Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Hansard source

It has been a very, very important revelation for the Australian people that there could be coherent and passionate debate in this chamber. I hope that this debate will continue. It is obviously not up to me to restate the positions of both sides, but it has become pretty clear that this debate is about two irreconcilable policy areas: on the one hand the human rights issue, which we are defending, and on the other side a determination to stick with the Malaysia solution. That gives us a fairly simple framework within which to conduct this debate. I will cover some of the moral inconsistencies this debate is grappling with and then talk about some of the realities of source countries that have not been addressed. Then I will talk about where we can potentially go from here in the way of solutions.

One of the great frustrations of the Australian people is this debate, which has moved to policy prominence the arrival of boats from overseas. The top 3 reasons that we would be talking politics around a barbecue on how the government lost its way two years ago is what happened in 2008 and 2009 when the Australian government slowly, like the young Dutch boy in the parable, picked away at the dyke. That is right—the protections that had been put in place in the years before were slowly unravelled, and we waited for the inevitable. As in the parable, suddenly what has happened over the last few months has brought home to the Australian people the horrible reality not only that there was there no willingness on that side of the chamber to address the problem but also that now, in a time of crisis, this government is learning that it may not be able to address the problem legislatively.

A bill that could have been brought here to be debated has been sitting for months and months. There is only one thing that this side of the chamber has stood for and that is to listen to the High Court's decision on section 198 of the act which covers human rights. We on this side will protect the rights of people who are resettled. We are the side of politics that is doing that today. Let no-one standing on the other side forget that if there is one thing that holds up this legislation—be it from the government or handed to the member for Lyne with a little dill and dressing to pass it off as an independent bill—and that the same issue stands: we have a government fundamentally unable to let go of its Malaysian deal. That side of the House, when in opposition, placed human rights above all things. This was the great Australian Labor Party tradition, and I now wonder about the sorry carapace that is left on that side of the chamber, because the one thing that the government is prepared to trade away is the very thing that the opposition is standing firm on. No political party in any civilised Western democracy should ever pass up human rights as a way of getting an expedient political solution. I remember a mate of mine Jay Ryan, from San Francisco, who used to say, 'Always prefer a punt to a sack,' and that is exactly what the government is doing on human rights so that it can get a quick solution. The Australian parliament should never do that. That is why we will stand firm.

Let us now examine how they have worked very hard on the government side of the chamber to narrow this debate down to a squabble between two irreconcilable ideologies. Actually, that is not the case at all: this is a Labor Party that stood up for human rights once. Whether we take the utilitarian approach or the Catholic social theological approach we look after those who are most vulnerable. But the Labor Party has lost sight of that. With the first arrival that appears on our shores, it forgets about the situation in source countries. The previous speaker made that so clear. If we go to Afghanistan and see the suffering, then we must consider equally those vulnerable people who cannot get onto a commercial flight and fly to South-East Asia as we do the ones who arrive. They deserve equal consideration. I think that that is a thoroughly reasonable proposition.

We spend five per cent less on border processing in Quetta in Pakistan than we do on last-gasp situations here in our northern oceans. We have simply forgotten about and lost the opportunity to do cross-border processing. There is no dialogue with these nations. Remember also that half of all arrivals come from democratically-supported governments. Those source countries have democracies. Most of their problems are internecine and sectarian. That is not what the treaty was set up for, yet we could be working with those countries at source. But there is no talk of that from this government.

Let me remind everyone: we are a Westminster democracy. If a government cannot negotiate with the crossbenchers or with the opposition and get a bill through the Senate, then today we are debating nothing more than a zombie bill. It is the walking dead bill that was killed off in the Senate. What we need to do is find some ground for the government and— (Time expired)

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