Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always a privilege to follow the remarks of the member for Braddon, who is generally one of the more thoughtful members on that side of the House. I do rise to speak in support of the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. As the Liberal Party has said through its spokesman, the member for Cook—or the member for the Shire!—we do support the measures in this bill.

However, it is of course a bill that is necessary because of Labor’s failures on this issue. While generally I enjoy the contributions of the member for Braddon, I thought that was one of his weaker ones in defending a very difficult policy issue for the Labor Party to defend. They always defend it on the basis that we on this side of the House are running some sort of fear or dirty under-the-radar campaign rather than actually arguing the real reasons why their policy has failed, which, of course, were the changes to the border protection laws in August 2008. Since that time, we have seen nearly 100 boats arrive in the northern part of Australia. The Christmas Island detention facility is so packed now that it is looking as if those seeking refugee status will need to be transferred to the mainland, a policy failure unlike any other from those on the other side, and probably up there with the insulation program.

Yesterday, the campaign that is run by those on the other side about the motives of members on this side of the House saw one of its worst episodes, with the contribution by the member for Parramatta—as so rightfully pointed out by the member for Higgins who followed her—as recorded in the Hansard:

There are people in my community—and I despair at these people—who, when the opposition starts to spread this fear, come out with lines like, ‘We should just push the boats back and let them drown.’ We should not accept that. We should not accept those statements and we should not be stirring up that kind of attitude in our community. Yet every time we have this sort of fear campaign on the other side, this demonising of these desperate people, I get that kind of response from some members of my community. I get other members of my community saying, ‘Send them back to where they came from.’ When I say, ‘When they arrive, they might get shot,’ I get the reply: ‘Not my problem.’ I do not think we should be accepting that attitude either and I do not think we should be stirring that up in our community.

The very clear suggestion in that contribution from the member for Parramatta was that members on this side of the House are saying in a direct statement, ‘We should just push the boats back and let them drown.’ The member for Parramatta came into the House, after the member for Higgins quite rightly pointed out this absolute disgrace, and made a personal explanation in which she said:

The member for Higgins said at the beginning of her speech that I had put words in the opposition’s mouth and said that they had suggested that people should drown. I did not.

The Hansard quite clearly outlines exactly what the member for Parramatta said. It is a disgraceful campaign run by members of the government who are desperately trying to avoid answering the very real charge that we make on this issue, which is that their policy has meant that the people smugglers are back in business. The trade that people smugglers enter into is vile. No-one supports that type of activity. We certainly do not. We took action in government to ensure that the people smugglers were put out of business. The policy decisions made by this government have meant that they are back in business.

No-one wants to see desperate people in these situations, and for the member for Parramatta to get that low into the gutter and play this sort of politics is a disgrace. She should be brought in by the Prime Minister and thoroughly rebuked and she should apologise to the House for what are disturbing remarks. I notice the member for Braddon was far less outrageous in his claims. He made the suggestion that there was a fear campaign going on and he is right to do that—in a political debate he is able to make those points—but to suggest that people on this side of the House want to see other human beings drown and die is an absolute disgrace. The member for Parramatta should be rebuked and she should be rebuked today. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary for Employment at the table, who is a decent person, will ensure that that actually occurs.

This bill is a sensitive bill and we have very well-known splits on our side of parliament about this issue. It is a very difficult issue. People are very emotional about boat arrivals and illegal immigration. It is a sensitive issue in the community and it should be dealt with in a way and in a fashion which is above, hopefully, the low-rent stuff which from time to time does actually occur. However, we do make the charge and we make it very clearly—I think the shadow minister has articulated it very well in recent times—that the decisions of the Rudd government in August 2008 have meant that we are seeing an influx of boats in the northern waters. The Labor Party argue that is because of these additional push factors and the member for Braddon just argued then that war in our region has been the reason that there have been increased push factors. I presume the member for Braddon is talking about the recent conflict in Sri Lanka coming to an end and, certainly, that has added to the pressure. There is no doubt about that. However, to suggest that the Afghanistan conflict ended in 2002 and began again last year is simply wrong. The Afghanistan conflict—as the shadow minister for defence science and personnel at the table knows very well—has been going on since late 2001 and there have been push factors from Afghanistan since that time, as there have been from the Middle East and other parts of the world.

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