Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. The purpose of this bill is to amend Australia’s anti-people-smuggling legislative framework. In particular, the bill proposes to harmonise the existing offences between acts, create new people-smuggling offences, enhance investigative tools and extend the application of mandatory minimum penalties for aggravated people-smuggling offences. The amendments are as follows. The bill amends the Criminal Code and the Migration Act to increase the sanctions applicable to people smuggling, the ASIO Act to include the protection of Australia’s territorial and border integrity from serious threats within ASIO’s statutory charter, and the T(IA) Act and Surveillance Devices Act to include people smuggling within the definition of a serious offence and thus permit the use of these tools to investigate allegations of people smuggling and to align the definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ in the T(IA) Act with the definition in the Intelligence Services Act 2001.

The reasons that this is being done are all good, because both sides of the House want to see the end of people smuggling. We know the absolutely severe outcomes that you get when you have people smugglers taking to the waters with their precious cargo and we know what has happened in this country. We remember SIEV4, which disappeared with its total cargo of over 400 people. Today the Northern Territory coroner has reported on SIEV36, and he has stated that a crime did occur and that he is referring it on to the Northern Territory DPP. At least five members of the crew and cargo—human cargo—perished because, in his words, they deliberately sabotaged the boat by putting salt in the engine, spreading unleaded petrol around and putting a match to it. That was what they did to try and make sure that they were picked up at sea.

That is the cruel trade of people smuggling, and both sides of the House want to see that this practice is stopped. However, we depart on a few other matters. I will make the point today that the reason why we are talking about this again and having to toughen these measures is that, since taking office more than two years ago, the Labor Party has sent out a very strong signal to those who would come here unlawfully that we are open for business. You do not need to look any further than the words of those seeking to come here themselves. We know now that the mentality is: if you can get to Australia, you are going to get a visa. So the attraction is to get to the Australian mainland. If you get to the Australian mainland, the history is that most of the people who get here by boat get a visa—it is about 80 per cent. And why do they want to come by boat? Because close to 80 per cent of those people who come by boat get a visa, whereas for the overstayers who come by air—and other means, but generally air—who flush their documents down the toilet before they arrive in Australia and then claim asylum it is only about 20 per cent. So why wouldn’t you try and come by boat? These people are paying $20,000 to people smugglers to do this and they are willing to take the risk because they know at the end is the golden orb of a visa to stay in Australia.

We know, as I said, that people have lost their lives on the way here and I have referred to SIEVX. We now know even more from organisations like the International Organisation for Migration. An article in the Herald Sun on Friday, 16 October 2009 stated that the organisation’s Indonesian chief last year confirmed the fact:

People smugglers have clearly noted that there has been a change in policy—

this is in Australia—

over the last year there’s been a considerable kick-up.

For an organisation like that, an honest broker in this area, to observe that really sheets it home to the Australian Labor Party that they have changed the rules and now we know that it is a more attractive destination because, if you can get here, you get to stay here.

Whereas the Howard government realised that—and it came to a head, as most people would know, with the Tampa incident of 2001—and we said, ‘This has got to stop.’ We had hundreds and thousands of people making their way here unlawfully. At the end of the day we said, ‘Well, you’re not going to get to stay here if you get here. You might actually end up in Nauru or Papua New Guinea or elsewhere. Even if you get a visa, you mightn’t get to stay in Australia. You might be sent to somewhere else in the world.’ As a result, it stopped.

I would like to point out these figures. In 2002-03, there was one boat arrival after the Pacific solution. In 2003-04, there were three boat arrivals. In 2004-05, there were no boat arrivals. In 2006-07, there were four boat arrivals. In 2007-08, there were only three boats—even after the Rudd government came to power—because, up to that point, the coalition policies remained intact. So, for the last six years of the Howard government, there were only 18 boats in total, an average of three boats over the six years, every year, because of the border protection policies that were put in place.

People have asked me, ‘What’s the story with these temporary protection visas? How do they work?’ Well, we know that the temporary protection visas allowed them to stay on the Australian mainland and they allowed us to, during that time, assess their suitability and genuineness as refugees. It did not allow them to have a whole lot of the entitlements that have now come with the change in Australian policy, which I will refer to shortly. It did give them protection until their status was found. At the end of the day, they were either deemed to be genuine refugees or they were sent back to their country of origin. So the fact is that, by changing the rules, the Labor Party has now shown Australia as an attractive destination.

In April last year, Iraqis who had spent years in Indonesia told the ABC they would be sailing to Australia now that Rudd has softened our laws. One Iraqi told the ABC:

Kevin Rudd—he’s changed everything about refugee. If I go to Australia now, different, different, …

The Australian reported that the Rudd government’s changes prompted some to leave their homes in Iran and Pakistan and catch a boat to Australia. One refugee said:

I know Kevin Rudd is the new PM, … He has tried to get more immigrants. I have heard if someone arrives it is easy. …

Let us see what effect this has had. Mr Rudd decided he would try and do a deal with Indonesian President Yudhoyono. I was very pleased to see him here last week saying that he would try to toughen up. Unfortunately, my belief is not as strong as others’ that Mr Yudhoyono will follow through in any timely way, because he first of all has to get it through his parliament and he has some issues with that.

The fact is that Mr Rudd said there was a boatload of asylum seekers at sea. Interestingly, it is not exactly clear whether they were in international waters or Indonesian territory. They got on the phone and they claimed to be in trouble. Where did they ring? Not the nearest landfall, which was Indonesia; they rang the authorities in Australia and said, ‘Please rescue us.’ So Prime Minister Rudd rang his mate Mr Yudhoyono and said, ‘Look, can you do us a favour? Can you grab these people, rescue them and take them to your nearest port? We have a detention centre that you can put them in.’ But it has backfired, because these same people are now holed up in Merak and they have been holed up in Merak for 157 days in squalid conditions. The Indonesians are saying, ‘It’s not our problem. It’s your problem. You asked us to rescue them but we didn’t say what we were going to do about it.’ So here we have a policy failure, where these people are holed up in Merak and unable to move.

Interestingly, there were 255 people on that boat but there are only 254 now, because their spokesman, ‘Alex’, who has a Canadian accent, has disappeared into the ether. They could not find him. He has left the boat. They do not know where he has gone. We know Alex has a bit of form, because when he was in Canada he was in prison for fraud. This was a person who was endeavouring to come to Australia. I suspect he would not have passed the good character test. But, dare I say—and I note that the Attorney-General Mr McClelland is at the table—that we have a person in Australia at the moment, the Iranian Sheik Leghaei, who has been deemed not a suitable person because he has had adverse security assessments made against him. I note that in reports in the media today he has been given another month to stay here. Writing a reference for this particular person who has had adverse security assessments made against him is not terribly clever. It reminds me of the reference that was written for Mr Mokbel. Be that as it may—

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