Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What we will have is a history of seven years recorded and the speech today, representing an important convergence of views in this parliament. And that should be welcomed. But we witnessed a systematic unpicking in 2008, and the events since. Obviously, in parliamentary democracy two parties will take two very different paths, and history will remember the actions of both—often not in the purest of terms.

Let me reflect if I can on events from 1992, where I witnessed the results of actions in-country for the internally displaced and saw the efforts of many in these nations to make their home in these war-torn areas and to do their best. I and those of us on this side can never forget that the 30 million people internally displaced, and refugees around the world, are just as important as those who pay the people smugglers. That is something that can never be forgotten. For those who lost their lives clearing the land mines and allowing roads to be reopened, for those unable to find a people smuggler to pay off, for those who are unable to make their way across to South East Asia and then pay people smugglers, we must never forget that they are just as important and have just as much reason to seek our protection. Anything that undermines that and undermines that systematic approach deserves to have the resources of this nation directed towards it. I do not simply speak about work on the border, doing cross-border resettlement. I do not simply mean that we deploy our skills and expertise in these nations. But ultimately we need to remember that those most subject to political persecution, most deserving of protection under international treaty, cannot find their way to a people smuggler.

If there is one thing we should remember from this debate, as we see a convergence around the recognition on both sides of this chamber that we should support regional processing, it is: never forget that you simply crowd out those who need the help most if you are complicit in allowing our border protection to crumble away to nothing. At that point it becomes a commercial arrangement about who is brought here, and that is something we can never allow to occur. Now history has been written, and it is easy to bury in the past some of those events. Perhaps today it is reasonable to do that, given the concession that we have from the opposition. Now we have bipartisan agreement around a recognition that the Commonwealth needs a head of power to be able to fund, to be able to take decisions and to be able to effectively do anything that is conducive to allowing regional processing. Whether you call it 'regional' or 'offshore' processing, it does not matter today. What does matter is that after seven years of constantly traducing that solution, we finally do have bipartisan agreement.

The opposition leader talks about the desperate and the downtrodden. With that language he is effectively saying that this is a battle between logic and compassion. I have to disagree most strenuously. Both sides of this parliament make that very argument—though with potentially different methodologies. He concedes today that it is not compassionate to continue the flow of people across the Timor Sea. It is not compassionate to continue to allow them to ply their trade. And that is a reasonable concession, but it is a concession that could not be achieved for the eight years previously. The treaty itself identifies those with a well-founded fear of persecution—not that you are desperate, not that you are downtrodden. With those words from the opposition leader we can see, almost microscopically, a misunderstanding of this issue. It is an inability to separate the need of that person directly in front of you from the need of the others whom they moved in front of through a commercial arrangement. It is that financial arrangement that has been stopped when we put an end to people smuggling. That is just a statement of fact. That does not mean that one lacks compassion. It is simply the reality that those who are able to monetise an arrangement are in a privileged position and are able to make their case; whereas those who do not have that access cannot.

I have sat for six hours in the back of an ambulance with a young man whose leg was blown off by a trip-wired landmine. He was engaged in clearing villages so that the displaced could return home. That is where they wanted to go. When he lost his leg and was unable to clear landmines, his brother enlisted the following week and said, 'I want to take the place of my injured brother to continue the work.' We often forget how much is done in these countries to turn them back into home. We have this generalised perception that anyone who flees has a legitimate call under a treaty. We would often feel that because there are two minority groups who are permanently at war with each other, the entire population has a claim. Ultimately there simply has to be a bar; if there is not, you are simply subscribing to complete population mobility worldwide—which is, at the moment, far from being considered.

What we do now is close a loophole opened up by the High Court. Today we are recognising the head of powers for the Commonwealth. Today we are witnessing that the other side, for whatever their political reasons, have finally come to the table on regional processing. Why that has occurred I will allow history to determine.

Opposition members interjecting—

The point that I started with—and despite the anger from those on the other side of this chamber—is: it will not matter what was said today. What will matter just as much is the interference and opportunism, the walking on both sides of the street on this issue, the winking at the group that said they all opposed offshore processing, and the reality of voting differently in this chamber. It is that change, whether it is done in good faith or otherwise, that will be remembered by the Australian people.

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