Those damn moralists! What a mess they’re making. Can’t we throw a few hundred kids and their families into unending detention on remote tropical islands without bourgeoisie do-gooders and their churchy mates making trouble back home? Can’t they just all shut up?



Michael Pezzullo, chief of the immigration department, was demanding Australians put aside their qualms, allow his department to work in secret so that every child can be returned to those mouldy tents on Nauru lest Australia be overrun by refugees.



His gung-ho rhetoric shocked many. But Pezzullo was not saying anything new. The immigration department has been giving that advice to every government since Malcolm Fraser dealt with the first boatload of refugees to make its way to this country under its own steam.



Imprison every one of them, the department insisted. Put them somewhere lawyers and journalists can’t reach them. Punish them for daring to come here without permission. Send a message to the world that Australia’s borders are uniquely impregnable.



#LetThemStay: share your stories if you are joining protests around Australia Read more

That was Pezzullo’s message on Monday to Senate estimates. When his department later issued a transcript of his statement, these words were picked out in bold: “The path is shut, with no exceptions.”



Fraser resisted. Paul Keating caved. So mandatory detention began. But it didn’t work. As waves of refugees kept coming, Immigration’s advice became tougher and tougher. The department’s dream was always to sell politicians a fate so brutal for refugees the boats would stop.



John Howard pushed boats back. That worked. He also imprisoned refugees on Nauru. But in the end he had to face the fact that the world was not going to take them off our hands. The last of them – by this time cracking under the strain - were brought to Australia.



That reality is once again staring us in the face. We can’t empty the islands. “All that can be done is being done,” Pezzullo told estimates. “I speak of quiet diplomacy in relation to developing options for possible third-country resettlement and the quiet persuasion of those not owed protection to go home.”



No one wants these people. New Zealand offered to take some as it did the last time. We refused because it might be a backdoor way into Australia. Otherwise, the world reckons these 1,500 or so people are our problem.



But something is happening here. Australians are starting to pay attention. Ever since that first boat arrived in Darwin in 1976 most of us have shared the fears and backed the tough responses that have brought us to this point: punish or we will be overwhelmed. Most of us still do.



But the thought of little children being returned to Nauru with no prospect of release is beginning to trouble us. What the doctors have been saying for two or three years now can’t be dismissed. Ditto the verdicts of the Human Rights Commission, the UN and the churches.



The story is gathering momentum.



That the ABC confused the cases of two children abused in the camps is most regrettable. But it’s no answer for Pezzullo to claim the child was older than five and assaulted – “skin-to-skin contact” – rather than raped by another inmate.



The paediatrician Karen Zwi who risked jail by speaking to the ABC is not backing away from her allegation that this was rape and the child of about 15 suffered serious mental health problems as a result. Yet Pezzullo – and the government he serves – are making it clear he will eventually be sent back to the camp where he was attacked.



No exceptions. That’s the policy that’s what’s starting to grate with Australians. We have shown for years we’re not much troubled by the cruelty of the systems we’ve put in place to deter refugees. But absolute cruelty, cruelty without mercy is something we’re starting to find hard to hack.



Nauru, Manus ruling no blank cheque as court signals limits to detention | Ben Doherty Read more

So the premiers are offering to look after the kids otherwise bound for Nauru. This may look to some like a sentimental gesture. But it is remarkable. This is the first time since that boat slid into Darwin that the leaders of mainstream parties have stood up for boatpeople. The first time.



Malcolm Turnbull must have been bitterly disappointed by the high court’s decision last week. What a deft way that might have been to close the camps while blaming the lawyers, the constitution and the judges.



But they baulked and the politicians are going to have to do the work. They know that it’s going to have to be done. We can’t have wide open borders. But despite the historic hopes of the immigration department, we can’t absolutely close them either.



It’s going to take beginning a dialogue with the country in other than apocalyptic terms, opening the detention system to scrutiny, and respecting rather than mocking the moral qualms of Australians. It’s unbelievably messy but things may be moving at last.

