Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

This morning I received my Daily Telegraph and there, on the front page, it said, ‘Refugees moved to Darwin as more boats arrive: PM’s Tampa crisis’. When I look at the page 4 description, I want to go through each of the arrival occurrences since 3 January, because this analysis is very strong: on 3 January, three nautical miles north of Christmas Island, 76 asylum seekers on board; on 3 January, 29 miles south of Cartier Island, 30 people on board; on 8 January, 12 nautical miles north-west of Ashmore Reef, 27 on board; on 10 January, 4.8 nautical miles north of Christmas Island, 14 on board; on 13 January, five nautical miles north of Christmas Island, 42 on board; on January 22, near West Islet at Ashmore Reef, 29 on board; on 23 January, one nautical mile north of Christmas Island, 38 on board; and on 26 January, 12 nautical miles north-east of Ashmore Reef, 48 people on board. That is eight vessels in January.

The arrivals continue: on 1 February, in the vicinity of Christmas Island, 181 on board; on 4 February 4, 11 nautical miles north of Ashmore Reef, 89 on board; on 6 February, 91 nautical miles south-south-west of Christmas Island, 45 on board; on 12 February, 25 nautical miles south of West Islet, Ashmore Reef, 48 on board; on 18 February, 22 nautical miles north-west of Ashmore Reef, 41 on board; on 20 February, 16 nautical miles north of Ashmore Reef, 10 on board; on 24 February, near West Islet, Ashmore Reef, 43 on board; on 25 February, five nautical miles west of Christmas Island, 45 on board; and on 28 February, 13 nautical miles south-west of Christmas Island, 57 on board. That is nine vessels during February.

It goes on: 3 March, north of Ashmore Reef, 47 on board; from 4 March to 6 March, Indonesian police arrest 63 Afghan migrants on Lombok Island as they plan to head for Australia—well done; 6 March, east of Christmas Island, 80 on board; 7 March, north-west of Adele Island, 28 on board; 10 March, north of Ashmore Reef, 46 on board; 11 March, Border Protection Command provides assistance to a vessel 118 nautical miles north-west of the Tiwi Islands, 24 on board; 11 March, Border Protection Command provides assistance to a vessel 200 nautical miles west of the Tiwi Islands, eight on board; and 13 March, north-west of Christmas Island, 35 on board. That is 1,194 people over 25 vessels.

I say to the Prime Minister that, for all his rhetoric about who did what and where in the past, these numbers do not lie. These are incidents where intervention has been required and people have been taken to Christmas Island. As to what the major concern is now, I quote a section of the report by Ian McPhedran and Steve Lewis on page 4 of today’s Daily Telegraph:

Darwin’s immigration detention centre has been on alert for the arrival of several hundred asylum seekers from Christmas Island, which is close to overflowing.

“If one of the big boats arrives, then Christmas Island will be blown out of the water,” a well-placed source said.

The article goes on to say:

This year alone, almost 1200 boat people have arrived on 24 vessels—nearly half the number who arrived in all of 2009.

It also reports:

According to intelligence reports the illegal vessels, carrying several hundred people each, are expected to make for the Ashmore Reef area rather than Christmas Island.

The Customs vessel Oceanic Viking and charter aircraft are on stand-by to transfer more than 300 people to Darwin within 72 hours. If both vessels make it to Australia then up to 600 people will be relocated to the mainland.

That is an area of concern.

The difference between this Prime Minister and former Prime Minister Howard is that Prime Minister Howard was tough on illegal immigration. Prime Minister Howard was tough on those who sought to earn an income on people smuggling. He provided direct intervention, direct action, on illegal boat arrivals and he said, ‘It will be us and us alone who determine who comes to Australia’. This Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, seems to have an open door policy, an open door policy that has led to thousands of people arriving in this country illegally. One of the sad aspects of that is that those people displace other people who have been waiting properly on a queue for assessment for admission to Australia.

What I also find amazing are statements by members opposite who talk about the urgency of these people being resettled in Australia. When I think about the numbers that were on the Oceanic Viking and the media reports that some of these people had been living in Indonesia for five to eight years without a threat to their physical environment, I think that they wanted to come to Australia more for economic opportunity rather than personal safety factors. I then think about those who have been left in a country where indeed they are facing danger to their safety and the fact that they have now been pushed to the back of the queue.

Through the period of this government, 92 boats and over 4,100 people cannot be wrong. They have seen a crack in the armour of this government, an opportunity. Those who traffick in people have seen an income and so the boats have continued merrily down the coast towards Australia. This is a government who have failed, and failed miserably, in keeping illegal people out of Australia. This is a Prime Minister who cut a deal with those on the Oceanic Viking, instead of standing firm, and offered them the world to save a bit of public face. You do not discourage people from coming to Australia illegally by opening up all sorts of corridors of guaranteed access and the benefits that being in Australia provide. The proof of that is that since the Oceanic Viking we have seen an acceleration in the numbers of people who have come to Australia.

We hear members opposite talk about, ‘Well, back in 2001 and 2002.’ Can I say to members opposite that we need to think back, and think back well, because there was a period under the Howard government where vessels did not come—where people understood that if you made your way to Australia illegally that you were going to be processed offshore, that there was no automatic right to the legal system in Australia and that there was no automatic right to be considered as an Australian citizen. In fact, there were just four vessels that arrived from July 2006, eight in 2005 and zero in 2004, as against eight in January this year, nine in February and eight so far in March.

So I say to members opposite that your policies are failing and failing miserably. They are failing because what you have created is an unreal expectation for those poor people who pay the people smugglers enormous amounts of money for a free trip to Australia—or, what they consider free access to Australia; the trip is not free because it could be $10,000 or $20,000. That says two things to me. If those people have been living in Indonesia for three, five or eight years and if they have $10,000 or $20,000, it is not their personal security that is under threat because they have been living in an environment where they have not had a personal security threat. It cannot just be an economic issue because they had $10,000 or $20,000 to pay the people smugglers. What it is is that these people just want to jump the queue. They want to jump the queue and push more-deserving people to the back of the list, and I think that is what is wrong.

Our Australian Federal Police understand the issue. In fact, on their website, they state:

People smugglers are individuals or groups who assist others to illegally enter a country. In the case of Australia, people smugglers provide air or sea access.

People smuggling is a major threat to all Australians because:

• there are serious security and criminal concerns when people arriving in Australia are not properly identified
• there are major quarantine and health risks involved in people bypassing normal immigration channels
• processing illegal immigrants creates significant logistical problems and costs, and
• it infringes Australia’s sovereignty, giving us less control over our borders.

If we consider that the cost of housing these illegal immigrants on Christmas Island and soon Darwin is expensive, I want the House to consider what the cost is to our defence forces—the people who sign up to serve and protect our nation—who are used to pick up these vessels and bring them to Australia. It is not exactly what they joined the military for but they are engaged in it. At a time of an operational tempo in areas where our troops are doing an outstanding job, we are stretching our defence forces even further.

The cost of housing people in detention is very expensive. Estimates are somewhere between $150 and $250 per day. In fact, I had a look around to see what other affordable options could be, given the cost of the Prime Minister having the Oceanic Viking go up and house 76 illegal immigrants who refused to get off the vessel. They sat in the harbour in Indonesia on an Australian vessel and just refused to get off the boat until the Prime Minister caved in and gave them what they wanted. So perhaps the Prime Minister could save Australia a lot of money and provide accommodation.

I am always looking through travel magazines these days and planning a family holiday in the near future. I looked at some of the cruise ships. Did you know that you can get the Pacific Dawn, which will hold 2,020 passengers, at $118 a night? Then we would not have to use our Navy. The Prime Minister could run his own cruise line. By God, he is letting enough people in here, he could fill a couple of these vessels a year, and probably do it for substantially less than the $10,000 or $20,000 that these people pay. He could do it with far more safety and bring them directly into Australia. That is how ridiculous the situation has become. This Prime Minister has become so lax with standards, rules and enforcement that he is encouraging illegal trade in people. And the numbers do not lie. Do not worry about 10, 15 or three years ago, worry about the escalating numbers since the Rudd government has been in power—the 1,200 since Christmas.

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