Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

they are all saying the same thing about this Prime Minister and his government. I do not need to kick that one along. That one is happening—absolutely. I will make sure that I have got every pub too and every public bar, because in those places that is where you divine the true passionate feeling about this issue. We have a government that is trying to keep two constituencies happy and a price is being paid.

We have heard everything about global trends, and we have heard everything about moving people between different islands, but we know one thing for sure: we are seeing the end of that commitment to overseas processing. It was the one thing, the one signal that we sent very, very clearly: if you paid these criminals to throw you in a boat, the one thing you were not going to get was to be processed in Australia and get an easy option and access to the legal appeals process. For those who do not know, predominantly the burden of proof is on the Commonwealth to prove that an individual is not a refugee, and that is not too easy to do when they have absolutely no way of identifying these people whatsoever. This is tough, but of course it is not that tough for this Prime Minister, is it? It is not too tough for Prime Minister Rudd, because when he was embarrassed with the Oceanic Viking situation—there were 76 people on board and it went on for a few days—instead of hiding under the desk he came out and said, ‘We’ve got to cut a deal; just make sure it’s a deal that I don’t know about.’ Wasn’t that the most extraordinarily superficial and thin-skinned solution: ‘Talk to my security advisers but just make sure that I’m not informed’? This is the greatest megalomaniac, centrist Prime Minister we have ever known, but he knew nothing about that solution.

And what was the solution? To those 76 people, he said, ‘I beg you; please leave the Oceanic Viking and I’ll do you any deal you want.’ That was the fast-track, wasn’t it? No ASIO checks—nothing to check if anyone had any serious crimes on their records. No. It was the fast-track, and what happened? We certainly discovered that four people did fail ASIO checks, but there was nothing that could be done. I recall a certain member here raising the possibility that somebody on the Oceanic Viking might have had an irregular past, and I remember the howls of condemnation from the government benches. Sure enough, he prevailed and he was proven right. I just make a small point that we should never, ever sacrifice the very important border protection and controls that Australia is very proud of for anything. We certainly do not deal it away in a cheap face-saving solution over the Oceanic Viking. But Australians know that is exactly what happened, and that proof of the past is the best evidence of what we can look forward to in the future: more of those deal-cutting, face-saving, spin-making agreements, anything to do this Prime Minister out of the absolute barefaced embarrassment that he feels about the breakdown of border protection.

It is very, very hard sometimes to actually work out what this Prime Minister stands for. It is very, very hard, because basically it is driven by a daily spin assessment. When you really know the chips are down, when there comes an opportunity to develop some real legislative solutions to this, we have seen almost nothing. I just wonder where the heart is to find a solution. I wonder where the heart is to get these people out of these boats and to find solutions for those who are stuck in Indonesia, to do something truly different and revolutionary and game changing. But it is not going to come from this Prime Minister, because his heart is not in a solution.

Right now we have our Customs and Border Protection Services, ASIO and AFP working harder than they ever should have to work because they have been legislatively let down. We see massive expenses facing the Commonwealth. I think $3.6 million is the latest figure per boat, for every one that comes over the horizon. Could anyone in the gallery or anyone listening find a more efficient way to solve that problem? A taxi driver on the way to the airport said to me, ‘What about the Hercules solution?’; for every boat there is a Herculesyou fly them back to where they came from, sign them in with the UN and start processing them fairly because, as this taxi driver knows, there are plenty of people in the home country who would love the opportunity to apply. There are plenty of people waiting in a queue hoping for a chance of a better life. There are plenty of people who are physically threatened, whose property is threatened, who are politically threatened and who never have this opportunity. But it is being dished out under the flag of Kevin 07 to those who can pay for an airfare to fly to Indonesia first. That great injustice is not going to be addressed and we have the best evidence of all, that we have had six consecutive legislative unpickings of what was a perfectly functioning system.

I want to finish on some reflections on Afghanistan. I will never pretend that I have any sort of personal experience that in any way should be regarded as superior to anyone else’s, but I did work with Afghans who were trying to work their way back to their home country, trying to de-mine many towns and villages and allow those families to come back. When the conditions are right, like all people they want to get back to their land. There was no greater sight than these beautifully and ornately decorated trucks full of camels, mules and personal possessions, and the whole family jumping in and heading back home. Let us never forget that in the end these people would love to be able to go back to a peaceful Afghanistan. I commend, in this case, both sides of the chamber for that commitment to the Afghanistan effort, as I do all of those in the international partnership.

Let us remember that, even in the processing of these unfortunate people who are stuck in Pakistan and unable to go back for a range of reasons, they deserve a fair go. Most Australians would appreciate that, and if we are serious about helping this part of the world it is not to keep turning a blind eye to people smuggling or to unravel all of the laws that gave us the integrity in the first place. It is also not to start making trite comparisons with what happened in 1999 and 2000, before Mr Howard’s reforms, as some evidence that we were worse at it than you. It is not about that. We are talking about a direct cause and effect between the laws that were eroded in 2008 under this government. This was a time when they had plenty of time to get it right—hardly a crowded legislative agenda—but they deliberately and methodically, step by step, broke down the very thing that was actually working for this country.

I think there is an enormous amount to answer for here. Without being a little bit uncertain, I do not see any evidence that under the current administration there will be any change. I do not think someone is going to wake up in the morning, tap this PM on the shoulder and say, ‘Maybe we can come up with a solution.’ I think effectively we have legislative rigor mortis; there are just no new ideas coming through. I think that is a great shame for a lot of Australians, because when you speak to them they say, ‘I am genuinely concerned about that and I want to see some evidence of action.’ I believe that that will not be forthcoming. I think people smuggling will continue, that industry will continue and, despite the great work fighting terrorism by the TNI, the Indonesian police and others, it is simply too much to ask that the Indonesian nation can fix this problem for us.

The Indonesians counted on us to do our part of the deal. We had a role, as they often referred to, ‘We had to address the sugar’, but we have not—we have just dished more out. The great tragedy is that Indonesia can now not only throw its hands up in dismay but it also wears 90 per cent of the problem. Make no mistake, we are not being a precious wealthy country unwilling to take our share or commit what we should to humanitarian efforts. We do more than our fair share, but we should be doing much more to stop people smuggling. This will be the great tragedy of 2010—it is emerging, it is evolving. I say as you go back to local communities in Australia this is the great legislative, political and policy tragedy of 2010 and the Rudd administration. (Time expired)

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