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Cull. Stafford Ray
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“I know, but you can’t keep locking them up. Nauru is full, Manus is full; everywhere is full. There are just no more facilities and more arrive every day.”
“I know,” agreed Mulaney. “My constituents are banging on one door demanding we send them home and the damned Greens are banging on another door demanding let them loose. Idiots!”
Woolley was anxious to get away from distressing matters that should not be his concern. “Well, they still have some clout in the Senate. But anyway, immigration policy is hardly my area of responsibility.”
Mulaney smiled mirthlessly as he closed the document and held it out to Woolley, just far enough out of reach to force him to lift himself out of the chair to take it.
“What’s this?” he grunted, as he sat back again.
“This was supposed to go to you but you couldn’t be found at 3AM so they woke me. It’s the latest on people smuggling. Makes interesting reading. Look on page two at the satellite images and the explanatory notes on page three.” He waited while Woolley read, noting with satisfaction as his expression changed from genial fat man to horrified everyman.
“Well, Brett,” smiled the PM, “what do you think now?” He laughed. “Still not your concern?”
“This can’t be right,” he almost shouted. “There’s thousands of the bastards on the way, bloody thousands! I can’t believe this.” His eyes appealed for correction. None came, so he rechecked the figures and whispered, “Could be hundreds of thousands!”
The PM took the document back and dropped it onto the desk, his decision made.
“Look, Brett,” he said. “This is no longer a refugee situation; this is an invasion.”
He stared at Woolley, demanding agreement. “And we have to treat it accordingly.”
“That’s a big call, PM,” he said doubtfully. “I would have thought an invasion was by armed people threatening to …”
“It’s an invasion all right,” said Mulaney. “They come uninvited and won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. And, they’re armed with alien ideas that are un-Australian.”
“I’m not sure Australians see it that way …”
“Let me worry about the Australian people,” interrupted Mulaney. “You get your head around how you’re going to repel this invasion.”
Woolley stared at Mulaney as unease crept from his stomach to his eyes. He did not answer. He did not have an answer.
“Well, what are you going to do?” pressed the PM.
“Well, short of blowing them out of the water, there’s not a lot I can do.”
“Is that what you’re proposing?”
“No!” retorted Woolley. “There has to be a better way. All the poor bastards are trying to do is …”
“I know what they’re trying to do, but what I want to know is, what is the man in charge of the defence portfolio going to do? It’s your problem and I expect you to fix it.”
“Frankly, Prime Minister,” he pleaded. “There is no fix. Either we take them in, and that clearly means taking hundreds of thousands or we repel them by force and I don’t have the authority to do that, even if I wanted to.”
“You’ve identified the two choices and I agree with you. There are only two. Of those, only one is sustainable. Now, for Christ sake man, what are you going to do?”
“That’s a bit hard,” he pleaded. “This is at least a party room decision. I don’t think I should be lumbered with…”
“Of course, if you can’t handle the portfolio…”
“That’s unfair, Prime Minister,” he objected. “We’re talking murder here. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. Innocent women and children.”
“And men,” interrupted Mulaney again. “Don’t forget the men. And don’t forget the trouble we’re having with so-called refugees already in the community. Arrive Monday, social security Tuesday, stir up a heap of shit on Wednesday and by the weekend they’re talking jihad. Then we have to watch them like bloody hawks. We can’t afford the ones we’ve got now, and we certainly can’t take in this new lot without turning the place into downtown Kabul! As I said, you have to stop pussyfooting around and fix it.”
“OK,” reasoned Woolley. “We do the shot across their bows routine. They know from past experience we won’t sink them. They can’t go back, so they keep coming. Then what?”
“If they’ve been warned but refuse to stop, they’re an invasion force. We treat them as invaders.”
“Sink them?”
“Well, what do you think? If they won’t leave our territorial waters…it’s their choice.”
Woolley was staring at his hands in his lap. He was trapped. He looked up.
“So, I take that as a direction. I order the Navy and Air Force to use deadly force to prevent alien boats from reaching land.” He laughed bitterly. “Do we pick up survivors?”
“No and no,” Mulaney replied. “It’s not a direction and no, we don’t pick up survivors.” He smiled. “Look, Brett,” he said more gently. “We won’t need to sink many. The rest will turn back.”
“I don’t know,” said Woolley. “It’s a different time and a different reason. Th ese people are not political or economic refugees.” He glanced at the satellite images in his hand. “These are probably delta people. Chinese, Vietnamese… The poor bastards are starving and desperate. They can’t go back. There’s nothing to go back to.” He was shaking his head in denial. “So they’ll run the gauntlet.”
“Brett,” Mulaney said in a friendlier tone. “You’re a nice bloke. If you can’t give the order, I’ll find someone who will. Now, what’s it to be?”
Brett Woolley was drawn to the hard blue eyes that bored into his. He knew there were others who would give the order, a few who would actually enjoy the carnage. They were younger and less caring; successful psychotics like the man staring him down. He decided he should keep the portfolio, at least for now. Perhaps he could minimise the damage. “I’ll give the order, but I need authorisation to come from the party room or from you. OK?”
“Now then, Brett,” the PM purred. “You know these things don’t work like that. You eat the pie, you wear the gravy. Take it or leave it.”
“So you hang me out to dry if there’s a backlash, and there will be.”
“Oh no,” he replied. “I won’t hang you out to dry. If you upset the people, if you’re seen as the one who stuffed up, I’ll sack you! That way, the problem goes when you go.”
“And what do I get for pulling the trigger? What about me?”
“Yes, what about you?” The PM thought for a moment. He did owe his live sacrifice something. “How would you like to head up a foreign delegation? Somewhere nice overseas. You pick.”
“So you’re sure I’ll go?”
“Oh yes, you’ll go. You’ll have to go. If you stay here you’ll probably be shot by an angry pacifist!” he laughed.
“Well, I won’t be safe anywhere in Asia or the Middle East. How about New Zealand?”
“Any second choices?” he asked. “The Kiwis are too close to home. You’ll be a pariah wherever this story makes the news. USA, Canada, South Africa…Maybe Russia is far enough away. You‘ll love