Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support) Share this | Hansard source

The purpose of the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010 is to strengthen the Commonwealth’s existing anti-people-smuggling framework. People smuggling is a serious crime and should be treated as such. Those who engage in the practice of people smuggling and its associated networks deliberately flout Australia’s migration laws. This in itself is a serious offence. What is perhaps more confronting about the actions of people smugglers is their complete disregard for the value of human life. People smugglers charge their victims, usually potential asylum seekers, inordinate amounts of money to facilitate their passage, with the promise of enabling an unauthorised entry into Australia. People smugglers will often target the most vulnerable and desperate of asylum seekers, making promises they cannot keep and placing their victims in very dangerous situations.

This bill serves, therefore, to provide a stronger deterrence to people smugglers by strengthening the powers that the Commonwealth currently has to prosecute and take action against them. The bill establishes new offences for providing support for people-smuggling and harmonises people-smuggling offences between the Migration Act and the Criminal Code. These changes will ensure that people-smuggling is appropriately criminalised in Australian law, with consequent tough penalties for this crime. The bill provides Australian government agencies with the capacity and powers to investigate and disrupt people-smuggling networks. These changes will allow authorities to target those who organise and finance people-smuggling syndicates, which is an important step towards eradicating these activities.

These measures demonstrate the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to ensuring that people smugglers, their associated networks and subsequent actions are dealt with and prosecuted accordingly. They demonstrate the Australian government’s hard stance on this issue. It is important to recognise the effort and the strong stance this government has invested in migration and the orderly entrance of people to our shores. It is a fair stance and aims not only to protect Australian citizens and ensure our biosecurity but also to protect those susceptible to exploitation by people smugglers. It is important to remember those facts as we reflect on bills such as this in the face of the constant disingenuous and scaremongering criticism levelled at the government by the opposition.

The opposition is currently addicted to the rhetoric of deception, the rhetoric of the so-called soft touch. Mr Abbott is fond of pointing the finger at the government and insisting that it is our fair but strong policies that are somehow making Australia a soft touch for people smugglers. Bills such as this give the lie to that allegation. This bill is one of the many reforms that the Rudd Labor government have made to Australia’s migration system—reforms which have made the system fairer but still maintained a hardline approach to illegal activities. The number of people seeking asylum around the world is rising. The UNHCR collect statistics on numbers of what they term ‘persons of concern’. This category covers refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons. Although the country of origin and situation may change, numbers of persons of concern continue to rise. Slight increases in numbers of unauthorised boat arrivals can be put down to increased push factors. In 2009 a regional UNHCR representative, Richard Towle, stated that further destabilisation of countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka has led to more people seeking asylum in our region, regardless of national border protection policies or changes to migration legislation. As such, it is this government’s responsibility to effectively manage this challenge.

I find it difficult to understand the hypocrisy of the opposition on many issues but on this one especially. This is the mob who floundered with migration policy throughout the 12 years of the Howard government, whose solution to increased arrivals of asylum seekers was to lock them, men, women and, most astonishingly, children, in high-security complexes in isolated parts of Australia for years at a time. This coalition took people who were for the most part running from war and persecution, who were already damaged from the atrocities from which they had run, and further exacerbated this damage by locking them up indefinitely in inadequate conditions, particularly for the children.

I believe Jacquie Everitt’s book The Bitter Shore should be compulsory reading for all Australians to remind us of the devastating impact that the coalition’s policies had on asylum seekers and their children. The tale of Shayan Badraie, the six-year-old boy who features in The Bitter Shore, is a shameful episode for this country, but most particularly for the former immigration minister, the member for Berowra, who refused to respond adequately to all humane advice on the handling of this traumatised child. The unhealthy culture that the member for Berowra fostered in his department was highlighted in the Palmer report of July 2005 and will forever be an indictment of his time in that position and a blight on this country.

In fact, the coalition has worked hard to create a culture of fear that all asylum seekers are somehow evil and terrorists because of the manner of their arrival. This Abbott’s army is the same team who misled the public through the ‘children overboard’ scandal for political purposes. I remember well those times and the feelings of my colleagues in the ADF when the ADF and its reporting were so ill-used. They talked to me of their feelings of having to manhandle women and children into the Pacific camps. They told me how their concerns to comply with international law were often brushed aside by the coalition government. I also remember the Tampa episode as I was serving in the UN headquarters in Timor Leste at the time, along with Norwegians and UNHCR personnel who were shocked at the behaviour of the Howard government. In my experience in various international fora, this did us great damage for many years.

It is also worth analysing the coalition’s so-called Pacific solution, which processed the claims of unauthorised arrivals offshore so that the claimants had no access to legal assistance or judicial review. This policy wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money to generate the illusion that these people would not be coming to Australia. The same coalition sat idly by while an Australian citizen, Vivian Alvarez Solon, was unlawfully deported and while an Australian permanent resident, Cornelia Rau, was unlawfully detained for 10 months. This is the same coalition that allowed people to languish on temporary protection visas for years, with limited access to government services and a callously uncertain future.

With such a track record, one would think that the opposition would be pleased to see that an Australian government is finally able to deal with this issue effectively from a security perspective while ensuring the protection and wellbeing of the asylum seekers. But this is not the case. The opposition continues to criticise the positive changes this government has made and the policies that have worked. What is even more disturbing is that the opposition have made it perfectly clear that, should they return to government, they will immediately reinstate the same flawed legislation that clearly failed them for 12 years.

The mandatory detention policy was, as most would know, instituted by the Keating Labor government. However, what it became under the Howard government was unrecognisable from the original policy. The policy was initially intended to provide for a maximum 271-day incarceration period to allow for the appropriate processing of unauthorised arrivals. Under the coalition, it became an out-of-sight, out-of-mind solution for a problem the Howard government simply could not cope with. A 1998 report from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission on the policy of mandatory detention stated that it ‘breached international human rights standards’ and called for the removal of children from detention. It further claimed that, when detention was prolonged, as it frequently was, the conditions in which people were detained became unacceptable and breached Australia’s human rights obligations. The Howard government rejected this report and, in 2004, reaffirmed its commitment to the mandatory detention policy. The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs at the time, Senator Vanstone, stated that to release all children from detention in Australia would be to send a message to people smugglers that, if they carry children on dangerous boats, parents and children will be released into the community very quickly. Instead of having effective policies to prevent people-smuggling, such as the bill we are debating today, the coalition chose to stick with an internationally condemned policy.

The Rudd government has brought detention back to its original intent—that is, that people will be detained as a last resort and for a short period. Unauthorised entrants are detained on arrival for identity, health and security checks but, once these are completed, unless there are serious security risks or concerns as to whether the entrant will comply with their visa conditions, the majority of entrants will be released into the community whilst their immigration status is resolved.

Labor’s policy ensures that only justified applicants will be able to stay onshore permanently. The opposition claims it will bring back the Pacific solution. As I stated before, this was a particularly nasty policy which ensured that claims were not processed under Australian law and that claimants had no access to legal assistance or judicial review. Such a policy now seems unthinkable. In what other circumstance would someone’s basic legal rights be denied to them by a democracy of our standing? Yet the opposition adheres to this policy and vows to bring it back if it returns to government. In an interview in December 2009, Mr Abbott stated:

Now offshore processing was an important part of the former government’s policy. It was very important in deterring people smugglers …

Instead of developing effective, workable policy, which this bill will do, the opposition would go back to the failed policies of the past. And this was a failed policy. The entry figures are evidence of that. Between 2001 and 2008, a total of 1,637 people were detained in the Nauru and Manus facilities. Of these, 1,153, 70 per cent, were found to be refugees and were resettled in Australia or other countries and 705, around 61 per cent, were resettled in Australia. The Rudd government abolished the Pacific solution on 8 February 2008 and announced that only Christmas Island would be retained for unauthorised boat arrivals. On the same day Jennifer Pagonis, of the UNHCR, welcomed the end of the Pacific solution, stating:

UNHCR had strong concerns about the ‘Pacific Solution’ …

We welcome the prompt decision taken by the new Australian Government to end the Pacific Solution …

We hope that any continuation of offshore processing on the Australian territory of Christmas Island reflects the letter and the spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

And so it does. Yet the opposition still maintains that should it return to government it will bring back the Pacific solution, a program opposed by the UNHCR.

Temporary protection visas were a flawed policy of the coalition. TPVs provided no certainty for their holders. Holders could not travel and they had no access to family reunion visa programs. Although they were not behind razor wire they were trapped, unable to engage in the community they lived in, as they were not able to work and were unable to return home for fear of having their application for permanent protection rejected. Again, this was a pointless exercise. Around 11,000 TPVs were issued between 1999 and 2007 and approximately 90 per cent of TPV holders eventually gained permanent visas. In May 2008 the Rudd government abolished the TPV system. Figures quoted by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, on 24 February 2009, showed that the TPV system had not, as the Howard government claimed, halted arrivals.

In the four years, from 1997 to 2001, 12,651 people were arriving by unauthorised boats. TPVs, which were introduced in 1999, clearly had no impact on these arrivals, which in fact increased following the introduction of this policy. By the time TPVs were abolished last year, almost 90 per cent of people initially granted TPVs had been given a permanent protection visa or another visa to remain in Australia. The opposition wants the return of TPVs—a system that did not work, that did not provide a deterrence for unauthorised arrivals and whose only outcome was to cause ongoing hardship to the holders of TPVs.

From the historical evidence of these three programs—mandatory detention, the Pacific solution and TPVs—it is clear that the Howard government did not have a constructive way forward when it came to matters of unauthorised arrivals. Yet the opposition refuses to learn from these mistakes and vows to bring back all three of these failed programs. I also note the opposition leader’s suggestion that we simply tow the boats back out to sea. This reflects his contempt for international law and basic humanity. I know that all decent Australians will cringe in horror at this idea, as have our Indonesian colleagues in making that clear recently. The Rudd Labor government understands what the coalition does not: Australia needs to have effective and fair legislation on migration, because the numbers of those seeking asylum will rise and fall with international circumstances as, historically, has always been the case.

As stated previously, the UNHCR has acknowledged that numbers of people of concern—asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced peoples—have been on the rise. Push factors, including the ongoing instability in the Middle East and other regions, will mean higher numbers of asylum seekers attempting to enter Australian territory. Other push factors may also become evident in the future. Environmental refugees from low-lying island nations and coastal areas in the region may begin to look for asylum in other nations as sea levels begin to rise.

The opposition continually suggest that the Rudd Labor government policies are soft-touch policies and are a pull factor for those wanting to take advantage of them. This position is flat wrong. The numbers do not support it. None of the policies of the Howard government were effective in reducing the numbers of unauthorised boat arrivals. Numbers only began to fall in relation to the situations at source. From 2001 to 2003, Iraqis claiming asylum declined by 48 per cent. In the same period, Afghanis seeking asylum fell by 73 per cent and Sri Lankans by 61 per cent. Conversely, from 2005 to 2008, the numbers claiming asylum surged again, including those from Iraq, by 193 per cent; those from Afghanistan by 139 per cent; and those from Sri Lanka by 72 per cent. These facts speak for themselves. In fact, the only pull factor Australians should be concerned about are the coalition. In an enormous attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy, the coalition have been out there for many months in the media, proclaiming to the world that Australia is a soft touch, shamelessly working against the national interest in sending this message around the globe. They should be ashamed of themselves and Australians, understandably, can feel disgusted with this play at politics above the national interest. But then that is what we have come to expect from the opposition. Instead, what is needed is a strong but fair approach to the issue. The Rudd Labor government is achieving this.

Only last week negotiations with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono led to further developments in the relationship with Indonesia and an assurance by the President that people-smuggling would now be criminalised in Indonesia. As part of the 2009-10 federal budget the Rudd government has committed $654 million to fund a comprehensive whole-of-government strategy to combat people-smuggling and to help address the problem of unauthorised boat arrivals. Since the Howard days of 2007 we have increased sea patrols of our borders by 25 per cent, which has resulted in the interception of 98 per cent of all boats before they reach the mainland. This is a huge improvement since the days of the coalition government when, during that time, more than one in 10 boats reached the mainland.

Since September 2008, 61 people-smuggling arrests have been made and 23 persons convicted. There are currently 37 defendants before the courts in people-smuggler prosecutions. In cooperation with Indonesia POLRI has disrupted 85 smuggling ventures, preventing nearly 2,000 persons attempting to arrive in Australia by dangerous unauthorised boat passage. They have also arrested 19 smuggling operatives including the infamous Captain Bram.

To defeat people smuggling and manage asylum seekers we do not need a return to the scaremongering, inhumane and ineffective ways of the past. We need to work to resolve problems at the source of conflict and persecution, as we are doing in conjunction with the international community in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. We need to continue to enhance regional law enforcement cooperation and refugee management and we need to ensure that our own surveillance, interception, prosecution, management capabilities and mechanisms for the boats set to approach our shores are effective and humane. That is precisely what the Rudd government is doing. I therefore commend this bill to the House.

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