Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill 2013. This is another piece of legislation which must be condemned by this parliament. This bill has all the hallmarks of policy failings that this government is renowned for. It is a bill which is essentially seeking a headline rather than delivering good public policy for our nation. It is a bill which has been drafted without any facts to support its intent. It is a bill that seeks to distract Australians from the government's failed border protection policies.

Before I address some of the specifics of the bill, I think we need to reflect for a moment on the context in which this immigration bill is being presented to the parliament. When federal Labor was elected to government in 2007, there were just four people in detention. Under John Howard's leadership, the federal coalition government had successfully implemented a border protection policy which had essentially stopped the boats—a policy based on temporary protection visas, the Pacific solution and turning boats around, where safe to do so.

It was so successful that federal Labor endorsed the coalition's border protection policy in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election. But, as we now know, this election commitment would become just another broken promise.

It started in 2008 when the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, changed the rules and relaxed the processing procedures for those who arrived illegally by boat. The abolition of the Howard government's border protection policy sent a very clear message to people smugglers, and the message was that Australia was once again open for business to people smuggling or, at the very least, to those who could afford to pay the people smugglers for their passage to Australia.

Just over five years later, all Australians are paying a very big price for a policy which Mr Rudd created and Prime Minister Gillard has exacerbated. Since 2008 we have seen more than 700 boats arrive illegally on our shores. They have transported more than 44,200 illegal arrivals and the cost to the taxpayer has now topped $10 billion. These facts are very relevant to the bill we are debating today because all members would be very well aware how angry hardworking ordinary Australians are about this policy failing. It is this anger which the government is attempting to appease. It is the attention to this issue which the government hopes to distract with this legislation.

But the reality is the government cannot hide behind the facts. They failed with the East Timor solution, when Prime Minister Gillard did not even consult the East Timorese government. No-one was therefore surprised when it fell over. The Prime Minister then proposed the Malaysia solution, but Malaysia was not a signatory to the UNHCR refugee convention. Hence, another ill-conceived thought bubble never saw the light of day and was never brought before this parliament for a vote. And as the government struggled through a botched policy process the boats kept coming, the number of illegal arrivals exploded—

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