Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Followers of John the Baptist. Apparently it is necessary for their religion for them to be positioned close to water. The Iranian regime is quite brutal towards these people. I sat down and spoke to a lady, and what she had done was to travel from Iran to Jordan. In Jordan she bought passage from someone and paid some $20,000 for the air tickets from Jordan to Jakarta. When she got to Jakarta she and her family made their way overland to a people-smuggling port where they bought passage to Australia. She felt indignant that she was locked up in the Baxter detention centre because she felt that she had entered into a commercial transaction to provide a new life for her and her family in Australia. I found her quite a delightful person and I must say that my heart went out to their family circumstances. But clearly she and her family had paid what they saw was commercial passage to people smugglers. I do not ultimately know what happened to that family, but the reality is that if the government is prepared to put out a welcome mat to people smugglers then more and more people will be prepared to enter into what they consider to be commercial transactions. As we all know and from what we have seen, the conditions on these boats are life-threatening. They endanger life, and the result is that people have lost their lives and more people will lose their lives because of the inappropriate approach we currently have towards people smuggling.

The government today in question time failed to answer the question on whether people who were found responsible for endeavouring to sink a boat were successful in obtaining visas and entry to Australia. I can only suggest that in fact some of those people must have gained visas to remain in Australia because otherwise the question would not have been asked. I am waiting with interest to hear what the Prime Minister has to say to the parliament when she comes back, having researched that particular situation.

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