Because events – and people on both sides of politics – have dragged him, and the country, into a new place on refugees. It's called the rest of the world. It is no longer just about boats and people smugglers, but about being compassionate, and being a global citizen.

On Sunday, the Prime Minister still looked like he was resisting at every step: announcing an increase in refugee spots, but only within an unchanged humanitarian program. That quickly became not enough when Labor called on Monday for an additional 10,000 spaces. This from a party that has been terrified to move first on asylum seekers for almost 15 years.

Even on Wednesday the Prime Minister was still at pains to emphasise that the people being helped would be in minorities and women and children.

Political implications

The political implications of the turnaround are as stunning as the turnaround itself.

Domestically, it reinforces the fact that Labor's change of position on boats in July has not only neutralised an issue that dogged the opposition, but given both sides space to look more generous.

Just as important, however, has been how the conservative side of politics has trod in the past week.


The leadership has come from figures like Mike Baird and Jeff Kennett outside federal politics and an eclectic range of figures inside it, notably Western Sydney backbencher Craig Laundy and the Nationals' Barnaby Joyce.

Of course they were matched by an appalling collection of Coalition figures on the other side of the debate.

It is a sign of the breakdown of the Prime Minister's authority that no one is really sure whether their interventions were authorised. It doesn't really help Abbott either way. If they weren't authorised, they tell us he can't control his MPs. If they were, it shows the Prime Minister on the wrong side of a debate that has well and truly jumped the fence and escaped him in the past week.

Of course, the Prime Minister was still able to link the humanitarian crisis to an extension of military operations into Syria.

Significance of the shift

But for a lot of MPs, the significance of the shift in the debate in the past week is that it might also mark the high mark of the push to make everything a national security issue.

The militarisation of border protection, MPs on both sides of politics say, might have just been that step too far.

If that is the case, the Prime Minister might be even more devoid of things to talk about now than he was a week ago.