Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to respond on behalf of the coalition to the Minister for Home Affairs’ statement as to the government’s response to people trafficking. Broadly the coalition welcomes what this statement contains. It certainly builds upon the strong work that was started under the Howard government and which has been continued under this government. People trafficking is, indeed, a complex crime and a major violation of human rights. People trafficking takes place for a variety of reasons including sexual servitude, domestic labour, forced marriage and sweatshop labour. Women, men and children can be victims.

While there is limited hard information on the number of people trafficked and the target industry in which they are trafficked, evidence suggests that the trafficking of women into prostitution is the major, and certainly most visible, form of trafficking taking place. Data provided by the Australian Institute of Criminology reveals that, globally, sexual exploitation is by far the most commonly identified type of people trafficking—79 per cent of offences—followed by forced labour.

Whilst the terms ‘people smuggling’ and ‘people trafficking’ are often used interchangeably, they have very different meanings. People smugglers are paid by those who wish to enter a country illegally. The people wishing to migrate are generally involved voluntarily. People traffickers, conversely, use coercion and/or deception to force people to illegally enter a country. Once the illegal immigrants are in the destination country people traffickers often continue to exploit them. It is interesting to note that the Australian Institute of Criminology ran a community awareness and attitude survey in mid-2009. The results revealed that a majority of people—61 per cent—confused people trafficking with people smuggling and only nine per cent of people could correctly identify people trafficking.

It is widely recognised that people trafficking has become a well-established and enormously lucrative business throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Australia, sadly, is viewed as a destination country for persons trafficked out of South-East Asia. There are several reports of migrants, particularly from India, the People’s Republic of China and South Korea, who voluntarily migrate to work in Australia but are later coerced into exploitative conditions. As noted by the Australian Institute of Criminology’s report into trafficking in South-East Asia published this month, it is very difficult to obtain a clear picture of trafficking in the South-East Asian region as it primarily revolves:

… around the large scale of undocumented or unregulated labour migration, which results in a blurred distinction between trafficking and smuggling; the widespread movement of women as wives and domestic workers, in addition to sex and entertainment work; the trafficking of children for labour, sexual exploitation and adoption; and the strong link between prostitution and sex tourism.

The report also noted that Indonesia is a key source of trafficked persons in the region and has a large problem with trafficking and smuggling along its wide border with Malaysia. It is relatively easy to cross the border on a tourist or visitor visa and then to change that into a working visa on arrival. Australia’s stable and strong economic position in the Asia-Pacific region, coupled with plentiful job opportunities in low-skilled sectors, contributes to Australia’s status as a target destination for traffickers and smugglers.

A complex picture has emerged about the involvement of organised criminal groups in the trafficking of persons. Australian authorities believe that traffickers are primarily individual operators or small crime groups that often rely on larger organised crime groups to procure fraudulent documentation. As the 2009 inaugural report of the Anti-People Trafficking Interdepartmental Committee notes:

The groups detected in sex trafficking have been small rather than large organised crime groups. Those involved tended to use family or business contacts overseas to facilitate recruitment, movement and visa fraud. People trafficking matters have also generally involved other crime types, including immigration fraud, identity fraud, document fraud and money laundering.

Those that are involved in people trafficking generally have links also to people smuggling. As mentioned by the minister, the Bali process, indeed, provides a strong platform for collaboration between countries in our region with a shared interest in the prevention of irregular migration including the trafficking of persons. Whilst the two issues are separate they remain closely linked.

The Australian government does, indeed, have a responsibility to ensure that pull factors are not part of the equation. Unfortunately, since the Labor government have softened our border protection laws, which has given the green light to people smugglers, we have found that those smugglers have also become involved in the insidious trade of people trafficking. The continued crisis in our immigration detention network is getting worse by the day. Under this government constant overcrowding, court challenges, unrest, violence and gruesome protests are unfolding on an almost daily basis.

In November 2007 at the change in government there were just four people in our immigration detention network who had arrived illegally by boat. Since Labor backtracked on the strong border protection policies it inherited, there are now well over 5,000 people in detention who have arrived illegally this way. This is a government that has lost its way on border protection and immigration and, as long as Labor has lost its way, the people smugglers will continue to find their way to Australia.

The coalition have always been committed to an orderly and humane managed migration and refugee program. We strongly support Australia’s position as one of the most generous providers of humanitarian resettlement in the world. However the coalition believe in doing this in a way that does not encourage the barbaric practice of people smuggling. The coalition do not support people smugglers who entice people to pay vast sums of money to jump the queue and then force those women and children waiting in refugee camps around the world to wait even longer.

At this point I wish to acknowledge the good work of the former Howard government in this area. The former coalition government’s response to people trafficking in the Asia-Pacific region has included developing anti-trafficking initiatives between governments and providing aid to the region aimed at alleviating the economic and social conditions that allow trafficking to flourish. In particular the Howard government and Indonesia co-chaired two regional ministerial conferences on trafficking and smuggling in 2002 and 2003—now commonly known as the Bali process—which the minister briefly touched on.

In October 2003, the former coalition government announced additional anti-trafficking measures, with a $20 million package, targeting sex trafficking in particular. The package included a new Australian Federal Police unit, the Transnational Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Team; new visa arrangements for victims of trafficking; victim support measures, including counselling and legal and medical support to be administered by the Office for Women; improvements to legislation, making people-trafficking punishable by up to 20 years in jail; and a promise to ratify the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children—notably, Australia was already a signatory and it was subsequently ratified in 2005. In 2004, the former coalition government produced an action plan to eradicate trafficking in persons in support of the 2003 announcement. In the last budget of the former coalition government, a further $38.3 million over four years was allocated, including $26.3 million for new initiatives.

Since then, the coalition has continued to consider this issue a serious one and has supported a range of anti-people-trafficking measures, most of which have a sex-trafficking focus. I am sure all members in this place will acknowledge that it is completely unacceptable for even one person to be in this situation. It is true that the measures that have been taken are making a difference. The Transnational Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Team of the Australian Federal Police is at the front line of combating this problem and, on behalf of the coalition, I wish to pay tribute to the team’s men and women, who work so hard in very difficult circumstances, investigating trafficking cases and bringing them to court and, of course, being terribly disappointed if those prosecutions are not successful.

We must remember that where you find this type of crime you will find other types of crime, and it is vitally important that the Australian Federal Police is properly resourced to do its job. Broadly, the coalition supports the minister’s statement and believes that Australia does have a very important regional leadership role to play in this area, and we will continue to support any moves the government and this parliament take to combat this hideous crime.

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