Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to lend my support to the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. Deputy Speaker Moylan, no doubt you have been lectured so far and I will probably do so a little bit again. People smuggling is generally global and it is a regional issue. It is not something that is just contained to Australia. It is not something that will be changed by people talking about turning boats around and saying, ‘We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again—we’ll fight them on the beaches!’ All that talk may be great for competing out in the electorates, but if we are going to be effective in government we need to deploy a number of different strategies, with the overarching aspect that we must be humane in the way we approach this issue.

According to the UNHCR 2008 Global trends report there were 42 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide. Within that there are 15.2 million refugees. Effectively 15 million people around the world are on the move. Given these statistics, there is little wonder that asylum seekers fall prey to those who would seek to make a business out of this—people smugglers. People smuggling is an insidious trade. This government has deployed a wide-ranging and very determined approach to combating the scourge of people smuggling. We have committed more than $650 million to upgrade border surveillance and we are committed to implementing a comprehensive people-smuggling strategy to combat this issue. The government has expanded its presence in the region, with the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, and Australian Customs and Border Protection Service recently setting up and expanding liaison posts, which are devoted to deterring irregular immigration. We understand that people smuggling is a serious issue. It is serious, organised crime that involves criminal syndicates who in turn depend on enablers and facilitators. Right at the hub of this is serious and organised crime.

I would like to remind the House of the comments made by the Prime Minister back in April last year immediately following the fatal boat blast off the north-west coast in Australia, where he lashed out at people smugglers in unrestrained language. He said this:

People smugglers are engaged in the world’s most evil trade and they should all rot in jail because they represent the absolute scum of the earth.

He went on to say:

That’s why this Government maintains its hard line, tough, targeted approach to maintaining border protection for Australia.

Unlike the opposition, who like to muddy the water every time this issue is raised—certainly every time another boat is detected it is like looking and seeing those opposite salivate at the numbers—we on this side of the House are dedicated to providing greater resources to border protection than any previous Australian government. As I said, this is very much a global problem; it is not something that can be just contained to this island of Australia. The Sun-HeraldI do not ordinarily go about quoting the Sun-Herald, but it is convenient on this occasion—recently reported that while total asylum claims in Australia rose by 19 per cent between 2007 and 2008, there was an increase of 122 per cent in Italy, 121 per cent in Norway, 89 per cent in the Netherlands, 53 per cent in Switzerland and 30 per cent in Canada over that same period.

It must be said that we on this side of the House recognise that two big events occurred causing a large part of that rise in the number of asylum seekers in the industrialised countries I mentioned. Those two issues are the Afghanistan conflict and the Sri Lankan civil war, not a change in Australia’s border protection laws nor a move to treat people with dignity and humanely, but two significant conflicts that occurred over that period. In 2008, there was an 85 per cent increase in the number of Afghan asylum seekers claiming protection in industrialised countries and over the same period there was a 24 per cent rise in claims by Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

For this debate those on the other side should at least understand that people arriving unlawfully by boat in Australia are a small but nevertheless significant proportion of asylum seekers. Given the significance of this debate I was quite stunned to learn that on average people arriving by boat and seeking asylum in Australia are a little over seven per cent of total asylum seekers. To put that in perspective, that means that more than 90 per cent of people lodging refugee claims turn up at our airports. As I understand from the AFP, often they have fake documents or have destroyed their documents during their travels and once they arrive here they present to Australian officials seeking asylum. That is in excess of 90 per cent of asylum seekers.

It is for these reasons that it pains me to hear the claims of the opposition that they had such an effective policy in the Pacific solution which stopped the boats, turned the boats around. In the face of that, they accuse us of being soft on border protection. The truth is the Howard government’s temporary protection visas which the coalition hardliners claim were such an effective weapon only applied to people arriving on boats. Remember also the UNHCR in that period were pretty strong in their criticism of the Howard government. They were not simply strong on the laws themselves but they were also strong in their criticism of the less than ethical approach that those laws had in dealing with the rights of people who came seeking asylum.

Targeting the organisers and the financiers of people-smuggling operations is an important element in stopping this insidious crime. To be able to do that requires us to have a strong anti-people-smuggling framework. We know that people-smuggling activities involve significant risks and dangers and often eventuate in the loss of life. I do not know the statistics in Australia alone, but the thought of being so desperate as to get on a leaky vessel organised by people smugglers with your wife and family and take your life in your hands you would have to be somewhat desperate. I cannot think of anything worse. Having regard to my previous involvement in looking after law enforcement officers, I can only lend my very strong support to their claims that the only way we are going to effectively stop this is by addressing and deterring those people actively involved in this trade. If they can get a buck out of trafficking or smuggling people they will. If they could make their money by other easier means, such as drugs, they would do that too. We are dealing with this type of person and that is why we require strong and targeted laws to address this issue.

Financial gain is the driver for these smugglers. They are criminals and they have little regard for the safety and wellbeing of any of those people on board. They have been paid their money and that is where their commitment stops. Therefore this requires a very concerted approach, not only law enforcement once they arrive on our shores but also how we deter those criminals from their operations overseas. For that reason we are introducing in this bill a whole-of-government approach which coordinates the government effort in combating people smuggling by strengthening the Commonwealth anti-people-smuggling legislative framework. This framework will ensure that an appropriate range of offences is available to prosecute people smuggling and harmonise the various activities we have at our disposal across the Commonwealth to target this crime.

This bill comes at a time when Australia and Indonesia have signed a new agreement to combat people smuggling. Last week many of us were fortunate enough to hear President Yudhoyono speak at the joint sitting of parliament. He indicated that there would be greater cooperation between our two countries in order to combat people smuggling. That was singled out as one of the major issues to be addressed by Australia and Indonesia. He acknowledged that the boat issue was complex and that it certainly involved law enforcement, as well as security and humanitarian concerns. He also acknowledged that neither Australia nor Indonesia could do this alone. He went on to say that the framework of cooperation known as the Bali process will need to be improved through ongoing discussion and, more importantly, through joint commitment.

I think Indonesia, as our nearest neighbour, is important. It is a transit point for people seeking to come to this country and it is an area where people smuggling is currently in operation. It is of note that the agreement with Indonesia for the first time imposes a mandatory sentence of five years for those convicted of people smuggling. We will continue to work cooperatively with all our regional partners to disrupt people-smuggling ventures overseas as well as subjecting people smugglers to the full force of the law here in Australia.

I would now like to take a little time to talk in a little more detail about the bill before the House, which seeks to strengthen our anti-people-smuggling legislation framework and support the government’s plan to combat this scourge. First, the bill will harmonise a range of offences in the Migration Act and the Criminal Code to ensure that the strongest possible framework of prosecution and investigative action can take place in relation to people-smuggling activities. It is all very well to require our officers to be on hand and to make arrests. Having had a long association with the police, I can say that they are occasionally somewhat critical of a lack of successful prosecutions. Unfortunately, on a number of occasions the lack of prosecutorial success has been on the basis of conflicts within our current laws. This is one of the things that we are moving to strengthen by harmonising those provisions in the Criminal Code and the Migration Act so that there will not be those loopholes for people to escape.

This bill will introduce new categories of offences for people smuggling. For the first time, importantly, the bill will insert an aggravated offence of people smuggling involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm into the Migration Act. This will reflect the serious nature of the offence, and there will be a tough new penalty introduced that will range up to 20 years of imprisonment. The bill will also establish another new offence, providing material support and resources towards people-smuggling ventures, in the Migration Act and the Criminal Code. The maximum penalty for this offence will be 10 years imprisonment, a fine of $110,000 or both. Again, this is put forward because it is our genuine belief—we know it to be true, and I do not think anyone is going to be able to argue about it—that people smuggling is serious and organised crime. It is certainly organised in terms of its range of activities and, as I said earlier, it involves enablers and facilitators. They are the people who commission, in many instances, the actual illicit venture, and they are also the people who are less likely to be caught because they are at arm’s length from these operations under current laws. We want to bring them within the purview of these laws so that they too will be prosecuted. The Migration Act currently maintains mandatory minimum penalties for aggravated offences for people smuggling. The bill will extend the higher mandatory minimum penalties in the Migration Act to new aggravated offences involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm, particularly where offenders are convicted of multiple offences.

I have spoken many times in this House about how this country faces its threats from a wide range of different sources—to its people, to its institutions, to our economy and even in some instances to our technology. These threats ordinarily come about through organised crime. We have unashamedly responded by introducing a new package of legislative and administrative arrangements to deal with this aspect of organised crime, people smuggling. Fundamentally, this approach will ensure that our law enforcement agencies across the country have the tools that they need to act on our behalf and, in doing so, protect our communities.

Consistent with the government’s national security strategy, this bill will also provide greater capacity for Australian government agencies to investigate and disrupt people smuggling. Again, this is not simply designed to catch those in the act of people smuggling; it is to go out and deter and disrupt those crimes, preventing them from taking place in the first instance. We know that the protection of our borders is critical to Australia’s national security, and therefore it is appropriate that our nation and our agencies be given the flexibility to improve their level of coordination across all agencies in order to defend our coastline and protect all those that they serve.

A number of other changes have occurred through this legislation. First, I will briefly touch on the issues of telephone interception and surveillance powers. This bill will make associated changes to the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act to enable law enforcement and security agencies to have access under both acts to appropriate investigative tools in relation to existing people-smuggling offences which are serious offences under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act and to those new offences prescribed under this bill.

ASIO powers will also be broadened under this bill, which will enable ASIO to use its intelligence capabilities to respond to people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity. This will now enable ASIO to play a greater role, where appropriate, in support of whole-of-government efforts to combat people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s border integrity. The bill also aligns the definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act more closely with that of the Intelligence Services Act 2001. In practice, this will enhance the ability of the national security agencies to collect intelligence about people-smuggling networks and other non-state actors threatening our national security.

In conclusion, this bill demonstrates the government’s commitment to address the serious nature of people smuggling by targeting those criminal groups who seek to organise, participate in and benefit from this illicit crime. I commend this bill to the House.

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