Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Of course, Australians right across the nation are deeply concerned at the evolving situation in Afghanistan and the images that we have been seeing, particularly over the last week, have really underscored how significant and how diabolical the situation currently is in Afghanistan. Our priority has been the safe departure of Australian citizens, permanent residents and visa-holders, and that includes Afghan former locally engaged employees. Since 18 August, we have facilitated more than 1,000 people on 12 flights out of Kabul, working with both the United Kingdom and the United States. Of course, that work continues. We are working to swiftly process applications from Afghanistan, with at least 3,000 of the 13,700 places in our humanitarian program dedicated to ensuring that Afghan citizens are offered protection by Australia. As the Prime Minister has said, that is a floor, not a ceiling. Priority is being given to persecuted minorities, to women and children and to those people who have a family connection with Australia.

Australia has a very strong and generous resettlement program, and, in fact, since 2014 we have welcomed 8½ thousand Afghans under the humanitarian program. Australians can be proud of that. We can all be very proud of that record, and we should be proud of the fact that, as a member of the international community, we are most definitely playing our part.

We are very mindful of the messages that are being sent to potential people smugglers overseas, and I say that because that is an issue that this government has been very focused on for many years. It is the action that we have taken in relation to programs such as Operation Sovereign Borders that has kept us safe within Australia. Over the previous years, we have kept that vigilance, and we will be maintaining that into the future. The last thing that we want as a government—and that we should want as a nation—is for the people-smuggling trade to start up again. We have, as I've said, been focused over the last couple of years making sure there is strong messaging going into key parts of, particularly, South-East Asia. Recently, we have stepped up that activity. We've recorded videos, they're being translated into a number of languages and they are being distributed widely across the local region. Our message is very clear: if you arrive in Australia illegally, you will not be able to settle here.

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