Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

This time last year, when we considered appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4, I stood here and said that the government were going to seek more money for failed policy and they did. They came into this place this time last year and they sought an extra $98 million in the immigration portfolio for offshore asylum seeker management—an extra $98 million. The actual budget for that year was $124, 981,000. They came here in February and asked for almost a doubling of that budget. It did not stop there because, by the end of that year, not only had they spent the $98 million but they had spent an additional $69 million, more than double what they had spent that year. At that time I said that these were the costs of failed policy. At that time, when the government put their first budget together, in 2009-10, the estimated costs for that year were $125 million. At that time, since the failure of the government’s policies, 19 boats and 707 people have arrived.

When I stood in this place in February last year, when the government were asking for more money, around 70 boats had arrived. There is a terrible sense of deja vu here because, here we are again, the government having already budgeted at the beginning of this year for $460 million, they have come back into this place on operating costs alone and they are now asking for another $290 million. And 208 boats have arrived. There is a pattern here of failed policy. The government continue to persist with policies that have failed and they keep coming into this place and asking for more money to pay for those failures. Those are the facts that are before this parliament and that is the question being put to this parliament. The government say, ‘We won’t change the policies, we can’t change our failures, so just give us more money to pay for these failures.’ By the end of this year I guarantee that they will not have spent $760 million which, by the way, is more than seven times the amount the government were spending on this matter when they were first elected. It will be more than that, more boats will come and no changes will be made to policy.

I oppose the government’s policy in this area, because it has failed. It is a policy which I oppose. That opposition will not change until the government changes their policy to things that work. Interestingly, this time last year when I was engaged in this very same debate, when I raised the issues of cost in this chamber, the member for Longman—who, I note, is no longer here—called me a racist. This time last year I raised issues of cost. I find it a chilling echo of a year ago: when I continue to raise issues of cost the government cast all sorts of slurs. My comments on cost continue.

Here we are back at groundhog day, because the cost is not changing and the government’s policies are not changing. Here they find themselves throwing the same old insults without any proof or any ability to substantiate anything they have claimed. Things have been repudiated and here we have a government that are trying to run away from their own failures.

Let us go through those failures. Those failures to date have seen 10,250 people arrive on their watch on 208 boats. Two of those boats included SIEV36, which was set alight and on which people were killed, and SIEV221, which was the most tragic of those cases as it crashed against the rocks of Christmas Island in December last year. There are other boats that have gone missing. In a speech last year I referred to one boat containing over 100 Afghanis who had left in the previous October and their families never heard from them again. At least 220 people, we know, have perished on these voyages. Yet the government still have not changed their policies. The costs continue to rise at all levels both in human terms and in financial terms. I oppose the government on their policies because they are not effective in discouraging people from taking these journeys that lead to their most tragic loss. I oppose the government on these policies because, since the government came to office, the number of special humanitarian visas that have been provided to offshore applicants in our program has fallen from one in three to one in five. That is around 1,500 fewer places for that special humanitarian program in this year alone. These are the impacts of failed policies.

I know the government do not want to focus on their failures. I know the government want to cause every distraction they can because they do not want to sit in this place and hear me remind them on a daily basis of their failures. Their failures in the area of border protection are manifest. They can throw whatever they like at me, but this opposition to their failed policies on border protection will continue. It will continue until they are changed.

As I look at the specific appropriations in these bills, I see that in Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011 there is $290 million extra for the running costs in the blow-out this year of offshore asylum seeker management. In Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2010-2011, there is $152.8 million in additional capital expenditure for the establishment of the Northam detention centre and the Inverbrackie detention centre, which was previously announced by the government.

It is interesting what you find when you do your homework in this place. A statement by Senator Evans—and I will seek to table this document at the end of my remarks—on 8 February 2008 said this:

The Pacific solution was a cynical, costly and ultimately unsuccessful exercise introduced on the eve of a federal election by the Howard government.

This is how much he said the entire program cost—$289 million. That is less than what the government are asking for in this appropriation for their blow-out just this year. This cost that the minister at the time referred to was not just for a six-month period. This cost of $289 million was for between September 2001 and June 2007 to run the Nauru and Manus OPCs. It cost less to run the Pacific solution for almost six years, on the government’s own statement, than what the government are asking for in this appropriation bill to cover the cost of their own policy failures in less than a six-month period. That is an indictment of the government in their own terms. If they think $289 million to put in place a policy that worked is a waste of money, I would like to know what the cost blow-out of the government is in their own terms, using their own criteria.

Let us think about what these have been. In May 2009, in the budget for the following financial year, they estimated forward costs of $124 million for that year, $113 million for the following year, $110 million for the 2011-12 year and $106 million for the 2012-13 year. This is how the record now reads in terms of the most recent additional estimates published by this government: in the year they were going to spend $125 million—that is, last year—they spent $292 million, and in the year they said they were going to spend $113 million—that is, this year—they are going to spend, at this stage, $761 million. But guess what? They say, in their additional estimates, that next year the costs are going to fall by half a billion dollars. This government is saying that next financial year—it is not that far away; it is four months away—the costs in this budget for their failed border protection policies are going to fall by half a billion dollars.

Such is going to be the success of their not changing their policies that they are going to continue to keep costs at that level for the next three years. What that means is that, on their own additional estimates figures, they have already blown out the budget by over $1 billion. If costs stay at least where they are forecast to stay this year, then over the next three years that is going to cost another $1.5 billion—and that is just running costs; I have not even started talking about capital. That is on top of the $290 million they are asking from this parliament today. It is worth observing that that blow-out over the next three years plus the blow-out they are asking for in this document alone are more than the funds they intend to raise from the flood levy through the legislation that they have brought into this parliament.

This is a government whose failings on this level know no parallel. This is a government that does not want to hear and does not want the Australian people to hear the scale of its failures. The Australian people can rely on one thing, and that is that this is an opposition that is not easily intimidated. We have an opposition leader in this country who is not easily intimidated. There is a shadow minister for immigration and citizenship, supported by my colleagues, who will not be intimidated into refraining from holding this government to account for its failures in border protection. This is a government that seems to think it can make decisions that are above public scrutiny. Well, the Australian people do not think that and the opposition does not think that.

As uncomfortable as it is for the government to hear me come into this place day in, day out; week in, week out; month in, month out; and year in, year out, I will be loud and clear in saying that this government’s border protection policies have failed. That failure is on this government’s head. It is there in the costs and it is there in the human tragedy that has occurred as a result of people smugglers that the government has been unable to stop with its own policies. The government’s only reaction is to come into this place and repeat malicious gossip in a way that tries to distract attention from its own failures.

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