Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Border security is very relevant to the report because the issue raised in this report is directly concerned with border security issues. As I said, the claim made by the member for Murray and the shadow parliamentary secretary, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, was a false claim that $67.4 million had been:

… stripped out of the critical area of border security and immigration processing.

The facts are that the budget papers clearly show that the closure of the offshore processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island results in a $68.7 million saving over five years. The budget papers also show that the $68.7 million saving is offset by a $1.3 million cost for the abolition of temporary protection visas granted to refugees by the previous government. What we have had from the member for Murray and Senator Fierravanti-Wells is a false claim designed to mislead the public that $67.4 million has been cut from border security measures. The budget papers reveal directly that there has been a $116 million increase in total net resourcing for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for 2008-09.

It should be made clear: the Rudd Government’s track record refutes the opposition’s claims that we are somehow weak on border security. We have maintained the excision around some of Australia’s territories, and we have maintained the Christmas Island detention and processing centre. Our immigration policy is tough, but also fair and humane. It gives me tremendous pleasure to say of the Rudd government that it has been able to put an end to what is fairly described as the ‘barbarity’ of the previous government’s immigration policies.

It is worth mentioning also that the member for Murray misled the public just a few weeks back in relation to another immigration matter on the issue of a Western Australian midwife whose daughter suffers from Down syndrome, who was seeking to stay in Australia. On 10 November this year, the member for Murray called for the exercise of ministerial discretion in this case and she called for it again in a media release on 26 November which has mysteriously fallen off her website. The former call led on 13 November in Senate question time to Senator Boyce asking the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship whether he would exercise his ministerial discretion in this case. Then the member for Murray on 19 November in a speech said:

Their case has been waiting for ministerial discretion, having reached the end of the whole business of ministerial tribunal reviews for a very long time now.

Then in the media release of 26 November, the one that has now gone missing, the member for Murray said:

… Minister Evans steadfastly refused to use his special powers, leaving the almost identical case of the Robinson family in Perth languishing. After nearly seven months sitting on Minister Evans desk, and with only weeks left on their visa, the Robinson family and their Down syndrome son David were finally granted a permanent visa after public outrage and embarrassing questions asked of the Minister in Parliament.

The facts of this matter are that the minister made the initial decision to approve the family’s visas in August and, subject to normal security and health checks and following completion of those checks, the files were returned to the minister for the second round approval in November and approved on 12 November 2008.

You might note that the family’s ministerial requests had been knocked back twice under the former government—so much for the level of consistency or any accuracy at all in the way in which the member for Murray has been dealing with these immigration issues. The protestations about this case by the coalition, indeed the recent statements by the member for Murray generally on border security, are alarming. However, I return to this report. Regardless of the member for Murray’s indecision and inability to understand basic statistics, it was good to see her endorse the Joint Standing Committee on Migration’s report. Therefore she is making a warm endorsement of the Rudd government’s immigration policy. I am pleased to see that the member for Murray agrees with me that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has done a fine job in keeping our borders secure, and in massively improving our treatment of refugees in his first year in office. I commend the report to the House.

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