Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

and the proportion of women and children taking that dangerous journey on boats went up. Before the introduction of temporary protection visas, 13 per cent of people who arrived in Australia by boat were women and children. After their introduction, it was 48 per cent. So, if we are concerned about women and children on boats, I am not sure temporary protection visas are the answer.

So here we have a suite of measures. Measure No. 3: turn the boats back. That was a triumph in the election campaign. The ‘boat phone’—remember that?—Admiral Abbott, at Kirribilli House, on the phone saying, ‘Turn that one back’; ‘Don’t turn that one back.’ That is what we had. The member for Cook has to explain this: if his policy is to turn the boats back—he said it would be in limited circumstances, where it did not cause danger; I respect that—perhaps he could share with the House what those limited circumstances would be. What would be the circumstances when the lives of our naval personnel and the lives of the asylum seekers would not be put at risk? The other thing the member for Cook might like to explain is this: he says he is going to turn them back, but to where? The member for Cook might say, ‘Indonesia’—the logical place to turn them back to. The Indonesian government has said, ‘Not on your nelly. You’re not turning them back to us.’ When the member for Cook made his announcement and the member for Warringah, the Leader of the Opposition, made his announcement during the election campaign that we would turn the boats back to Indonesia, the Indonesian foreign ministry said, ‘We think not. Not to us.’ Minister Natalegawa, the Indonesian foreign minister said:

… simply pushing back boats to where they have come from would be a backward step.

So I am not sure where he would return them.

Then we have point 4 of the honourable member for Cook’s suite of measures. I have to say, this one is probably my favourite. This is about the number of visas that would be made available to offshore entry and onshore entry. He says, ‘We would limit the number of visas available to people who arrive in Australia by boat’—to, I think, 3,750. What would this create when you think about it? You would think, ‘Okay. Let’s have a look at this idea. Maybe this has got some merit. We’ll consider it.’ The member for Cook would say, ‘If you are one of the first 3,750 people to arrive in Australia by boat, you get a visa. If you are the 3,751st, sorry, you stay in detention’—unless he would abolish mandatory detention. I am not sure that is his policy. That is a rolling detention crisis if I have ever heard one. The first 3,750 get a visa and the rest have to wait. Don’t you think that would create quite an incentive to be one of the first 3,750? Don’t you think we would have quite a rush to be part of that process? Don’t you think we would have people saying, ‘Let’s get on a boat and make sure it is in the first few months of the year to make sure we’re one of the 3,750’?

That is the suite of measures that the honourable member for Cook refers to. I refer to it as a suite of fraudulent policies which would have no impact and may have a negative impact.

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