Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I stand today to speak in favour of the motion that I have laid before the parliament, seconded by the member for Cook, the shadow minister for immigration. Can I just say at the beginning what a fantastic job the member for Cook has done and is doing in highlighting Labor’s failed approach to Australia’s border security. This motion very much concentrates on a direct consequence of Labor’s mismanagement of Australia’s borders—that is, the decision, the ambush announcement, by the Prime Minister on 18 October this year, a mere month ago, to establish a detention facility at Inverbrackie, in the Adelaide Hills.

I will just indulge the House briefly to step through the potted history of this decision and this announcement by the Prime Minister and her minister, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, on 18 October. On 17 October, the Prime Minister visited the Adelaide Hills, unbeknownst to the state Labor Premier—and anyone else, in fact—to have a photo opportunity for the beginning of the parliamentary sitting week. That was pretty unremarkable; prime ministers do that from time to time. They usually tell their Premier friends, particularly when they are of the same political colour, but on this occasion that did not happen. I think that has more to do with the next bit of the story than anything else.

On 17 October, that lovely Sunday in the Adelaide Hills, instead of consulting with the Adelaide Hills community or telling the Adelaide Hills community what was coming, the Prime Minister was silent. She did not say a word. She did not mention a thing. And then she came to this place the next day, some 1,300 or 1,400 kilometres away from the Adelaide Hills, and with her minister, just before question time, an hour after ringing the Premier of South Australia—in fact, she did not even ring the Premier of South Australia; she left that to her minister, thus the respect she has for Premier Mike Rann—with half an hour’s notice to the local mayor, she announced that the Inverbrackie defence housing would be turned into a detention facility for what they describe as a cohort of low-security asylum seekers.

That sent a massive shock wave through my community, so much so that an action group was formed. Members of the action group are here in parliament today. Five members of the action group have come at their own expense to parliament today to make the point that they should be listened to. And that is exactly what this motion seeks to do: force this government to do what it should have done in the first place, and that is listen to the people of Woodside and the Adelaide Hills.

Since that time, we have had all these mealy-mouthed suggestions that there are consultations going on. There has been an advisory group established that meets once a week, with a couple of locals on it. There has been a visit by the minister, which was comic in its outcome, where he visited the Adelaide Hills to consult. He went to Inverbrackie in the dark of night to do a tour but actually failed to get to Woodside. He could not quite get the extra three kilometres down the road, Mr Deputy Speaker. I know that you know just how close that is and how ridiculous it was of the minister to fail to get to Woodside on that day. Instead, he had a meeting with a hand-picked group of five or six locals and the local council to tell them what the government had already decided. I think that speaks volumes of the way that this government has handled this process. It has been a disgrace.

Since that time, of course, we have had the Prime Minister visit Adelaide to go to the new Adelaide Oval grandstand. She was able to get there, but she was not able to get 40 minutes up the hill to visit the people of Woodside. It is a great honour to have five of those people in the gallery today, trying to get this government to listen, trying to get this government to support this—I think—very worthwhile motion, which would see the Joint Standing Committee on Migration have a look at the issues in relation to the decision by this government.

I know the next speaker on the list for this debate, the member for Hindmarsh, is a great advocate of community consultation. I remember many occasions on which he, when it came to the issue of noise around Adelaide Airport, was on Adelaide radio saying endlessly that the community should be consulted. I am sure that in his remarks the member for Hindmarsh will acknowledge the fact that communities should be consulted when decisions like this are made. But, unfortunately, in this case the government has not seen it right to consult with the community, which is going to be affected so greatly by this decision.

The response we have had from the Labor ministers and the Labor government has been remarkable. You had the Minister for Trade, the clown, jester of the parliament, on TV with the member for Cook debating this issue and accusing the locals of being hysterical. So it seems that before the election, when the Prime Minister was trying to cultivate those who are worried about this issue because she has completely lost control of Australia’s borders, it was okay to express concerns about this issue. But after the election, according to the Minister for Trade, these people are ‘hysterical’. It is just not good enough. Now, today, we have had the great snub by the Prime Minister. Five locals have given up their time and money to fly to Canberra because the Prime Minister would not go to them. They have come to see the Prime Minister and there was an indication on Friday that she would see the locals from Woodside. Then, this morning, we had a phone call to say that she will not see them—after it was reported in the Advertiser and after the suggestion was made in the Advertiser that she would see them to calm their nerves. She has now deliberately snubbed them. It is just not good enough and the parliament should not stand for it. In this new parliament, with its new paradigm of openness and of letting the sun shine in over the parliament, it should shine in this Thursday morning when this motion is put to a vote. We should support this motion because it is a good one. It is a motion that the government should itself move. It is a motion about talking to people. Last week we spent a lot of time talking about a motion to talk to people, and we would expect that the Greens, given that they moved that motion last week, and the government supported it, would understand the very need for this motion here today.

The people of the Adelaide Hills are suffering under the direct consequences of decisions made by this government, because they have lost control of Australia’s borders. Every day Labor sets a new record on boat arrivals, and that is a point that has been very well made by the shadow minister for immigration. This is an issue that the government has lost control of and the consequences will be felt very much by my community. The motion very simply asks for the Joint Standing Committee on Migration to inquire into whether or not this is a suitable site to locate a detention facility for family groups. The impacts of the operation of this facility on the local community, including health, education, recreation, transport, police and community services are issues. These are questions that they would have liked to ask the Prime Minister, but she will not meet with them. She refuses to see them. The Adelaide Hills is a good enough location for a photo opportunity, but it is not good enough to talk to the locals when she is up there. We hear in the Adelaide media that the Prime Minister is going to spend Christmas in Adelaide. So we are hoping that over Christmas at the Woodside pub on Boxing Day watching the first ball of the Boxing Day test she can come out and sit down with the locals and work through these issues with them. Before she rushes ahead with this centre she should answer some of these questions.

I say again: I know the member for Hindmarsh is the next speaker and he has been long and loud on community consultation when it come to airport noise. I would hope that the member for Hindmarsh does not now back away from his view that the community should be listened to when it comes to the impacts on their community. I am sure he will not. His former employer was in the paper not a month ago—some of us have got staff connections, but we do not always go into that. The member for Hindmarsh does have a history with Nick Bolkus, a former Labor immigration minister, and the member for Hindmarsh, as a good man, will recognise that Nick Bolkus said that this was not the right place to have an immigration facility. He refused it. He said no to the department when they recommended it, and this government should say no again.

This motion should be supported because it does what the government should have done in the first place. They should have listened to this community. They should still listen to this community. They should answer the questions which are so relevant to this community about the impact on it—about the impact on their school services, their health services, their security and the so-called economic benefits we keep hearing about. This government should listen. This Prime Minister should show some courage. She should front up and talk to these people before it is too late. This motion should be supported. (Time expired)

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