Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

In thrashing around looking for an excuse for their policy failure, looking for an excuse for their being totally paralysed when it comes to knowing what to do, this government is saying that the Howard government’s policies did not work. We have heard it from the last two speakers. Well, yes they did, and let us look at the facts.

Those facts are that in late 1999, when we noticed that there was a fourfold increase in boat arrivals and their passengers to more than 4,000, we acted. We did not sit on our hands and say it was all about the push factors. We acted, and we introduced a strategy that was humane and just. So, in the next year, we saw the numbers come down. By 2001-02 we had halved the number of boatloads that thought it was worth their while coming down. By 2002-03, as we have heard, zero boats. Not a one. No deaths at sea, no burnings, no explosions. In the next year, just three; the year after, again, zero boats—not a boat. That was the Howard government strategy in action.

Then, of course, we had Labor come into office. What happens? They say, let us abolish temporary protection visas, let us abolish the 45-day rule, let us abolish mandatory detention for all seeking asylum, let us introduce a complementary protection visa as an alternative if they do not make the grade as a visa claimant through the refugee convention, and let us also along the way signal to the people smugglers that we are going to get you all through in 90 days with full rights when you come to Australia. Tragically, that triggered—as we know—the 41 boats that have come into Australia with over 2,000 people and the 82 interceptions on Australia’s behalf by the Indonesians. It would seem they are now supposed to do the dirty work for this government.

The second excuse Labor have made is: ‘Well, we can’t do anything about it because it is all about the push factors. There is nothing we can do.’ The Howard government did not say that, despite the Iraqi war, the Gulf war, the Bosnian-Balkan war. We knew there was trouble in the globe, and there always will be. But we said we would respond to those troubles by the front door offer of refugee and humanitarian places for people we selected to come to this country. Once selected, we offered them full new settler support. We took them into communities where they could learn English, get a job, have accommodation.

What this government has done now is to say, ‘We don’t know what to do—there is nothing we can do—it’s all about the push factors.’ I want to ask the government when they last saw a Congolese or a Sudanese on one of these boats, or someone from Eritrea. They are not on these boats because they do not have the cash or the contacts. They are some of the most desperate and destitute refugees in the world. The women face desperate situations of starvation with their children, and mutilation. They are not on these boats. The reason is that the people smugglers are not interested in their plight because they do not have the cash. It is all about the cash.

Unfortunately, yesterday, when confronted with Labor’s problem and its policy failure, Foreign Affairs Minister Smith plumbed new depths of personal insult and displayed his abject failure to have a clue about what to do. He said, ‘Would you see kids behind barbed wire again?’ to us, the coalition opposition. We heard this echoed just a minute ago by the previous speaker, desperately trying to politicise this issue and play the person. Let me remind the Labor government: it was a Labor government which introduced mandatory detention, including for women and children. It was the coalition which changed the rules about detention of women and children. We built the alternative community accommodation, not this government. Indeed, we did not hear policy out of the then opposition—in particular, the shadow minister for immigration—saying that was a problem. We changed Labor’s mandatory detention of women and children.

It is a tragic situation today where we have people smugglers deciding who comes to this country, who is most in need. I think this debate brings out the best in Australians, not the worst as implied by the union officials today. The best in Australians say: ‘Let the government decide who is most in need. Do not allow criminals to decide who comes to this country. Do not allow our border security to be trashed so we have the most heinous and vile of international criminals coming through our open door and peddling their vile trade.’ (Time expired)

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