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

The coalition joins with the government in supporting the establishment of the joint select committee on the Christmas Island tragedy of 15 December 2010. This committee process is an important part of the ongoing process of examining all the issues and details that specifically pertain to this terribly tragic incident in December of last year. This was an extraordinary event. It is an event that none of us want to see happen again, and it is an event which I think calls for new and extraordinary arrangements to ensure that we cover all the processes that are required.

The composition of this committee is not usual in terms of the involvement of crossbenchers, opposition parties and the government. The coalition is happy to cooperate with the government to have this different set of arrangements for the formation of this committee to enable this task to be undertaken. Obviously, in doing so I am sure the government will agree that this does not form any precedent for these types of arrangements on an ongoing basis, and we appreciate the discussions we have had with the government along those lines.

This inquiry will examine the details of what occurred around that fateful day and the things that have been done since then to support those who were involved. I want to thank the government on behalf of the shadow minister for border protection and myself for the timely and open access we had to information from the government over those terrible days. The coalition sought briefings and were given briefings. Those briefings were freely offered, and we found that process to be very effective at a very difficult time. I particularly want to thank the minister at the table, the Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Justice and Minister for Privacy and Freedom of Information and I want to thank the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship for the very open and direct access we had, as I know that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister for foreign affairs also had as we worked through that process.

This is a new process. As the minister said, we have had other reviews to date. We have had the internal review undertaken by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. I want to place on record again, in joining with the minister, the coalition’s thanks and appreciation to the men and women of the Customs and Border Protection Service and the men and women of our defence forces who were involved in the border protection command. I want to put on record again our thanks to all of those in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship who have been involved in dealing with these issues subsequent to that fateful day. This has been a very difficult time but I think, in all of these cases, that our officials have served us well and have been open to providing the advice and information that we need

This inquiry will go further into the details and I suspect it will not be the last of these inquiries, but all of these inquiries are important. And I think it is important to understand that, in undertaking these inquiries, the parliament, the coalition and, I am sure, the government and the crossbenches, believe nothing less than that the men and women of our border protection and customs service and our defence forces did everything humanly possible to assist those in need—in fact, going to the extent of putting their own lives at risk to save so many. It is indeed a miracle that so many survived this tragedy, and we are thankful for that miracle. It is tragic how many lives were lost. So we will ask these questions, we will conduct this inquiry, we will learn the things that we need to learn and we will move on.

Question agreed to.

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