Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to support this motion put by the Prime Minister today. Equality before the law is one of the fundamental pillars of our liberal democracy and one that I certainly support and hope that all members in this place and the other do as well. Hailing from South Australia, I am conscious of the nature of my state's founding, 180 years ago this year. I attended our Proclamation Day ceremony at Glenelg on 28 December last year and I thoroughly commend it to all South Australians and indeed anyone visiting my home state over Christmas. As a free settled state, the only one in the nation, as we like to proudly remind everybody else, and a place that was to be the embodiment of the best qualities that British society had to offer—economic freedom and prosperity, freedom of association and the right to be free from religious persecution—I am a very proud South Australia. This is important because freedom, I believe, is a most thorough and capable instrument that we may use to achieve equality.

South Australia was founded as a utopia for free settlers. It was home to many who were fleeing religious persecution from Prussia. Lutherans settled in and around the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley, and wrote one of the first of many chapters in Australia's colourful and successful multicultural history. We have German migrants to thank for so much of our wonderful wine and food. It must also be highlighted that South Australia's proclamation was the only proclamation in the nation which included safeguards for Aboriginal Australians and their descendants, and thus proclaimed rights—albeit, rudimentary—for our First Australians. Closer to home for me, South Australia was also the first jurisdiction in Australia to legislate for women's suffrage and the only state to grant women the right to vote and to stand for parliament at the same time.

I mentioned that part of what we offered in South Australia was economic freedom and prosperity, and there is no greater tool to achieve equality than through freedom. One of our best examples of this was under the leadership of Sir Thomas Playford. Throughout the post-World War II migration era, South Australia's population exploded with non-English-speaking migrants, who have made a wonderful contribution to our state. Their inclusion in South Australia's life and community was facilitated by the demand for workers to work in the factories and in our economy at the time. These industrious migrants and their children have achieved equality and integrated properly into Australian life, and the credit must go to the principles of the Liberal democracy that my state and our nation were founded on.

Half a century later, and Australia is still a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution. While the world is a far more complex place now, and our immigration practices have needed to keep pace, the principles of providing refuge to those who need it remain the same and are stronger than ever. Australia's humanitarian program is global and non-discriminatory. Last financial year, the government's refugee and humanitarian program delivered a total of 17,555 places, which included 15,552 offshore places. This is the largest offshore intake in more than 30 years. The number of special humanitarian program places, visas for families of Australians in refugee-like situations offshore, has grown from 503 places in 2012-13 to 7,268 places in 2015-16. At the same time, the number of illegal maritime arrivals taking place under the program has fallen from 4,994 in the last period of Labor to one in 2015-16. Australia's annual refugee and humanitarian program will grow to 18,750 by 2018-19, one of the most generous permanent resettlement programs in the world. The coordinated efforts of the Australian government agencies and international partners have led to a steady flow of visa grants to Syrians and Iraqis from Australia's annual humanitarian program, an additional 12,000 humanitarian places. As a result, the number of Syrian and Iraqi humanitarian entrants arriving in Australia has also increased. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Department of Social Services continue to work in close cooperation to ensure that post-arrival settlement services and supports are in place to assist people as they arrive in Australia.

It is important to note that we could not afford to be as generous in our refugee intake had we not managed to get our borders under control. Unfortunately, due to the failed Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor governments, our nation completely lost control of our borders and we incurred billions of dollars of spending. There was something like an $11 billion budget blowout as a result of this. Far worse than any monetary impact was the loss of 1,200 lives at sea. The moment I realised how crucial it was to have our borders under control was when I saw the footage, in 2010, of the 50 people who drowned in very rough seas off Christmas Island. Having grown up on the coast, along a coastline pretty similar to that of Christmas Island, it was one of the most devastating things I have ever seen. We cannot allow it to happen ever again; we just cannot.

The results of stronger borders are clear: in the last six years of the Howard government, for example, just 288 illegal immigrants made it to Australia by boat. In the six years of Labor and the Greens, 50,000 people flooded in via 800 successful people-smuggling ventures, and, as I have mentioned, 1,200 people were tragically lost at sea. I am very proud to say that, under the coalition government's policies, no boats have arrived in Australia for 840 days. There are no children in detention. That number is down from 8,000 children who were held in detention under Labor's policies. There have been 17 detention centres closed. This means that we can now take more refugees from refugee camps who have been waiting patiently for a better life here in our wonderful country. We have been able to assist those refugees from Iraq and Syria.

I think it is very important to note that our migration program does not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or religion. The purpose of migration is to build the economy, shape society, support the labour market, reunite families and provide protection in accordance with Australia's protection obligations. The contribution of migrants to Australian society, culture and prosperity has been an important factor in shaping our nation. I hope that everyone in this place and the other place are acutely aware that we were all migrants once. My earliest South Australian forebears arrived in my home state in 1838—two years after settlement. They did their small part to help build South Australia's economy and community, as migrants do every single day.

Today, our migration program is designed to meet Australia's economic and social needs. It includes the skilled stream, the family stream and the special eligibility stream, along with the humanitarian component for refugees and others in humanitarian need. The size and composition of the permanent migration program is flexible and changes over time. It has changed from a smaller program with mostly family migrants in 1993-94 to a larger program with more skilled migrants in recent years. In recent years, roughly two-thirds of people migrating to Australia were skilled migrants and about one-third were from family visa streams. The total migration program outcome for 2014-15 was approximately 190,000 places, compared to 62,800 in 1993-94. In recent years, the major source countries in the migration program have been India, China and the United Kingdom. We welcome all of these migrants.

I am sure everyone in this place would join with me in saying that one of the great privileges of being a member of parliament is going to citizenship ceremonies, welcoming new people into our communities and acknowledging the very rich contribution that our new citizens make to our culture and that our migrants have made to our culture and our community over the years. I again commend the Prime Minister's motion. I congratulate the Prime Minister and our current and former ministers for immigration for the work that they have done, particularly in securing our borders and making sure no lives are ever again lost at sea as a result of a government policy in this country.

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