Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question about how Australia is responding, together with our region, in particular Indonesia, to the challenge of people smuggling and people movement. Of course, we know that throughout the world today we have over 40 million displaced people with very many of those potentially in our region or displaced towards our region. So regional cooperation is very important.

Australia and Indonesia co-chair the Bali process, which is the regional institution through which, together with the countries of South-East Asia and the Pacific, we deal with these matters on a regional basis. Earlier this year, then Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and I co-chaired, for the first time in a number of years, the Bali process at ministerial level. Of course, so far as our relationship and our cooperation with Indonesia is concerned, Hassan Wirajuda and I brought into force the Lombok Treaty between Australia and Indonesia when we signed it in Perth in February 2008. The Lombok Treaty, of course, refers to cooperation between Australia and Indonesia on people smuggling, people trafficking and people movement.

As members would be aware, in recent times the Prime Minister and President Yudhoyono, as well as former Foreign Minister Wirajuda and I, have had discussions about what further cooperation there can be between Australia and Indonesia to confront this heightened challenge. It is a heightened challenge in which we now see the potential for large numbers of people to move from Sri Lanka as a result of the civil war there and also as a consequence of what is very clearly now the case of people smugglers using heightened techniques and different and better efforts to avoid disruption and secure their objectives. The government has made it very clear that we are in discussions with Indonesian officials underneath the umbrella of the Lombok Treaty and, effectively, the Bali process to see what else we can do to address this problem.

We are in discussions with Indonesia over how we can be of assistance in terms of greater information sharing, greater intelligence sharing, and how we can work more closely so far as disruption of people-smuggling efforts are concerned within Indonesian waters and generally. We are also in discussions with Indonesia about what more we can do to be of assistance to Indonesia when it comes to the detention of asylum seekers on Indonesian territory, the processing of asylum seekers on Indonesian territory through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and also the assistance of the International Organisation for Migration, and how Australia can be of greater assistance for settlement and resettlement purposes.

These endeavours are not new. As the Prime Minister referred to earlier, it is the case that Australia and Indonesia have cooperated for a number of years, and the previous government in the end worked closely with Indonesia on these matters. For example, when it comes to detention facilities within Indonesia, the previous government, as has the current government, provided assistance to Indonesia for detention centres and to improve the facilities available for detention in Indonesia. It is also the case that both the current government and the predecessor government have worked closely with Indonesian agencies so far as disruption is concerned. I have made it clear, as has the government, that we are open to further assistance to Indonesia so far as detention centres and the facilities and conditions available in detention centres are concerned. I might make the point that today my colleague the Minister for Defence, Senator Faulkner, is in Indonesia on his way back from Bratislava from the NATO and ISAF meeting. He will be in discussions with the Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security, Minister Suyanto, and we are hopeful that, at the APEC meeting in Singapore in the middle of November, officials will be able to report to the Prime Minister and President Yudhoyono as to progress made on these fronts.

There are some particular matters of interest which I would like draw to the House’s attention. There is, of course, interest in the Oceanic Viking. My most recent advice is that the Oceanic Viking is currently at an anchorage point some 10 nautical miles off the coast of Indonesia and is in discussion with Indonesian officials, including officials on an Indonesian vessel near the Oceanic Viking, as to the disembarkation of the 78 asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking onto Indonesian soil. This will be the subject of ongoing and continuing discussions between Australian and Indonesian officials, but at this stage I am confident that those arrangements will be effected in the course of the day and we certainly look forward very much to a smooth, orderly and appropriate transfer of those asylum seekers from the Oceanic Viking to Indonesian territory.

I have also seen suggestions that some detainees or asylum seekers in the Tanjung Pinang detention centre may have been badly treated. I welcome very much the fact that Indonesian police have indicated they are investigating those matters. Australia would, of course, very much want for any asylum seeker held in detention in Indonesia to be treated appropriately. If any serious allegations are made then they need to be investigated by the appropriate authorities. The Indonesian police have indicated that is occurring. I do make the point that detention centres in Indonesia, including the Tanjung Pinang detention centre, on which the previous government and the current government have expended funds to assist in the improvement of facilities, is subject to visits by the International Organisation for Migration and subject to access by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

I conclude by making this point: the theme of the questions from the Leader of the Opposition through question time has been that the only issue relevant, in the Leader of the Opposition’s mind, is the consequences of the government change in policy in this area. I simply make the point to the House this Monday, as I did last Monday—and the response has been deafening in its silence—if the thesis of the opposition is that it is the changes made by the government to immigration and refugee matters that is the cause of the current difficulties, which our entire region faces, then simply tell us which ones you would change. Would you see women and children behind razor wire in Baxter again? Would you see the reintroduction of temporary protection visas? Would you see processing occurring in the Pacific through Nauru or Manus Island? All the Leader of the Opposition has to do is to simply indicate to the House and to the Australian parliament which of these changes he would propose to reintroduce.

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