Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House censures the Prime Minister for losing control of Australia’s borders with badly thought through policy changes that have dramatically increased the number of unauthorised boat arrivals and handed control of our immigration policy to the people smugglers, and in particular for:

(1)

failing to be upfront and honest with this House, and the Australian people, about the nature of the special deal done for the asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking;

(2)

the Prime Minister’s inept handling of the diplomatic relationship with Indonesia; and

(3)

trying to abrogate his responsibility to take charge of this latest border protection crisis by hiding behind a wall of spin, his own staff and the bureaucracy when as he said himself, he is the Prime Minister and the buck stops with him.

Only a moment ago the Prime Minister said that it was so many days since a question had been asked on jobs and so many days since a question had been asked on the economy. I do not know whether that calculation is correct, but the one thing we do know is that it is more than two years since a Prime Minister in this House answered a question straightforwardly on any topic. We have seen the most extraordinary spectacle of a Prime Minister standing up, looking the Australian people in the eye and unblinkingly saying black is white. Here is a situation where, obviously, a special deal was done in order to entice the asylum seekers off the Oceanic Viking. It was a special deal; it has no counterpart. It went to the Border Protection Committee of the cabinet. It went there because it was such a special deal. The Prime Minister says, of course, that he knows nothing about that. He says his staff did not advise him about this deal either before the committee meeting or subsequently. One just has to note how incredible this sounds to us all, given recent comments by Cameron Stewart which I think sum up most people’s views of the Prime Minister—certainly, most of his colleagues’ views. He said:

… he … craves control, which means too often he tries to do everything. He hates to delegate and he is loath to rely on the work of others …

Apparently, on this minor matter of the Oceanic Viking, he became a laid-back, relaxed kind of guy, happy to delegate everything to his staff! If you believe that, you will believe anything. But there it is. The one thing that is beyond question is that the Prime Minister’s claim that there was no special deal has been comprehensively, universally disbelieved. I do not believe there has ever been a statement by a Prime Minister in this House in respect of which nobody is prepared to give agreement or endorsement. We will just work through some of the commentary in the media. We had Dennis Shanahan in the Australian say:

… the … Sri Lankans …will disembark because they have wrung a special deal from the Rudd government.

Greg Sheridan in the same newspaper said:

For some bizarre reason Rudd keeps saying the people on the Oceanic Viking have not got a special deal. This simply defies the ordinary meaning of language and common sense.

Paul Kelly said:

He seems to think almost any line can be spun and will be believed, even when it is nonsense.

But, I am afraid to say, the disbelief extends past that centre-right newspaper with which the Prime Minister is so unhappy at the moment. Tony Wright in the Age says:

There was no special deal for the Sri Lankans, Rudd insisted.

Which, presumably, is why the last of them were content to leave the ship yesterday after refusing to budge for more than a month.

Annabel Crabb in the Sydney Morning Heraldand not many people would say that is a right-wing newspaper—wrote on the 18th:

Against this crowded palette of lunacy, it’s almost possible to overlook lesser offences against human intelligence—such as the Prime Minister’s insistence that the Sri Lankan passengers disembarking the Oceanic Viking have not received any sort of special deal.

Today, the same writer notes:

A Denialist so shameless that he can stare barefacedly back at the electors and his parliamentary opponents and deny, again and again and again, that a bunch of Sri Lankans currently being processed in record-fast time in Indonesia are not in receipt of any ‘special deal’.

The Prime Minister’s spin has not been able to fool anyone, even in his own town. Dennis Atkins wrote in the Courier-Mail today:

The consensus view that the Rudd government provided a special deal for the 76 asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking is now stronger than the much trumpeted world scientific agreement on the causes behind climate change.

Michael Gordon yesterday in the Ageand surely, Prime Minister, that is not a right-wing newspaper—wrote:

The truth is that the group was offered a special deal to leave the boat.

But the disbelief extends even, I am afraid, to the ABC. This reluctance of the Australian media to accept this spin seems to be spreading. Barry Cassidy:

Just to say there is no special deal is silly.

Probably the neatest summary of all of this was in the editorial in the Financial Review today. It said:

Mr Rudd’s refusal to give a straight answer to opposition questions on the asylum issue follows a consistent and unattractive pattern of behaviour.

The Prime Minister’s pattern of behaviour is consistent and it is unattractive, but not simply because it involves saying black is white—saying that no special deal was done when plainly a very, very special deal was done for a very special reason. It is unattractive because it has resulted in the collapse of our border protection policy. The Prime Minister may think he can spin his way out of his problems here in the House, but the real challenge is on our borders. We used to have a border protection policy that sought to achieve—and did achieve—two goals: firstly, the compassionate and fair reception and treatment of refugees in accordance with the UN convention and, secondly, the security of our borders and ensuring that as far as possible people-smuggling was stamped out and there were no unauthorised arrivals. Both of those goals were achieved, and the record is there. From 2002-03 until the change in the border protection policies by this government last year, there was, relative to the current situation, a very, very small number of arrivals—in some years zero and in other years only a few boats. Since those changes we have had 52 boats and over 2,300 arrivals.

How does the Prime Minister defend this? He defends it firstly by denying another fact of life. He defends it by saying that Australia’s border protection policies have absolutely no influence on the number of arrivals. This is as big a denial, as bizarre and absurd a denial, as his denial about the nature of the deal offered to the asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking. He has been told not simply by the opposition but by the Federal Police, by the International Organisation on Migration, by the Indonesian Ambassador and by the Sri Lankan Ambassador, via the New Zealand immigration minister, that our border protection policies are sending a very strong signal. This is a strong pull factor. Indeed, as the Sri Lankan Ambassador to the UN only recently said—and it sums it up:

If the pull factors are addressed, attempts to enter Australia will cease.

That is what the Sri Lankan ambassador said, that the Prime Minister will have none of this—they are all wrong. The difference between the government and the opposition on this issue is simply this: when we are in government we stopped the boats. They stopped. We protected our borders. We complied with our international obligations, and our borders were secure. And we have set out clearly the changes we would make to the policies he has instituted that will ensure, once again, that a strong signal is sent to the people smugglers so they can no longer market the absolute certainty of permanent residency in Australia to their customers in return for the large fees they charge—$10,000 to $15,000. We are prepared to undermine their business. We are prepared to undermine the people-smuggling trade and protect our borders. The Prime Minister is not.

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