Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The change that is proposed by the government is essential. It is essential to preserve equal treatment of refugees so that we can give priority to the most needy. The position being advocated by the opposition is a flawed policy currently in place which has proven to have the following main consequences: (1) it kills people by luring them or encouraging them onto the high seas, where they will drown; (2) it condemns the most needy refugees to rot and die in African detention camps while we give priority to others comparatively safe and well in Indonesia.

Twelve months ago the government was stampeded into supporting changes that have this effect. The 43 Papuans who came from Jayapura and risked their lives and the lives of their children on the high sea were coming, they said, to the mainland of Australia. Why did they do that? Why did they come to the mainland? Because the ill-advised law rushed into place in Australia told them that such a course would give them a better outcome than crossing safely into Papua New Guinea or going to a Torres Strait island. They brought children with them. Why? Because those same ill-advised laws ensured that, if they took that risk and they put that risk to their children, they would be released into the Australian community—and that is exactly what has happened. They have been released into the Australian community.

We often focus on that one boat of 43 refugees from April this year. We talk about that one boat that left from Jayapura, but in fact, as I illustrated earlier on in my speech last night, there were two boats that left Jayapura. Boat 2 sank. People drowned. There were bodies in the water. Although no-one can say for sure that that boat was following directly in the wake of boat 1—it may have been going somewhere else—it certainly was carrying asylum seekers. If that was the case and it was following directly in the wake of boat 1, I say that those deaths can be put down directly to the flawed policies now being urged on us by the opposition.

These policies, these laws, must be changed, because we cannot continue to give that kind of incentive to desperate people to take to the sea in boats, particularly when it is a matter of fact that, from Indonesia or from other locations, people can apply to seek refugee status in Australia. Even if you are in West Papua and you are a freedom fighter—or whatever you might want to say about your position over there—you can cross the border into Papua New Guinea and you can make an application for refugee status in Australia from there. That is still a lot safer than taking to the sea in a canoe. Last night I gave the quotes from the people on that boat that successfully arrived in Australia about how they ran out of food, how the motors on the boat conked out and how they were crying and in fear for their lives when the high seas hit them.

We cannot continue to endorse that kind of policy. We cannot continue to give support to policies that will (1) kill people by luring them onto the high seas where they will drown and (2) condemn the most needy refugees to rot and die in African detention camps while we give priority to others comparatively safe and well in Indonesia. I gave two examples of that last night. I spoke about the 43 West Papuans and the circumstances of how they came to be on the sea and the risks that they faced. I also spoke about that one poor soul from the Sudan who was bombed and strafed as a child and fled over the border and across the desert to Ethiopia and was then bombed and strafed there and fled across to Kenya. He was in a refugee camp there where raping and killing was going on all the time. He was bombed and attacked there and then made it to Australia by what he thought was basically a fluke, a whim or an act of God. That guy is now in Australia and he is what I would say is a very needy man, someone whose case needs to be considered by this government and not pushed back by people who jump to the front of the queue, who come here in a boat, who risk their own lives and put the lives of their children at risk just to jump that queue and give themselves the priority they otherwise would not have and which they do not deserve in the worldwide scheme of things.

I want to say one thing that I feel very strongly about in this circumstance. If we do not make these changes, there will be other boats and there will be other deaths. We can heap them up and keep a total of these deaths but, if we do not make these changes, more people will die on the high seas and it will be down to the flawed and wrong policies that are currently in place and that are luring people onto the sea in this way and causing them to die. We need to make changes to ensure people are equally assessed across the world. The most needy must get the best chance. People who are safe but still want to apply will get the opportunity to apply, but they will not get the kind of rolled gold, red carpet treatment that is being urged on us by the opposition to the detriment of the most needy. It is shameful, it is deceitful, it is wrong and it is unprincipled for them to do that.

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