Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

You can. The estimates vary. But it is likely that between 96 per cent and 99 per cent of asylum seekers arrive by air originally. The majority of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia arrive by air. Let us be leaders and not followers. Let us talk about the actual facts. Let us not whip up the debate yet again. Why do we keep demonising these individuals? The majority of them under the Howard government and the majority under the Labor government have become or will become Australian citizens. The majority have been found or will be found to be refugees and settle in this country.

Does anyone think about the long-term impact that all these debates have on these individuals and how they then settle into our country? Does anyone think about how we then ask them to become model citizens after we have locked them up in Nauru for five years or on Manus Island for seven, while we continually use these debates for cheap political point-scoring? Let us be leaders, not followers.

The other thing we need to remember is that the vast majority of asylum seekers never make it to the developed world. The vast majority of asylum seekers are sitting in Pakistan or other Third World countries as we speak. If we are going to talk about dealing with this issue, why are we not talking about it at an international level? That these people seek to come to Australia is not just our issue; it is a worldwide issue; it is a growing issue and we need to deal with it in a respectful manner. We need to stop being hysterical about it. We need to realise that the vast majority of the asylum seeker population will go to developing countries. They will seek asylum in those developing countries, seeking refuge from even worse circumstances—and we want to beat up on the Australian situation instead of talking about what we are doing about the international problem?

There is also the notion that somehow there is this backdoor approach—that the asylum seekers are coming through the back door. The majority of these people have no other option but to seek to flee by precarious means. The majority of them do not have papers; they are not legally recognised in their country of origin and cannot just rock up to an Australian embassy. It is not possible for them to just go somewhere in their country and line up and form a queue. This ridiculous notion keeps being propagated by the opposition.

The opposition just want to keep talking about how they are going to stop boats and reintroduce TPV’s. As the minister has outlined, neither of these ideas works and neither of them has worked. The member for Berowra, when he was in the chamber before, was screaming, ‘Turn a boat around; turn one around and they will stop.’ They tried that with Tampait did not exactly stop the boats, did it? It has not put people off seeking to come to this country by precarious means.

We do need to stop people getting into leaky boats. I remember SIEVX. People do not talk about that; they do not talk about the hundreds of people who drowned attempting that risky voyage. We do not want people to get on leaky boats. The opposition keeps propagating this view that it is somehow in Labor’s interests to keep going on about encouraging asylum seekers. Well, we do not want people to risk their lives. We do not want to see people put their lives at risk. That is why TPV’s were so notoriously bad—because they encouraged women and children to put their lives at risk. Again, the minister has outlined this situation.

During the period 2005 to 2007, I conducted an inquiry on behalf of the ALP into maritime protection. The then government went on about its great border protection. In fact, the borders were incredibly porous then; there were no controls. We went to community after community in Indigenous areas who were terrified that their livelihoods were being pilfered daily by Indonesian fishermen. There was no consideration about border protection on that issue. Have you gone and looked at the beautiful trochus shells harvested off the coast of WA? The entire harvest of those shells was illegally taken by Indonesians within a short distance of the shore. The Howard government did nothing about that situation; they did nothing to protect our borders against illegal fishermen; they did nothing to protect our borders with respect to gun control. Hopefully, one day the hysteria on the other side—the demonising of people—will end. (Time expired)

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