Amazing re-writes of history

I have been utterly gobsmacked to read a couple of the "regulars" in comments at Catallaxy in the last few weeks promoting the idea that the Rudd government's ending of the "Pacific Solution" following its election in 2007 was not an election policy.

This highly creative (by which I mean, imagined) meme then gets the occasional comment of support "well, someone should be calling out Rudd as a liar then, when he now says his changes in 2008 were simply putting an elective mandate into effect."

I have seen exactly one person challenge it with anything resembling a reference to evidence - someone saying that they remembered a Kerry O'Brien interview where Rudd said he would close down Nauru.

That is correct.   Here is the section of the interview in question, held only a couple of days before the election:

KERRY O'BRIEN: On refugee policy, Mr Rudd, there are 82 Sri Lankans and seven Burmese being held on Nauru as we speak, part of Mr Howard's Pacific Solution. If you win on Saturday, how quickly will you move to shut down the Nauru and Manus Island options and where would the detainees go?

KEVIN RUDD: We haven't taken advice on that. What we have said that for us, we have an appropriate offshore detention facility, though it's part of Australia on Christmas Island. Christmas Island, I understand, has the capacity of some 800 beds. The so-called Pacific Solution has cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. Why not use Christmas Island instead? It strikes me as pretty well self-evident.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But how quickly would you move to close down the Manus Island and Nauru option?

KEVIN RUDD: Not privy to the specific contractual and administrative arrangements which were associated with each of those deals...

KERRY O'BRIEN: But I think it's policy. I think Mr Burke your shadow Minister says you will.

KEVIN RUDD: It's policy. We will but your question was how soon.

KERRY O'BRIEN: I think his statement is that you would do it immediately.

KEVIN RUDD: That's true.

KERRY O'BRIEN: And I am asking in terms of your immediate priorities in government, your immediate priorities, will you move as an immediate priority to deal with that?

KEVIN RUDD: At a very early stage. The Pacific Solution is just wrong. It's a waste of taxpayers' money. It's not the right way to in fact handle asylum seekers or others and therefore we think the best way ahead is to use Christmas Island instead. It's a facility which is part of the Commonwealth of Australia. The other thing is this. You think I'm somehow quibbling about this. If you're a responsible alternative government you need to actually look at the advice entirely in its detail on whatever contractual arrangements now exist with those...

 For a broader context, there is this:

On 24 November 2007, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) won the federal election, defeating the Coalition Government which had been in power for nearly twelve years. Kevin Rudd was sworn in as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister on 3 December 2007. The ALP National Platform, which was formally adopted in April 2007, represented the party’s ‘long-term aspirations for Australia’.[2] In relation to immigration, the ALP ambitiously resolved to implement significant changes for asylum seekers and refugees if elected. Most notably, to end the so-called ‘Pacific Solution’; to give permanent, not temporary, protection to all refugees; to limit the detention of asylum seekers for the purposes of conducting initial health, identity and security checks; to subject the length and conditions of detention to review; to vest management of detention centres with the public sector; to retain the excision of Christmas Island, Cocos Islands and Ashmore Reef; and to create a new Refugee Determination Tribunal.[3] In the area of refugee policy the key themes of the platform were ‘humanity, fairness, integrity and public confidence’.[4] 

Reflecting on the Government’s first year in power, the then Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Evans, noted ‘Labor was elected on a platform of change’.[5] One of the first things the newly elected Labor Government did upon taking office was to stop processing asylum claims in the small Pacific Island State of Nauru—which the then Minister described as a ‘shameful and wasteful chapter in Australia’s immigration history’.[6] However, in retaining the former Coalition Government’s excision policy (which removes the right of asylum seekers to apply for a visa) and use of its purpose built immigration reception and processing centre on Christmas Island, the Government attracted criticism from refugee advocacy groups and academics alike—Adjunct Professor Michael White being  of the view that Labor’s new approach ‘did not fundamentally alter Australia’s previous immigration policy and many features of the Pacific Solution remained’.[7]

I find it inconceivable that adults with an alleged interest in politics such that they spend hours every week commenting at a political blog could have convinced themselves that this history from all of, oh, 6 years ago does not exist.

And, as I say, that so few readers at the blog would actually try to correct them.

But then, it is a blog full of AGW conspiracists and deniers. 

At least I give credit to a handful there who see the parallels between the last US presidential election and what is happening now.   Because it is shaping up that way:   a large slab of the Right here is viewing many issues as part of a cultural war of their own desiring.   They have positioned themselves as the darlings of the older end of the electorate, and are making little connection with anyone under about 35.

There's still time for Rudd to blow his credibility out of the water, and a lot will depend on revised Treasury figures as to the budget position; but at the moment, I think a Labor win is looking quite on the cards.

Update:  I forgot to mention last night that even Tim Blair, who one imagines Catallaxy readers visit regularly, was talking only 4 days ago about how Tony Burke was writing before the 2007 election about how Labor would close down the Pacific island off shore processing centres.  

And besides which, when they were closed, there was absolutely no media outrage that it was unexpected.

It was completely expected.