The first asylum seekers to be relocated to PNG's Manus Island arrived in late 2012, when Labor's Chris Bowen was the Gillard government's immigration minister. 
At the time boat arrivals were so frequent the Labor government feared it would be unable, even with the addition of the Manus Island detention centre, to process all refugee claims offshore.
Still, Bowen was hopeful: "At this stage, family groups are best accommodated on Manus Island, as opposed to Nauru.
"People smugglers have been peddling the lie that if you come to Australia by boat as a member of a family, you wouldn't be processed in another country, you'd be processed in Australia. Obviously, that is not the case. Today's transfer and the transfers that will follow will underline that point." Labor's strategy was not supported by other measures required to demolish the people smuggling industry in Australia's region. Asylum seeker arrivals continued throughout the rest of 2012 and into 2013.
Only when the Coalition government was elected late in 2013 were those measures fully put in place. The result was a complete end to asylum seeker arrivals, and to the terrible deaths at sea of so many asylum seekers and their families.
The PNG Supreme Court has now ruled the detention centre on Manus Island is illegal. Loani Henao, the lawyer who ran the case, says that the ruling means the Australian government "must take steps to effectively shut down the Manus Island detention centre." As for the asylum seekers currently at the detention centre, Henao says Australia "will have to deal with them".
Indeed we will. But it is important that no matter what actions are taken beyond this point, the Coalition government must stand firm on not allowing asylum seekers who arrive by boat to be allowed on to the Australian mainland.
To do otherwise would be to encourage the restart of the people smuggling trade, which although dormant is eternally prepared to again send asylum seekers on deadly voyages to Australian waters.
Thankfully, it appears both Labor and the government recognise the realities of the situation.
"This decision, and our government's response, will be monitored by people smuggling networks," opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles said.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton's immediate response hit all of the right notes.
"No one who attempts to travel to Australia illegally by boat will settle in Australia," he said.
"The government will not allow a return to the chaos of the years of the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments when regional processing was initiated to deal with the overwhelming illegal arrivals of more than 50,000 people." The key to achieving that, as the minister notes, is maintaining a hard line on illegal arrivals.Nothing occurring in a PNG court should change that.