Mr Abbott now argues that turning back migrants in boats has allowed the government to take control of its policy from people-smugglers. He said the admissions from Syria reflect “Australia’s proud history as a country with a generous heart”. That claim may have a different ring for 1,580 boat travellers, including 87 children, still being held in Australian-run detention centres on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, and in the Pacific island nation of Nauru. The Refugee Council of Australia, an NGO, estimates that about 30 Syrian asylum-seekers are still detained in such camps; some have been there for more than two years.

The council has denounced Mr Abbott’s hard line on migrants who arrive by boat. But Tim O’Connor from the council calls the intake from Syria a “huge shift” in the government’s stand. He ascribes it partly to mounting sympathy for desperate migrants among Australians following the Rohingya crisis in May. Mr Abbott has been out of step with public opinion on several issues, and could not risk remaining so on this one: an opinion poll this week showed the government trailing the Labor opposition by eight points; an election is only a year away.

If Australia’s shift was also partly motivated by concerns that it would seem an outlier in the West on the migrant issue, it has highlighted another one in the region: last year Japan accepted a mere 11 asylum-seekers, despite a record number of over 5,000 applicants. Amnesty International, a watchdog, has singled Japan out, along with Russia, Singapore and South Korea, as examples of wealthy countries that have offered “zero resettlement places”. Pressure from other quarters is bound to follow.