be resettled now."

Rudd's views no doubt echo those of many Australians—but they also come off as slightly hypocritical from the man who established offshore processing on Manus Island in the first place. His long rant proves that, as always, it's much easier to stand up to the government when you're no longer in it.

The past few years of Australian politics have been so tumultuous that you'd be forgiven for forgetting that in 2013, after waging revenge on Julia Gillard and once again resuming his post as Prime Minster of Australia, Rudd unveiled what he called a "hard line" approach to asylum seekers. This saw all maritime arrivals resettled on Manus Island. His rhetoric back then was very similar to that of Turnbull and Dutton now—he even said that refugees who arrived by boat would have "no chance" of ever resettling in Australia.

In his op-ed, Rudd attempts to differentiate the decisions of his government with those of Turnbull's, emphasising that his government wanted refugees to be eventually resettled in Papua New Guinea, rather than reside indefinitely on Manus Island. He also points out that his government increased Australia's UNHCR refugee intake in the wake of global conflicts in Iran, Iraq, and Sri Lanka.

And to be fair, Rudd wasn't always a fan of offshore processing. In 2007, Labor was elected partly based on a platform of abolishing the Howard government's so-called Pacific Solution, which provided the basis for the offshore processing policies Australia uses today. When Julia Gillard took over as leader, the Pacific Solution was effectively re-established, and both the Nauru and Manus Island detention centres were reopened.

Anyway, as history continues to repeat itself and politicians endlessly cycle through taking whatever stance they think will appease swing seat voters, innocent people are still lingering indefinitely in detention camps that are known to perpetuate human rights abuses.

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