Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate. As we gather this evening, I think it is important that we keep in mind the context of how we got ourselves into this situation, how we got into this mess, and reflect on what has happened in the past as we try to build a better future for people who seek asylum in this country. It is true that this government did inherit a system of border protection and controls that was working, and it legislated to have it unravelled. I do not make that comment out of any triumphalism or to apportion any blame. But it is a simple fact that the previous system was working and we deliberately legislated in such a way as to allow the system to unravel.

I do acknowledge that there is a need for action and there is a need for urgency in this situation. The events of the past week have brought it home to this place, but certainly there have been other terrible incidents where people's lives have been lost at sea. So I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate, and I believe that we do have the capacity in this building, among members on both sides of this House, to come up with some solutions that we can all live with. I doubt that we will come up with a solution that will be perfect, but I think we will be able to come up with something we can all live with. Unfortunately, the legislation before the House, put forward by the member for Lyne, is not something that we on this side can live with, so we have put forward some amendments which I strongly support.

This debate is very welcome and is long overdue, and there is a need for some leadership in the way we manage this issue. I have had the opportunity over the past decade to watch this debate unfold from two different perspectives: one as a member of the public, and I watched and listened as John Howard was vilified for his so-called Pacific solution. I heard the left-wing media commentators and others describe him as inhumane, racist and mean-spirited, but under that suite of policies people were not drowning at sea in unseaworthy vessels trying to make it to Australia. So I do question those who lectured and pilloried the former Prime Minister and the member for Berowra: exactly what was inhumane about their policy when we look at the situation we have today where hundreds of people have died in recent years and more than 20,000 unauthorised arrivals have sought to make it to Australia in dangerous conditions?

The second vantage point from which I viewed this debate was in this place as a new member of parliament. I watched as the Rudd and Gillard governments sought to unwind those previous policies. The underlying principle for me in the way I have approached this debate and the way I try to consider how we should go forward is clearly to first do no harm. I think there is a lesson in that for all of us. The Rudd government, in its efforts supposedly to find a more humane approach, actually put the asylum seekers in a worse position and gave the people-smuggling industry an opportunity to flourish, and they have taken up that opportunity with a great deal of vigour.

I cannot support the legislation before the House, because it does provide for the government's so-called Malaysian solution. Today we have heard a lot of people on this side talk about the lack of human rights protections under the Malaysian solution. I think there are some real practical reasons why the Malaysian solution will not work. Quite simply, when we have got up to 1,000 unauthorised arrivals each month and the Malaysian solution involves swapping 800 unauthorised arrivals with 4,000 refugees from Malaysia, there is simply a practical problem there. The people smugglers themselves will flood the market. They will flood the market, achieve the first 800, swamp the Malaysian solution within a couple of weeks and we will be back where we started from.

The other issue I am concerned about is that I believe the people-smuggling industry is very conscious that this government lacks the resolve to solve the problem. When the Rudd government changed the legislation, they recognised the opportunity, recognised that this government did not have the resolve to pursue some of the policy options that were pursued by the previous government, and I fear that this situation will not be solved under the current arrangements of the Gillard government either.

I do support the member for Cook's amendments. I think his approach to restrict the offshore processing arrangements to countries which have signed the refugee convention is very practical, and I congratulate him on doing that. I think the protection of human rights for people at their most vulnerable time is critically important. I could not sleep easily knowing that I had voted for this Malaysian people-swap deal, so I will be voting against the member for Lyne's legislation.

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