Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I will do in future, Mr Deputy Speaker. But, as with two of the areas that she nominated as reasons that the government had lost its way—the carbon tax and the mining tax—she has managed to take a bad situation and make it worse. One of the first things she did when she came to office was to axe the border protection committee of cabinet. This Prime Minister was so concerned about border protection, so concerned that the government had lost its way on border protection, that she abolished the highest level decision-making body that they had for dealing with the problem. That body was not even a year old. It had been announced by the former Prime Minister as a central part of Labor's response to people smuggling, and they had shelled out $2.8 million of taxpayers' money on it. When the Prime Minister was asked about that in the parliament today, she said: 'I prefer to just send these things to the National Security Committee of Cabinet.' I think her record of attending that National Security Committee of Cabinet speaks for itself. Clearly that shows how she prioritises border protection.

Secondly, she came up with the so-called East Timor solution. This is probably right up there with the people's assembly on climate change as one of the silliest ideas that has ever been floated by an Australian Prime Minister. It was announced in the heat of an election campaign without anyone within the government of East Timor having been consulted, and they rightly killed the policy from day one. Whilst Australian foreign policy professionals had to trawl around the region exposing themselves to extreme ridicule, the government pretended that there were still ongoing negotiations with the East Timorese, when everybody with even a vague familiarity with this problem knew that that just was not true.

Then came the PNG solution. The Labor Party were going to reopen Manus Island, something that the Papua New Guinean government was apparently well disposed towards, but they still managed to bungle that by sending up such a low-level member of the government—because we know the Minister for Foreign Affairs would not deign to touch these issues. They sent up the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs. The fact that he was such a low-level emissary from the Australian government so offended the Papua New Guineans that they refused to make any progress on the arrangement, even though both sides of politics there were apparently well disposed towards it.

Then the Labor Party came up with the Malaysian people-swap deal. In a deal that highlights what savvy negotiators the Labor Party are, they have managed to get the Malaysians to take 800 of ours for 4,000 of theirs and we will get to pay the total cost. According to the Prime Minister and her hapless minister, this was a done deal with only minor details to be sorted out. It was announced on a Saturday eight weeks ago. Since that time, the immigration minister has been out there briefing journalists that it is about to be signed. They briefed journalists that the Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs would be on his way down within the next few days. That was a few weeks ago.

Why Labor announced an arrangement before they concluded it is a great mystery. It was an incredibly silly thing to do because it completely undermined the very little leverage they had with the Malaysian government. They made a desperate negotiating position even worse. They had a position that was so weak they could only arrange a five-for-one people-swap. Then the government went further and they undermined any possible leverage that they could use through a panicked public announcement of these half-baked arrangements.

They have spent the eight weeks since then—and the minister has done it again today—congratulating themselves on 'breaking the people smugglers' business model'. I have news for the minister and for Labor: they are the people smugglers' business model. If they want to destroy the people smugglers' business model, the best thing they could do is resign. People smuggling had been destroyed when they came to office, and they took a defibrillator and reinvigorated it—they zapped it back into life. The people-smuggling community are probably about the only ones left supporting this Prime Minister. The people smugglers have this government's measure. They understand that the Labor Party are all spin and no substance on tackling their evil trade. That is why, since this announcement was made eight weeks ago, they have actually sent more people illegally to Australia than arrived in the last six years of the Howard government. The people smugglers have seen how these guys opposite operate. They do not take them seriously, which is something they share with most of the Australian people.

The worse things have become, the more Labor has resorted to spin and misinformation in trying to hide the true state of affairs from the Australian people. After 15 minutes the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship was completely and utterly unable to provide this House with even the most basic details of the ongoing negotiations with the Malaysians. What exactly has been going on for the past two months? Why has this minister been briefing journalists, saying that an agreement is imminent? What is actually going to happen and how is this deal going to operate? Labor cannot even tell the Australian people what is going to happen to the people who have arrived since this deal was announced and who are currently detained on Christmas Island. The government insists they are going to be transferred to a third country, but it cannot say if Malaysia is going to accept these people or if Malaysia will have the right of refusal over people who arrive here. It cannot say if Malaysia will accept people who arrive in Australia without documentation, which is a pretty important point considering that about 80 per cent of people who arrive here illegally do not have any documentation.

The minister has been briefing the media, saying that the people who are sent to Malaysia are going to be tagged somehow. He is seriously telling people that he believes that is going to protect their human rights. The government has absolutely no idea what fate is going to befall the people it sends to Malaysia. It does not know how they will be fed or how they will sustain themselves. People there do not have work rights. Imagine if you were sent there and had a family—what would you do if you could not work? What would you be required to do to support them? You know that your children will not be educated. The government certainly cannot guarantee that people will not be subject to corporal punishment. These are legitimate questions, which the Australian people are right to ask, and the government should be providing answers to them.

We do not even know basic details about how people will be transferred to Malaysia. In the wake of the Oceanic Viking debacle, when asylum seekers were able essentially to hijack an Australian government vessel, we must wonder what would happen if that were repeated on a charter flight or an Australian Air Force flight that was flying people from Christmas Island to Kuala Lumpur. The government has not provided the Australian people with any details about the security that will be provided on flights. Will it be provided by the Australian Federal Police? If so, what powers will they have, particularly once that plane lands in Malaysia? Will the Malaysian authorities be responsible for taking people off if they refuse to get off the flight? I asked the Minister for Home Affairs exactly that series of questions last week in the House. His response was so vague as to be worthless. Quite frankly, he should just have stood up, shrugged his shoulders and stopped wasting everybody's time.

It was once possible to give these guys the benefit of the doubt about some of these policy questions. But when they have such an astonishing record of failure and incompetence, the time to provide the benefit of the doubt has well and truly passed. The eight weeks of silence since the Malaysian deal was announced show that it has gone completely off the rails. There is certainly a better way, and I ask the government to— (Time expired)

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