Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this Migration Legislation Amendment (The Bali Process) Bill 2012, moved by the member for Lyne dealing with the continuing arrivals to our north. I stand with my colleagues in opposing this bill because the approach is flawed. I suggest to the House that the approach put forward by the member for Cook is a far better approach and a compromise approach. It is not the approach that we would seek to put in government. That has been very well articulated over a very long period of time by the Leader of the Opposition.

It was an approach which was used by the Howard government successfully. As the member for Grey pointed out so well just before, it was a policy that was belted from pillar to post by those in opposition at the time. It was an approach which we saw in the 2001 election led to all sorts of accusations about the motivations of the coalition, particularly the then Prime Minister and the member for Berowra, who spoke brilliantly earlier today. It was an approach that came about through a compromise in this very chamber in 2001 when the Tampa arrived. The Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government said earlier today that it was wrong to say that they had opposed in opposition and then they had backed the government's approach.

In fact, as the member for Berowra quite rightly pointed out, the provisions that the government now seeks to remove were the provisions inserted by the then Leader of the Opposition to deal with the humanitarian issues that the Labor opposition at that point in time was so concerned with. One issue has not been addressed by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship or the Attorney-General: how will this bill be dealt with in respect of the High Court ruling, which made it very clear that sending a person back to a country had to be bound by international law?

I accept the words of the member for Lyne that this does not identify Malaysia specifically. But what it does do, of course, is allow Malaysia to go ahead, and that is what we cannot accept. We cannot accept the stripping of all humanitarian rights out of the bills in Australia when we do not think that is necessary to achieve the outcome we all seek. The outcome we all seek is for the boats to stop coming and for people to be prevented from putting themselves in those risky circumstances, because the business model of the people smugglers will be destroyed.

We are not the only ones who say that the minister's approach on this is flawed. In fact, it was the member for Griffith earlier this year who made it very clear that he thinks this approach is flawed. He said:

I also have always had a view that something called the East Timor solution wouldn't work, and can I say those sorts of things need to be looked through very carefully before you simply take a walk on the policy wild side ….

In a separate press conference in February 2012 he also said:

…in my absence often, and then announced and implemented, often without my knowledge, in the case of various decisions like the Malaysian solution, for example, and then off they went only to discover that they didn't work.

That is the problem. Does anyone believe that this government could get it right? This government took apart the successful regime put in place by the member for Berowra when he was the Minister for Immigration, this government proposed the East Timor solution without talking to the East Timorese in the first place, this government proposed the Malaysian solution without being able to get through the High Court. That is why we say to those on the government side, to the minister at the table: deal with these amendments in a way that is genuine compromise, because at the moment the deal on the table is: you come and talk to us about a compromise on our arrangements. It is not a compromise at all, it is a political threat to try and win some political advantage, and they should not do it. They should be talking to us, they should listen to the people who successfully implemented policies that worked last time—those of the member for Berowra, the policies put forward by the Leader of the Opposition and the policies put forward by the member for Cook. Accept our amendments, Minister, and we will have a bipartisan solution.

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