Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I have just heard the opposition interject that the war is over. Perhaps the member who interjected may like to consider this very sobering and tragic statistic. There are currently 250,000 Tamils from the north of Sri Lanka in camps for internally displaced people. The Tamil community in Sri Lanka feels marginalised and the hard work of postwar political reconciliation lies ahead. We understand that Sri Lanka faces an immense challenge in dealing with the legacy of this very bitter conflict. These are factors motivating people to seek to leave Sri Lanka, sometimes illegally.

On the question of the pull factors that the Leader of the Opposition referred to, these are the accurate statistics on the push factors—the things that are getting people to start moving. On an analysis of the pull factors, perhaps I can refer him to an article in the Sunday Age, by the member for Kooyong, entitled ‘Razor wire returns’. I have to say that I do not often agree with the member for Kooyong. In the time I have been in this place, since 1998, we have had some spectacular disagreements on the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit and on other matters. But I refer the Leader of the Opposition to this article and I would ask him to reflect on it before he makes further statements about the question of asylum seeking. The member for Kooyong said:

Did refusing to give permanent protection to people found to be genuine refugees deter? Again, no. In the five years before the introduction of temporary protection visas, there were 3,103 boat arrivals. In the five years after, boat arrivals increased to more than 11,000. Did the coalition government’s eventually giving the overwhelming majority of temporary protection visa-holders permanent protection lead to a surge of refugees? No.

I refer the Leader of the Opposition to those words. They might help him answer the question he has asked.

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