Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to cite the member for Murray, a friend of the person interjecting opposite, who was their spokesperson at one stage. On 1 December 2008 she said, and this is a very timely comment I have to agree, 'The closure of Nauru and Manus Island … of course they had basically—what shall we say—outlived their need … I do not think we need to again have Nauru and Manus Island operating, because we've got of course Christmas Island.' Today they are saying that this government must operate Nauru and no other alternative in the whole world. Back then, as I said, on 1 December on 2SM, a reputable station, she made the comment that Nauru had outlived its time.

Mr Entsch interjecting—

If the member opposite is not satisfied with that—there might be some mistake in that quote, I do not think there is—she went further on 16 April 2009 in the Australian, a reputable source according to the member opposite. She said about the Pacific solution:

We no longer have that requirement because we've got an alternative place which is in our excised migration zone, Christmas Island.

Today and in the weeks past the opposition will not cooperate with this government to get a policy to have some controls on the entry of boats to this country, because we will not go along with Nauru, and yet in 2008 and 2009 there was no need for this alternative.

They were getting very excited today about whether or not the Prime Minister had said that 90 per cent of the Nauru people came to Australia or whether it was 70 per cent to Australia and 20 per cent to New Zealand. What a minor issue that is in this broad nationally important issue. Quite frankly, as members on this side have said, it was no disincentive to those claimants to be sent to New Zealand. We all know, for instance, that Fijian Indians predominantly went to New Zealand to come to Australia because of New Zealand's more liberal immigration policy on recognising claims from Fiji. We know, despite some toughening up in social security in recent years, that vast numbers of New Zealanders, which they would become, would eventually come to Australia. Even if for a moment we give them some concessions with regard to that statistical irrelevancy then it certainly would mean that most of those people came to Australia. They talk about a blow-out of costs; they talk about deaths at sea. I do not recall any concern by them when many people died under their policies.

The other point is that this government, like any government, needs to have some controls over immigration policy. If we are to have a humanitarian refugee intake which reflects the problems of the time then we, the Australian government, must have some controls about who is coming in in that 13,750 people each year. If we do not, if the opposition does not cooperate with us in getting the government some control in this policy area, again this country cannot respond to the United Nations or even the UNHCR when they come to this government and say to us, 'These Bhutanese have been in camps for 17 years in Nepal. Will you help us take some?' Australia, Canada, America and New Zealand can say: 'Yes, we will help you because we have some control. We will determine some of the people in that intake.' Australia turned around and took 1,000 Bhutanese over a three-year period.

To give credit to those opposite, equally when the UNHCR said: 'Australia has not been interested enough in Africa. We have crises in Congo, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone. We have many widows with large families that have no protection,' the previous Liberal government could turn around and say, 'Yes, we will set aside one-third of Australia's refugee humanitarian intake for Africans.' Similarly, in the last year or so, the current government has reacted to the request, again from the UNHCR, that we should take Burmese. In years past the government of this country, when requested by the UNHCR—by the way, the UNHCR says this country has the best settlement process in the world—could turn around and say that we will take some Burmese Rohingya who have been in camps in Bangladesh for long periods. We cannot do that if the opposition is making sure that we cannot do anything about boat arrivals. If they are digging in in some arrogant attempt at partisan politics to avoid supporting the national interest by giving the government of this country, Labor or Liberal, executive power to determine where we can negotiate agreements to send people offshore, then it is on their head. For all their rhetoric about security and migration policy which has international legitimacy, it is on their head if they do not cooperate with this government in making sure that the executive can indeed have power in this area.

We have seen, as I said, much rhetoric today from them. They talked also about non-discriminatory policy. They complained that for a period of time this government said that we would look at the situation in Afghanistan and in Sri Lanka before we will examine some cases. I know that during the election before last they went around to Middle Eastern Christian communities in the presence of migration department officials and they said to those very biased, very bigoted groups who have had a bad experience in the Middle East, 'If you elect us, not one Muslim will be let in from the Middle East.' They knew that they could not legally do it, but they went around saying that they would determine our immigration policy on a discriminatory basis. They have the hide to come in here today and say that—because there were conflicting views from various NGOs about the situation of human rights in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka and we thought there was a need to slow down processing to see what the state of their internal human rights was—that is discrimination when they went around before that election— (Time expired)

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