Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I say to those opposite: you took to mandatory detention like a duck to water and you took it to its zenith. I know we are trying to be calm and rational, and we must be in this debate, because it is a debate that we need to have. But we also do it with compassion, and that is essential—that this debate is conducted with compassion.

First of all, I want to talk about the push factors, which are seminal to what we are talking about. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement in March that the increase in the number of asylum seekers in industrialised countries was due to international factors:

Insecurity, persecution and conflict around the world are leading to greater numbers of people seeking asylum in industrialized nations including Australia …

With regard to the global displacement of refugee populations, the UNHCR 2008 Global Trends report shows that there were 42 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2008. That is a lot of people displaced, both externally and internally. This included 15.2 million refugees. One-third of all refugees were in the Asia-Pacific region. That is our region. That is our backyard. The opposition just put the question: why aren’t people from Africa on the boats? It is because a third of all refugees are from our region—and tyranny of distance is a factor. Refugees from the African nations are in other nations closer to them; we can read about that. Afghanistan is still the leading country of origin for refugees: 2.8 million Afghans received assistance from the UNHCR in 2008. That represents one in four refugees worldwide. Currently, another country of origin for refugees in our region is Sri Lanka, as we are seeing.

There has been talk of temporary protection visas. Temporary protection visas were odious, and nobody should ever think about returning to that system. It makes me despair and it makes me dismayed when I hear the opposition talking about them. But I want to talk in a rational way about temporary protection visas. In 1999, there were 3,721 asylum seekers who arrived on boats. We call them ‘irregular maritime arrivals’. In 2000, there were 2,939 and, in 2001, there were 5,516. When were temporary protection visas introduced? It was in 1999. So, if we are looking at a policy failure issue, that would have to be it. I do not want to get into that debate. I do not want to get into ‘Am I tougher? Is mine bigger than yours? Blah, blah, blah.’ That is not the debate I want to get into.

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