Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

There is no question that ending the journey between Java and Christmas Island has been a critically important measure for Australia and the Australian government. It has ended a human tragedy which saw all too many people lose their lives at sea. I am sure everyone in this building and across the country hopes that that is now at an end and that the people smugglers who perpetrated their despicable trade are now out of business. We, of course, support the achievement of this and note it as a remarkable achievement and one which is very important for the future development of a bipartisan position in this country in relation to asylum seekers and immigration more generally.

I do need to say that the air of self-congratulation that we see on the part of this government in relation to this is starting to become distasteful. We, of course, all remember the billboards on this issue that surrounded polling booths and were being paraded around during the 2013 election. There is no-one in this parliament who can deny how politically the coalition regard this issue. This more than any other issue has been the one that the coalition has gone to in order to raise its banner. In doing so, and as we have just heard from the minister, there is a vigorous attempt to lay blame and credit in particular places. There is no doubt—and we have been quite up-front about it—that Labor made mistakes during the time of the last Labor government. But it is also true that the coalition in making its arrangement with the Greens party during the course of 2011 and 2012 to stop the Malaysian arrangement really spoke to the most shining example of the political expediency pursued by the coalition in respect of this issue. That measure—which could have brought an end to this journey four years ago—was not able to be implemented and as a result more than 600 people lost their lives at sea after that moment.

So, when history looks to lay the blame for what occurred in the past, it will not be nearly as simple as the minister's description just now. Equally, when history looks to ascribe credit to how we have brought an end to the journey from Java to Christmas Island, it will remember that the regional resettlement arrangement, which was put in place by the then Labor government and resulted in 90 per cent of the vessels from Java to Christmas Island stopping before the current government was ever sworn into office. Yes, there is no doubt that turning around the remaining 10 per cent of those vessels has been a critical step taken by this government, but this government has enjoyed an opposition which has supported it in its endeavours to bring an end to that journey between Java and Christmas Island—an enjoyment that was not shared by the former Labor government in respect of the former coalition opposition.

All of that said, there remain very significant issues which are outstanding and need to be addressed. Offshore processing is a critically important step in bringing an end to this journey, but it is not being run in anything like the efficient or humane way that we ought to see happening in this country today. We saw, months after the regional resettlement arrangement was reached by the former Labor government, the new conservative government not even have a conversation with its counterpart in Papua New Guinea about the resettlement of those people who were in offshore detention in PNG. As a result, we are more than two years down the track and we are only just starting to see the beginnings of resettlement occur in that country. We have seen appalling decisions made in relation to the conditions that have persisted in offshore processing—decisions such as keeping people living in tents on Nauru; an active decision by the Turnbull government to keep people living in conditions which are worse than what the former Labor government had planned to construct. That really stands out when it comes to the treatment of refugees, and it is an appalling decision that was made by this government.

We have seen for most of the last 2½ years a substandard medical facility existing on Manus—which, to be fair, has now been replaced by a very good facility, but that was not until Mr Hamid Kehazaei died from preventable septicaemia in that substandard medical facility that existed. There has been no attempt, no serious effort, to engage in third-country resettlement, which is ultimately at the heart of what needs to be done if we are to see the near 2,000 people on Manus and Nauru ultimately resettled somewhere else in the world. The attempt to go to Cambodia, spending something like $55 million on resettling three or four people, has turned out to be an expensive joke. We saw the announcement of an agreement with the Philippines to pursue some kind of option there, but within weeks of that agreement being announced the Philippines government made it clear that there would be no permanent resettlement occurring in their country. Then we saw run up the pole the bizarre flag of some kind of arrangement with Kyrgyzstan. What we now have remaining unresolved is the fate of those 2,000 people on Manus and Nauru. That continues to be a real sore in this country's handling of this issue.

What oversees all of that is a total failure in terms of transparency. Onshore something like 30,000 people have been kept in limbo for years, to start with because this government stubbornly refused to process people until it had achieved its temporary protection visa policy but then it has also sought to put in place the fast-tracked Immigration Assessment Authority—but it was not really that fast-tracked because in seeking to get that infrastructure up and running people have been kept in limbo and their situation has been essentially set in cement. None of these are issues which are resolved today. While I do absolutely agree with the achievement of the government in having 12,000 Syrian refugees come to this country, it only happened after Labor put out there the need for this to occur—this was the government being dragged kicking and screaming—but it does shine a light on the way in which future immigration policy should happen: it should be based on bipartisanship and generosity. That is how Australia should proceed on this, not on the basis of the old partisan rhetoric much of which we have heard from the minister today.

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