Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Customs Amendment (Enhanced Border Controls and Other Measures) Bill 2008 is quite comprehensive legislation. The member for Dobell quite adequately described it section by section. All of it has considerable merit, as it both simplifies the law where that is appropriate and to the convenience of industry and, at the same time, increases and empowers the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service in areas where that is necessary. My interest in this legislation is, of course, heightened by the fact that, as a minister responsible for fisheries some years ago, I had to authorise and maintain, despite some pressure from various corners, the hot pursuit of an illegal fishing boat—a pirate, if you like—called the South Tomi down in our southern oceans.

The South Tomi was fishing illegally down there, and was observed by our then patrol vessel, which, unfortunately, at that stage was unarmed. Whilst an arrest was performed, when the vessels took off to impound the fishing vessel in the port of Fremantle, it attempted to escape with its load of patagonian toothfish when it passed out of Australian territorial waters down there. I had the responsibility at that time to order our patrol vessel to continue. I became an expert in a short period of time on the requirements of hot pursuit, to which I think there are some minor changes in this legislation. In fact, we followed that vessel to the tip of South Africa. In the meantime, I had to convince the Department of Defence that they had to travel there and join with a highly cooperative South African defence force, who at every stage were very anxious to assist; they too had territorial waters down towards Antarctica and some islands where their fish stocks were being similarly plundered. Anyway, it all happened, and the Defence Force took that trip. With the assistance of the South African navy, we were able to arrest the vessel and bring it back to Fremantle as proposed. It is a very interesting coincidence that, at a later time, I attended in Geraldton to watch that very vessel sunk as a dive wreck, Geraldton being part of my electorate. I guess it was quite a fitting end to that very exciting venture.

Another incident was publicised later when Senator Macdonald was the minister for fisheries and, of course, resulted shortly after in the government deciding that their patrol vessels should carry ordnance, which, if it is used—of course, it should be; there is nothing more disgusting than the illegal exploitation of fish stocks around the world—is something of an incentive to the captain of a ship not to run away. On land, we can count heads of animals, and there is some chance of managing conservation; in the ocean, as discovered some years ago with the North Sea cod, it is different. They just went back one year with their supertrawlers and left none. That, of course, is a very important issue.

This legislation gives Customs the right to board a vessel without having to make what has been the customary request: ‘Can I come on board?’ Of course the fellow does not want you to come on board if he has illegal intentions! The fact that this legislation addresses that matter in a sensible way is to be applauded. It is interesting, of course, that—and I trust that it still applies—in dealing with illegal fishing folk in our northern waters particularly, we have had a rather foolish arrangement where these valuable assets, be they Customs or Navy vessels, having arrested a cockleshell of some Indonesian fishing community, were virtually obliged to tow it in to Darwin or Broome for the appropriate accommodation of the crew and destruction of the vessel. Of course, if you were a smart little fishing group, you sent down a decoy who got arrested and, while they were towing that into the port, you then rushed in and caught as many fish as you could. Not only did we therefore waste the valuable asset—the millions of dollars of vessel—in doing that mundane task; we also opened up the area to exploitation.

It was after my move to another portfolio as minister that my suggestion that we should have a vessel particularly designed to take over after an arrest and take the crew on board was taken up. My view was that they should destroy the vessel on the spot and not worry about towing it into town. They could create evidence with the appropriate video equipment properly tuned into GPS, with the time and everything. In fact, I think the vessel that now does this job—if it is still in existence—was described as a floating hotel. I did not think that was absolutely necessary. I had a much simpler vessel in mind. Whilst I never got into the international implications, my view was that when you had enough of these people on board you took them to the nearest Indonesian island and told them to get off. In fact, it is hugely expensive for the Australian taxpayer to accommodate these people who have illegally entered and illegally fished in our territory, putting at grave risk our fish stocks, which throughout Australia are very fragile. We have not got the currents, such as the Gulf Stream and that, which produce very large quantities of fish, so they have to be protected very carefully.

Where Customs finds itself in those roles, its efforts will be simplified and the crew will have better opportunities to do their jobs. They are good measures. I have a little concern, nevertheless, that in all of this, through the changed policies of the government, we have what I term illegal immigrants. Some say they are refugees. Each year, we as a nation take 30,000 refugees that legally apply, having moved to a nation where they are safe and having been assessed by the United Nations and notification having been made to interested countries. We have an arrangement where 30,000 people from the rest of the world are brought to Australia as refugees. I have never approved of the fact that somebody getting on a vessel and illegally travelling into Australian waters should get priority over those people. That is what we, as a government, made some very stern measures about. As Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government, I had significant involvement in the early stages of constructing the facilities for applicant refugees—I guess that is the best description—on Christmas Island.

I am disturbed to read how quickly such people now, under new government policy, are being admitted to the Australian mainland on release orders which virtually say, ‘If we can find you in due course, if we don’t think you’re a refugee, you’ll have to go back.’ The message that we tried to give to people—which virtually stopped this traffic—was that there was a very high chance they would go back. They would be accommodated outside the Australian mainland, where they would have access to extensive legal services and could live and build a family of two or three kids just by exploiting the legal processes. I am not sure how much technical equipment is on our Customs vessels, but it seems to me that we will shortly have vessels bringing in these refugees, who have chosen not to go through proper process and have paid very large sums of money and possibly put themselves at risk through the types of vessels in which they travel.

These vessels will be travelling with some sort of identification that works through a satellite so they are easy to find, because in the present environment there is no point whatsoever trying to hide from the Customs immigration authorities or the Navy; you want to be found as quickly as you can so they will take you over to Christmas Island and then send you back to Australia. That is the current situation; you have a transponder on board saying: ‘Please find me! Help! I don’t want to be on this boat too long, because I now know that, under new government policy, my chances of jumping the queue are excellent.’ I do not know how long that will proceed or how many Customs vessels or other such vessels we will need up there to deal with what would become a virtual flood. Why would you bother? Why, when the village or whoever can rake up the necessary bribes to get you to Indonesia and then onto a boat, would you go to another country and stay there in the conditions that apply in a lot of these refugee camps? You only have to hope you do not have to wait too long to get caught. That is not necessarily a measure here. It is all about arresting that boat, but the arrest has become a farce; it is no longer for the purpose of protecting our borders or maintaining with the United Nations our arrangements for how we process refugees.

We process them fairly. I believe only Canada exceeds our quota of legal refugees per capita. We have taken them from many parts of the world. On occasions it has been very controversial, as these people have found it difficult to assimilate within Australia, but we do it. I am not a critic of that. I am a critic of making it easier for a person who has not gone through proper process to queue-jump in these circumstances.

There are other measures in this bill which seem eminently sensible; as I said, many of them have been dealt with by the member for Dobell. I do not think it necessary for me to waste the time of the House repeating them in detail other than to say they are welcome. Of course border protection—from the importation of illegal goods and the containment of instruments such as guns, knives or whatever they might need to resist, for instance, pirates around Somalia and that the crew might legally hold whilst on board that boat but which have to be locked up when those vessels arrive in Australia—is treated appropriately. I see that there is some relaxation in the reporting requirements. It appears that that is not a real problem, because that reporting is not seen as needing an early response; Customs has other methods of knowing what might be happening.

We support the bill. I am glad for the opportunity to raise the matters that I have and to return to a bit of history in which I take a particular interest. I can tell you that getting through all the bureaucratic hurdles to chase that first vessel required a few threats and iron-bar type tactics for a while, but we got it, and that made it much easier for the next one. Above all, very sensibly, the government then decided to arm the vessels that go down into the Southern Ocean. To go down there with some of our Navy vessels is unwise; they were quite properly designed to protect Australia from threats from the north and are not particularly well designed to go down into the Southern Ocean. The vessel that goes down there is much better designed for the purpose and has a suitable weapon and a Customs officer who must travel as the person trained to use that weapon. It very smartly stops a vessel running away, preventing the huge expense of following them and having to keep them in view. I think it once was ‘in sight’ but the view now, that ‘only as far as radar contact’ is needed to make an arrest, is an excellent proposal. I note that these provisions even allow for boarding in a port. I think that, too, is a step in the right direction.

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