Australia's tough migrant policy wobbles as sympathy soars for Syrians

Australia's hardline policy on asylum-seekers, who have been pushed back by the boatload and incarcerated in offshore camps, is under pressure as public sympathy for Syrians escaping conflict swells in a nation built on migration.
 
While Europe opens its doors, at least temporarily, in the face of its worst refugee crisis since World War II, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has successfully closed Australia's borders to refugee boats, with no arrivals in more than a year.
 
From a handful that made it in 2008, boatloads of people from war-torn Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Middle East were coming almost daily by 2013, with hundreds of people drowning in the treacherous northern waters.
 
Refugees still come to Australia, via an orderly resettlement programme. But turning back the boats, strict secrecy about operations on the high seas, and banishing asylum-seekers who do make it to two remote Pacific islands are the hallmarks of the policy that ended the crisis.
 
Although the policy stopped the drownings, human rights organisations have slammed the prolonged detention of asylum-seekers, including children, in wretched camps as cruel and in breach of Australia's legal obligations.
 
The controversy, including reports of suicide and child molestation in the centres, has played out far from the public eye. But the image of a drowned Syrian toddler that moved Europeans has also shifted the debate in Australia.
         
Thousands gathered across the country on Sept.7 for "Light the Dark" rallies in memory of Aylan Kurdi, calling for more refugees to be welcomed into a country that over the decades has ushered in waves of migrants and created a vibrant multicultural society.
 
Abbott admitted in parliament...