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

'It is just for the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun that we are saying these things. We don't really mean it.' The Indonesian ambassador somehow was not fooled. People who have observed him over a period of time know of his sophisticated knowledge in this area. On the other hand, Indonesia is a democratic country. But in the last few weeks we have also seen some of the conditions in their detention centres, which are—as is the nature of Indonesia—being investigated by their police force.

The opposition says that we should not make any undertakings with Malaysia because they have not signed international conventions. But, they say, 'We will send boats full of refugee claimants back to Indonesia,' which has not signed either. This same opposition says that Malaysia is so dreadful, yet Anwar Ibrahim, a major opposition leader, can have a court case and be exonerated in their judicial system. We have seen liberalisation of their political processes recently. We cannot make a deal with them to try to reduce the number of boats coming to this country because this opposition wants more boats. Despite this rhetoric, they want more boats and they want more claimants. They want more pictures of boats every day of the week.

I have made this point before. The opposition immigration spokesman, the member for Cook, says: 'Malaysia is so dreadful. Yes, we did like sending them to Nauru when they were not signatories, but Malaysia is so dreadful.' In the past, he rushed around the place, trying to get the phone number of the Iranian ambassador to see whether he could negotiate to send them back to Iran. So it is wrong to send people to Malaysia but Iran is all right.

This border protection policy of those opposite has recently been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. Antonio Guterres, the former President of Portugal and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, made this comment about their policies:

We have clearly opposed pushbacks in the Italian case in the Mediterranean in the recent past before the Libyan crisis, and we think that that is clearly a violation in relation to the '51 Convention.

The policy of those opposite is going nowhere except for facing the Indonesians with the crisis of accommodating large numbers of people if they actually truthfully do board boats. When the member for Cook talks about his record being a fact, part of his record is that, under their regime, of the 173 vessels they intercepted they actually managed to board 12. But the other part of the problem, which the Australian people are aware of, is that when they do board those 12 vessels the personnel involved face grave dangers. This week a constituent who was part of that was talking to me about the recognition they should get for their service. We have had a variety of military and ex-military personnel tell us, in very grave terms, of the dangers they face. The Northern Territory coroner found in 2010:

It was apparently these fears that sparked a plan to burn the vessel to prevent its return to Indonesia. A fire would also necessitate rescue of the passengers by the—

Australian Defence Force—

and their transfer to an Australian vessel.

That is the reality. Those opposite have a policy that is going to insult the Indonesians and break down a crucial relationship for this country. It is going to ignore a real possibility of reducing the number of boats that come to this country by negotiated agreement with a country that we respect, Malaysia. They are going to condemn many of the people they are supposedly so concerned about and crying about these days to Indonesian detention centres which are going to be overcrowded, the state of which has led to a police investigation by the Indonesians in the last week.

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