Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Denison talks about abomination. I start by saying that the abomination in the world at the moment is that there are some 50 million people who are displaced. Around 15 million of those people are already classified as refugees and of those only about one per cent will be resettled in a third country. So for every one that Australia takes, there are many hundreds that we do not. It is an abomination that people make choices about who to assist and who not to assist. The best that decent people can do in a world like this is try to find answers that are less bad than the answers if we do not help at all. These are very real ethical issues in this, as both members who have already spoken would know, as we try to find answers that provide the most good and the least harm. Whatever we do in this particular circumstance does leave some people in real harm—many more than we actually help.

The government has been talking to our neighbours about a regional solution for some time, and before the tragic events at Christmas Island that saw many people lose their lives. There is no doubt that another tragedy is inevitable if the boats keep coming. But stopping people making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat does require a genuine breakthrough. Much of the talk in the last year or so about people smuggling has centred around Indonesia, because that is where the boats usually come from. But Malaysia is the key. Most boat arrivals in Australia pay people smugglers about $15,000 to get to Australia. They fly to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and then start their boat journey, first to Indonesia and then on to Australia. So the logic of the Malaysian arrangement is actually very simply. Why would you pay a substantial amount of money and risk your life on a boat only to be returned to where you began your boat journey?

I would expect that an announcement like this would come in for flak from both sides of the debate because, as I said, it is a problem where there is no perfect outcome and where, whatever a government does, there is room for criticism. There will always be a way to criticise. Frankly, if our politicians and the media are not mature enough to lift their commentary above mere criticism and consider the complexities of the world of refugees then it is very difficult, if not impossible, for the community at large to find a path through what are very difficult issues for us all.

I am not going to accuse the member for Melbourne of chasing votes on this—although he has accused us of chasing votes on this—but I will say that the Greens supporters probably share a very similar position on this to his so it is easy and politically expedient to espouse the same view. In the interest of good government and not just good politics, it is incumbent upon those who criticise this deal to suggest an alternative that increases Australia's role in resettling refugees while breaking the business role of the people smugglers.

Australia's role in resettling refugees, from my perspective, is perhaps one of the most important things that we do. Of the 50 million displaced people and 15 million people already classified as refugees, only one per cent are resettled in third countries. Australia is one of only about a dozen countries that resettle refugees from third countries and one of only three—the US, Canada and Australia—that do it on a reasonable scale. So we have a very important role to play in providing homes for people who really have nowhere else to go and are likely to spend many years in camps without the support of Australia.

I am very pleased that, in the deal we have done with Malaysia, we are increasing the humanitarian intake from Malaysia by 4,000 people. Malaysia currently has around 92,000 people who are registered as refugees and in total around 270,000 displaced people living in the community. So Malaysia has a very large number of people. I am incredibly pleased to see that Australia is increasing its intake by 4,000. I would very much like to see a world in which we could concentrate more on that aspect of the important work that we do, particularly since we are one of the few countries that do that. I am glad to see us begin to change the debate towards the importance of that resettlement role for Australia by the taking of this additional 4,000 people.

See this speech in context