There are two laws for how to get out of a hole: the first is to acknowledge you are in one. The second is to stop digging.
I suspect Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton won't care too much for this advice. He is clearly enjoying his job, playing the populist card with great aplomb. His advocacy of special consideration for white South African farmers facing non-compensated eviction from their land, follows on similar concessions that continue to be made to Zimbabwean farmers.
To my knowledge, this humanitarian largesse hasn't been extended to many of the farm labourers, many of whom are not Zimbabwean citizens but sons and daughters of Malawian and Mozambican immigrants and were left without work and terribly vulnerable. It is never good to conflate humanitarianism with other motives.
Dutton's comments drew predictable criticism of his being racist. Perhaps more unusually he also drew criticism from members of his party who accused him of undermining the humanitarian system. This issue plainly works at a number of levels and demands more considered reflection.
In promoting Dutton to the new 'super-portfolio', the Prime Minister closed the loop of ensuring the securitisation of the so-called humanitarian program, and has left the door open for the mixture of values and motivations behind it to increasingly reflect the single minded pursuit of national interest narrowly understood.
The minister is doing nothing more than performing to a carefully and long-time prepared script. Let us be clear: the issue is not about the plight of South African white famers or any other singled out group of would-be refugees. It is about what kind of society the people of Australia see themselves as becoming and which constituencies government is representing, and the values that form the foundations of policy.
The government's vision, at least on Dutton's lips, is one-dimensional and fundamentally divisive for the existing Australian community, and it is at these levels that his statements must be critiqued.
"The murder of white South African farmers is real, horrific and underreported. But to privilege one worthy group over others speaks of another agenda entirely."
Two years ago, as then Minister for Immigration, he stated that it was a mistake of the Fraser government to have accepted people of Lebanese Muslim background who arrived during the years 1975 to 1983. He had counted up the crime statistics of terrorist related incidents involving this 'community'.
Missing was a balanced assessment of the costs and benefits of this immigration,