Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It is no wonder that he wanted to resign, because the policy which his government is now pursuing, the policy which he is now required to implement, is, by his own standards, in his own words, an indecent policy.

Let's consider in more detail the sorry history of this government's handling of this issue, which not only betrays a lack of principle but shows a complete lack of competence. Since the Prime Minister belatedly 'lurched to the right', in the words of her predecessor—since the Prime Minister was convinced that this lurch to the right, as Kevin Rudd, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, put it, was necessary—we have had the so-called East Timor solution, and that did not work because the Prime Minister did not understand that the head of the government in East Timor is actually the Prime Minister and not the President. She called the President, not the Prime Minister—the one who is actually in control of these matters.

Then, of course, we had the Manus Island proposal, and that did not work; the Prime Minister sent a parliamentary secretary to supplicate the PNG government and the PNG government rather understandably thought, 'If this is important, come yourself.' Not only was she too proud to pick up the phone to the President of Nauru; she was too proud to send Kevin Rudd to PNG because he had a vital engagement in Kazakhstan at the time. Then we had the Malaysian people swap, which is unworthy of a self-respecting and serious country.

Then we had the events of this week, which demonstrated that the government are incapable of holding a position from Friday evening until Monday morning. On Friday evening, the Prime Minister dispatched senior officials of the immigration department, plus the Solicitor-General and another senior lawyer from that department, to brief the coalition on what the government had in mind. What the government had in mind was a truly remarkable abandonment of the principles which have always governed offshore processing in this country. What the government had in mind was to completely strip out of the Migration Act the requirement that Philip Ruddock, the member for Berowra, put in there back in 2001 that the countries to which Australia sent people had to observe relevant human rights standards. That was our position. That was our law. Yes, we believed in offshore processing, but we did not believe in offshore processing 'anywhere under any circumstances'. They stripped out the protections, because what they were on about in the legislation that they gave to us last Friday was not offshore processing but offshore dumping.

We made those points. The shadow Attorney-General, the shadow foreign affairs minister, the shadow minister for immigration and I, in a spirit of candour and constructive cooperation with the government, made the point that it would be very difficult for us to support legislation that did not retain the requirements for human rights to be protected and for people to be properly processed offshore. So I went and saw the Prime Minister late on Monday morning, as requested, and there was a new draft proposal, new legislation. But this legislation—

Opposition members interjecting—

As one of my colleagues says, 'Even a weekend is a long time in politics when it comes to this government.' The new legislation that we were presented with on Monday morning paid lip-service to the protections that we had talked about on the Friday evening, but it did not guarantee them. In fact the advice that we had from former Solicitor-General David Bennett QC was that the Monday morning position was in fact worse than the Friday evening position, because the Monday morning position was just as deficient on protections but was much worse when it came to legal certainty. That is why this legislation deserves to be defeated if it is not amended.

I want to turn briefly to the expert advice which the Prime Minister often refers to in this parliament. There is, in my judgment, no persuasive case that offshore processing in Nauru cannot work in the future; because it has worked in the past. Again and again we hear from members of the government that 90 or 95 per cent of the people sent to Nauru ended up in Australia. Dead wrong. I am not allowed in this parliament to call it a lie, but it is not a truth. And if I were not in this parliament I would say that it is a lie. The truth, which members opposite well know, is that 30 per cent of the people who went to Nauru ended up in their home country; 27 per cent ended up in a third country; and only 43 per cent ended up in Australia, and they often came here after a delay of up to five years. It was a very powerful deterrent. It was a powerful deterrent then; it can be a powerful deterrent again. The final point I make about Nauru is that it was a decent thing for the Australian government and the Australian people to do because, at all times, we knew that people being sent to Nauru were being looked after in accordance with decent standards, our standards, that were being supervised by Australians.

It is claimed that the expert advice is that boats could no longer be turned around. How can they say that when the government just has not tried? Kevin Rudd, back in 2007, said that he would be tough enough to turn the boats around, but not once has the government since then actually tried to turn boats around. Then it said that temporary protection visas would no longer be effective because most of the people on temporary protection visas were eventually given permanent residency. If temporary protection visas are not effective, why have there not been any more boats in Canada since temporary protection visas were put in place there?

It is very clear: Nauru is a proven success; Malaysia is a proven failure. Having put before us this proven failure, having asked this parliament to vote for a proven failure, they have absolutely no plan B. Again and again in this parliament members on this side of the House have asked the Prime Minister what happens when the 801st person arrives, and she has absolutely no answer. I have a clear message for the Australian people and for members opposite: this coalition does not vote for failure. This coalition votes for success. That is why this coalition is determined to vote for our amendment and, if our amendment fails, to vote against this bill.

When I saw the Prime Minister on Monday she said that the legislation would be introduced on Wednesday but then it would not actually be debated in the parliament until the following sitting fortnight because they had a very important bill before the parliament—the carbon tax bill—and it was so important that this particular amendment was going to have to wait. Now we are debating this amendment today and all of us in this parliament know why we are debating it today—because the Prime Minister is not sure of her numbers. Daily her numbers are crumbling and that is why we are debating this bill today. The one thing that the Prime Minister does not want is to have the Minister for Foreign Affairs back in this parliament. She does not want to risk this parliament having to decide this matter with the foreign minister present in the parliament. You can just imagine the Prime Minister's little speech to her cronies in the caucus, 'Let's not have a lurch to the Left,' because that is what we might have if the foreign minister comes back.

The other message we have heard again and again from the Prime Minister in the course of the last few weeks is that somehow the coalition is betraying the national interest by failing to support bad policy from a bad government. I say to this Prime Minister: it is never the opposition's job to support bad policy from a bad government. It is never the job of the parliament to give a blank cheque to the executive government. Does this Prime Minister not know any constitutional history at all? Has she no understanding of Westminster whatsoever? It is simply wrong for this Prime Minister to repeat, as she does time and time again, that somehow the opposition leader is required to assemble a parliamentary majority for the Prime Minister's legislation. She is only the Prime Minister because she says that she can command a majority for her legislation. If in fact she cannot command a majority for the important legislation of this government, there are options open to her and she should take them. If the Prime Minister cannot command the confidence of this House and of this parliament on an issue as important as this, the question then arises: should she have the confidence to remain as Prime Minister?

Let me conclude by reminding the House of where this government and this country will be left should the Prime Minister fail to accept the amendment that the coalition is putting before it. Remember: this amendment guarantees offshore processing, but it guarantees offshore processing with the protection that it must take place in a country which is a signatory to the UN refugee convention. Our amendment secures offshore processing, but it also does the best we can to secure human decency and to protect human rights, subject to the kind of legal certainty that the government now thinks is necessary in the wake of the High Court decision. If the government fails to accept our amendment, we will have no choice but to oppose the legislation. The likelihood is that, on the basis of that opposition, the legislation will fail to pass through the parliament. That will mean that the government has no capacity in its assessment to send people offshore. That is not an assessment that this coalition shares. We believe that, even under the existing legislation, offshore processing at Nauru is possible and desirable.

What the government will have left itself with is its strong assessment, its categorical conviction, that offshore processing is no longer possible combined with its constant statements over the last few weeks that without offshore processing our borders are simply uncontrollable. This will be a government that has put itself in the position of failing to do what is the first duty of any government, namely, to protect the borders of our country. A government which cannot protect the borders of our country is a government that is incapable of doing its job. A Prime Minister who is incapable of protecting the borders of our country is a Prime Minister who has manifestly failed in the highest task she has. Frankly, it is a government and a Prime Minister who should resign and not engage in the kind vituperation that I am sure we are going to get again and again in this parliament on this matter.

This is a Prime Minister and a government which now say that without offshore processing border protection is impossible. I wonder what they were thinking then in 2008, when the government closed down offshore processing. I wonder what the government has been doing for the last 12 months, when it has not sent a single person offshore to be processed. I say this is a government that can have offshore processing today. All it has to do is to accept the amendment that the opposition is quite sensibly and quite properly putting forward. It can have offshore processing in 148 countries, if that is what it wants. There are 148 countries to choose from. Certainly, it can have offshore processing in Nauru, which worked, and it can have offshore processing on Manus, which was its own policy until it seems to have been forgotten just a few weeks ago. This is a government which can have what it wants. It just has to say, 'Yes, we will accept the opposition's amendment.'

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