Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to voice my support for the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. Last week we were privileged to hear in this place from the Indonesian President, Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. It was a historic address, a momentous address, and the first by an Indonesian President to the Australian parliament. Personally, I think it was a watershed moment in our history and I am proud to have been an attendant lord that swelled the progress and the start of a new scene. It says something about the invigorated friendship and spirit of cooperation between Australia and our northern neighbour. In his considered and insightful address in the chamber, President Yudhoyono acknowledged once again that people smuggling is a regional problem requiring regional solutions. President Yudhoyono also committed to introduce a law into the Indonesian parliament to criminalise people smuggling, with a maximum penalty of five years jail. As I have a connection to an Australian who, sadly, in 32 days time will have notched up five years in an Indonesian prison, I know this will be a very strong prevention measure.

Both of our countries continue to work together as a new tide of asylum seekers seek to find a safe place somewhere on the globe, a haven from the hell. Up to 260,000 people—more than all the people in the Northern Territory—have been displaced as a result of the civil war in Sri Lanka, and around 2,000 have found themselves in the vicinity of Australian waters. This is a fact that is forgotten by those opposite, or deliberately neglected. Most of the asylum seekers head north into India or Malaysia or onwards into Europe, but the reality is that some come to Australia—not because they are flicking through the internet looking for the government’s immigration policies. That is ludicrous, a specious argument if ever I heard one. It is a ridiculous bit of political manoeuvring from those opposite that ill becomes those people who say that they have an intellect. That is the reality: up to 260,000 people have been displaced. Why? Because of a long-running civil war in Sri Lanka.

Under the terms of the Lombok treaty, Australia is also involved in a region-wide process to combat people smuggling. The Rudd government takes the scourge of people smuggling very seriously. We have committed more than $654 million to combat people smuggling. People smugglers are obviously in it for a quick buck. They do not care about the health, wellbeing, safety or aspirations of their human cargo. They see an opportunity. They put desperate people at extreme risk of injury or loss of life just to make some dollars.

On the figures available to me, I am aware of 23 convictions of people-smuggling offenders in Australia since September 2008, and 63 people charged with these offences are currently being prosecuted. These people face tough penalties. The maximum penalty for people-smuggling offences is 20 years imprisonment and/or a $220,000 fine. This bill will further strengthen the Commonwealth’s arsenal against people smugglers. It establishes a new offence of providing material support and resources to a people-smuggling venture. The offence will apply to any person who provides support or resources to aid the offence of people smuggling. However, it will not apply to a person who pays smugglers to facilitate their own or another’s passage or entry to Australia. The offence will carry a maximum jail term of 10 years and/or a $110,000 fine. These tough penalties send a strong signal to those wanting to exploit the desperate and vulnerable through people smuggling, and especially those people in Australia.

To ensure people-smuggling offences can be enforced across the board, this bill will also harmonise offences between the Migration Act and the Criminal Code. It inserts into the Migration Act the aggravated offence of people smuggling involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm. Including this offence in both the Migration Act and the Criminal Code will ensure that it applies to all people-smuggling ventures. This bill also standardises the language and description of offences used in the two acts to ensure greater consistency and to therefore remove any chances of ambiguity.

I know, you know, those opposite know and all Australians know that we need a tough criminal framework to enforce our people-smuggling laws. These amendments demonstrate that the Rudd government is serious about stopping people smugglers. But this bill also beefs up the minimum penalties for the aggravated offences of people smuggling. The minimum penalties are currently a five-year sentence with three years non-parole or an eight-year sentence with five years non-parole for repeat offenders. The higher mandatory minimum sentence of eight years with five years non-parole will automatically apply regardless of whether it was a repeat offence.

Finally, this bill gives our law enforcement and national security agencies a greater role in protecting our borders and apprehending people smugglers. In doing so, it amends the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to give law enforcement agencies consistent access to investigative tools under both acts. It also amends the ASIO Act to enable ASIO to respond to people smuggling and address serious threats to Australia’s borders.

The new wave of displaced people seeking asylum as a result of the conflicts in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan has placed renewed pressure on Australia’s borders. It has certainly been interesting to experience question time and see the tactics of those opposite, particularly as they talk time and time again about the boats that are arriving. Let us remember that most people who end up in Australia without a proper visa arrive on aeroplanes. Boats, for some reason in the Australian psyche for the last 200 years, seem to be something that people are fearful of. But the reality is we should be more fearful of a 747 than a rickety boat from Indonesia in which some poor fisher is trying to make a couple of extra dollars. Obviously we are targeting people smugglers, and that is appropriate, but we need to do it in a balanced way. Australia has secure borders, and the number of boats that have come has always been linked to what is going on around the world. Those opposite trot out the specious argument that somehow the ebb and flow of people connected with civil war is actually connected to the immigration policies of whichever government is in power in Australia. It is almost lunacy to suggest such a thing. But still those opposite blow that dog whistle hard, and unfortunately there are still people in Australia who listen to it.

I am not old enough to remember World War II. My mum remembers it. I recently watched the movie Australia, which showed the bombing of Darwin. In that movie, they did what any family would do: when your children are in danger, or when war comes to town, you flee. That is what you do. That is a human reaction to war. You try and get out of harm’s way and protect your children. That is what they did in Darwin in 1942. That is what they did in Sri Lanka. That is what they do in Afghanistan. That is what they did in London during the Blitz. You take your children out of harm’s way. Obviously, there are people who will try and exploit that human instinct to protect our children. That is the context we need to remember. I would do the same if war came to Brisbane. I would do whatever it takes to protect our children’s lives.

So we should really be talking about planes, not boats, because that is how most of the people who arrive in Australia without the correct visas get here. The opposition keep talking about boats because they somehow think it is going to attract votes. But it does not show a noble spirit, I would suggest. The Rudd government is not interested in making this a political fight, but we are serious about bringing down the real enemy in this situation, the people smugglers, who exploit people who have experienced war and civil unrest. This bill gives government agencies greater capacity to investigate and disrupt people-smuggling networks and it ensures that Australia’s intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies and the courts can continue to work together to protect our borders. In closing, I ask those opposite to consider this when they blow the dog whistle about the boats on the horizon. I commend the bill to the House.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton made some comments upon which I would like to remark. He told us that peace in our time is just around the corner in terms of this boat-people problem because the President of Indonesia told us Indonesia is going to enact a law to jail people smugglers. Such legislation, of course, does not exist at present, and the only charges that can be levelled against some of the organisers of people smuggling are to do with the law of the sea, or something like that, and are virtually irrelevant. There has already been media comment that this legislation is some years away—and, were it the responsibility of the Rudd government, considering the speed with which they manage to administer the processes of this House, I imagine it would probably be years away also.

That in itself is an important fact. But it is also interesting to note that there still exists, anchored in an Indonesian harbour, a vessel that has on board some 230 persons who were within Australian waters and directly approaching Christmas Island when the pick-up boat for the senior people smuggler on board failed to turn up. He then ordered the boat to turn around and go back. The boat was still in international waters but, as I understand it, the Rudd government then requested the Indonesian government to intercept it as it was in their waters. That vessel remains a great concern to all international parties involved. But the point I want to make is that, by some means or other, that failed. Now, what was supposed to be the outcome for the 230 persons on that vessel? So sophisticated have the people smugglers become that they now have a pick-up vessel so that they do not get caught. In fact, this fellow refused to be caught—other than that he was still on the vessel when it was intercepted by the Indonesians. He was quoted as telling someone else on board, ‘That won’t worry me very much; I won’t get into much trouble from that.’

But when the process works, as it obviously has done time and time again, the mastermind will not be on the vessel when it gets into Australian waters. Yes, there will be some person with a background in fishing, or something else, to whom the threat of incarceration in Australia is not all that serious. It has got to be understood that when you are in jail in Australia you get pocket money. It is not a great deal for someone who is earning good money in the Australian community, but it is a veritable fortune, on a seven-day-a-week basis, to some of the Indonesian people who take on the job of taking responsibility on arrival for being ‘the people smuggler’.

You can almost have some sympathy for these people. They take that responsibility; they know they will be incarcerated. They get their pocket money and, as time goes by, on frequent occasions they get a charter jet flight back to Indonesia and are returned to their home town. That also happens with some illegal fishing people. So one might wonder: where is the disincentive, where is the fright, in all of that? Even when, as I hope they do, the Indonesian government enacts this law, as the President promised us he would, is that going to stop the problem? With due respect to the Indonesian people, should Australia be relying on them to overcome this problem for Australia?

That is the first of the issues. The member for Moreton also said that in circumstances of great conflict you take your children away. That is quite a reasonable argument until one considers the circumstances. If you are in the Tamil region of Sri Lanka, you actually live a very small number of kilometres across the ocean from a place called Tamil Nadu on the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent. If you are worried about your kids, why would you not simply do that short sea journey, probably in a ferry? I doubt there is not an adequate interconnection by sea across to that district. You have your children in a secure place and no doubt from there you could travel to a UN refugee camp and seek, notwithstanding you are a Tamil in Tamil Nadu, refugee status. Millions of people, tragically, do just that. They seek refugee status and many, as the record shows, spend years in those circumstances.

Around the world, the Canadians per capita I think are the most generous, and Australia is second in its generosity, or its compassion—whichever is the better choice of word. These people get the opportunity, the integrity of their claim having been checked and it being confirmed that they do not have a record that indicates they would be a danger here in Australia or Canada or the United States, under UN arrangements to come into Australia, to be one of the 13,000 legal refugees that this country accepts annually. That number has been sustained through a variety of political parties governing this country. It is a significant number of people and many bring no skills, no nothing. There was a case that got a lot of publicity because a child died on the flight. That risk was known before they got on the plane. When they got here there was criticism of the agency, and the agency had to look after them in a brand new flat because, as it was pointed out, these people had no skills even with the telephone. They come, and I am not saying they should not come. What I am saying is that that is the level of compassion in Australia.

The member for Moreton mentioned those who come in by plane—and they do, where they can acquire false passports and they get past our system. Everything we can possibly do to improve the security of our passport system is to be recommended. That is border protection. But in fact those who get on the boats have not been waiting in a queue. They typically have not been assessed for their entitlement to be declared a refugee—they just turn up. Then all those processes have to be applied on Christmas Island, at great cost to the Australian taxpayer—notwithstanding that it would all be done offshore by a reputable organisation in the United Nations.

What else do they do? There is a limit to the number of people that the Australian economy can accommodate. If and when they are found to be refugees, are they counted in the 13,000 to the exclusion of some other individual who has done the right thing and is still waiting to get a place in Australia or Canada or elsewhere in a United Nations refugee camp? In other words, are these people queue jumpers? And is that fair? And at what point do you apply compassion to someone who is excluding someone who probably is entitled to more compassion? They are the questions. As you would well remember, Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, the Howard government party room agonised over these questions. There was no redneck element there. The Prime Minister keeps reminding us about these things, as though it absolves him and his government of all blame. He is happy as long as he can point to something that has happened in the past. I hear his Minister for Health and Ageing carrying on about how many doctors’ places were cancelled. I can tell you there were 4,000 cancelled during the Hawke government because it took fright at the outcomes of its bulk-billing initiative and the surgeries that arose with pianos and other gross abuses of that manner. Their response was to say they had too many doctors and they had better save money by getting rid of some.

Once you have acquired government, it is no excuse to explain whether someone was better or worse than you. You have gone to an election knowing what the numbers were, and you are therefore able to judge your promises to the Australian people accordingly. There are all sorts of examples of the circumstances in health; health was such a problem that it was a major campaign issue. Then all of a sudden, when after two years they failed to fix the problem, they got up and said, ‘It was all your fault.’ They knew that when they made the promise. I give that only as an example, because this bill relates to boat people more particularly. These steps are designed to make it a little more difficult—if you can catch the smuggler. I have just given evidence about how sophisticated they are and whether that is the problem.

The Prime Minister delights in reading out the figures from after the election of the Howard government. In the year prior to the election of the Howard government, the number of boat people who arrived was 1,071, and the number of boats was 21. The Howard government, having inherited the problem, did not whinge about past circumstances; they set about bringing down various legislative responses. One of the problems was not stopping people coming but preventing them using every opportunity under the legal processes of Australia to stay here, because they had got two feet on the Australian mainland. It got to the point at one stage during the Howard government when there were 160 appeals in the High Court, none of which ever came to a hearing, because as they were called on they were withdrawn. That is just abuse of process. Who was paying for them to go through the various courts—losing every time but just going on appealing? And where did the money come from? And just how poor and downtrodden were these people who had the capacity to pay legal people to go on and on and on? One of the questions was: can we let these people stay here? You talk about the children they brought with them, two, three or sometimes more while they were resident in Australia.

We saw, as we are reminded, that the numbers of people arriving kept increasing. In 1999-2000 there were 4,175 and in the following year there were 4,137. That is when we said, ‘Enough is enough.’ We had tried reasonable measures and they were not working. We introduced the Pacific solution, we introduced offshore processing, we did everything in our power to prevent people gaining access to our courts to delay their deportation and, what is more, we sent out our Navy and Customs to intercept vessels before they got into Australian waters and to turn them back. It was suggested that that was dreadful, but what was the result of that? By 2002-03, we had no boats, no refugees, and no profits for people smugglers. It looked pretty good. Of course, that proceeded to 2003-04, when there were 82; in 2004-05 there were none; in 2005-06 there were eight boats and 61 persons. The Prime Minister never quotes those figures. He never learned from them, which is worse. The system was working. In 2007-08 the Rudd government were elected, and they made it patently obvious during their election campaign that the welcome sign was going back up.

We had pretty significant numbers going back into the mid-1990s, and in the early 2000s they stopped. Here we are debating a bill which applies initiatives only at the border, and what are we talking about? In 2008-09, 23 boats and 1,033 people arrived; in 2009-10, to 10 March, 64 boats and 3,011 people arrived. Why did that happen? We are told that the war in Afghanistan got worse. I do not think it has ever been worse or worser! Of course the war has always represented a great threat to the people who live there, and, by the way, they have a bit of a habit of blowing each other up. But the reality is that that is nothing new, and to call that a push factor as compared with a pull factor has no credibility whatsoever. So here we are, debating this bill again. We know how to fix it, and we are now starting to uncover just how much extra money has got to be found in the budget to cover the costs and the capital costs. I happened to be the minister for territories when the buildings over there on Christmas Island commenced, and I know what they cost and I know what the original detention centre cost. I always thought that it was far too expensive for the services required. We did not spend that sort of money on Nauru and places like that, and I do not believe that we should have a former hotel or motel to accommodate queue jumpers.

A young sailor walked up to me in an airport and told me how annoyed and disaffected they are in our defence forces and how far their morale has sunk since having to be nurserymen to these boats. They do not believe that that is what they joined the Navy for. They joined the Navy to protect our borders from aggression—and we heard that dreadful evidence being given in Darwin against our sailors for saving some of their own before they saved persons who had just blown up their own boat. They do not like it, the morale is right down at the bottom, and we never hear of it in this place. All in all, it should be the government’s responsibility. (Time expired)

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity to speak on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. This bill complements a series of other measures already implemented by the government to counter people-smuggling activities. I want to reiterate the purpose of this bill, as outlined by the Attorney-General. The bill will establish a new offence in the Migration Act and the Criminal Code of providing material support and resources towards a people-smuggling venture. The maximum penalty for this offence will be imprisonment for 10 years or 1,000 penalty units—that is, $110,000—or both. Prescribing a maximum penalty still allows judicial discretion to take account of the circumstances of the case. The bill will harmonise people-smuggling offences between the Migration Act and the Criminal Code to strengthen the criminal framework and to provide greater consistency. The legislative framework for criminalising people smuggling is contained in the Migration Act and the Criminal Code. Together, the legislation covers ventures entering Australia under the Migration Act and ventures entering foreign countries, including those that transit Australia, under the Criminal Code.

The bill inserts into the Migration Act the aggravated offence of people smuggling involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm. Currently, this aggravated offence is contained in the Criminal Code. However, the Migration Act does not provide for these aggravated circumstances associated with people smuggling and, therefore, the provision does not apply to ventures seeking to enter Australia. Inserting this offence into the Migration Act will ensure that this aggravated offence consistently applies to all people-smuggling ventures. Currently, the Migration Act contains mandatory minimum penalties for the aggravated offence of people smuggling: a five-year sentence with three years non-parole or an eight-year sentence with five years non-parole for repeat offenders.

The bill extends the application of the mandatory minimum penalty to the new offence of people smuggling involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm. The higher mandatory minimum sentence of eight years and the non-parole period of five years will automatically apply to this aggravated offence, irrespective of whether it is a repeat offence. This is to reflect the serious nature of the offence. The bill will also extend the higher mandatory minimum sentence and non-parole period to a person who is convicted of multiple aggravated people-smuggling offences. The bill will improve the capacity for law enforcement agencies and national security agencies by making associated changes to the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the TIA Act to enable them to have consistent access under both acts to the appropriate investigative tools in relation to the existing people-smuggling offences, which are serious offences under the TIA Act, and the new offences in the bill.

The bill will also amend the ASIO Act to enable ASIO to use its intelligence capabilities to respond to people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity. The bill will enable, where appropriate, ASIO to play a greater role in support of whole-of-government efforts to combat people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity. The bill will also align the definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ in the TIA Act more closely with that in the Intelligence Services Act 2001.

Amnesty International estimates that, each year, four million people are trafficked or smuggled across international borders in a criminal trade estimated to be worth $10 billion. People smuggling is a serious global criminal issue—serious because of the dollar value of the people-smuggling trade; serious, because of the extreme risks to the lives of those seeking refuge; serious, because it causes problems in settlement countries and for the UNHCR; and serious, because, with a criminal activity estimated to be worth $10 billion worldwide, the risk of corruption cannot be dismissed.

Over the past year we have seen a rise in refugee arrivals in countries across the world, including here in Australia. Of course, the coalition, in their desperate attempts to make political mileage out of people fleeing Afghanistan and Sri Lanka because of the terrible conditions, lay blame on the Rudd government for the boats recently headed for Australia. Between 2008 and 2010 there were 3,494 boat arrivals. The seven nationalities comprising most of the boat arrivals were: Afghanis, 1,966; Sri Lankans, 801; Iraqis, 284; Kurds, 151; Iranians, 121; Indonesians, 62; and Burmese, 43. Together, those nationalities made up over 98 per cent of boat arrivals in that period. Those statistics present a very clear picture: it is push factors, not pull factors, that underlie boat-people arrivals. These are people fleeing from their homeland because of the very real risk to their lives, not because of a change of government policy. They are fleeing countries where terrible atrocities are being committed against them or where their homeland and their personal safety are affected by war. That is why, as the homeland situation settles and stabilises, the number of refugees declines. That is consistent with the figures I have just read out in respect of the people from Iraq, Kurdistan and Iran. As the situation stabilised, the number of people fleeing those countries and coming to Australia declined.

The UNHCR estimates that there are over 42 million displaced people around the world; 16 million of those are refugees and asylum seekers; 26 million are people displaced within their own countries. If the number of boat arrivals was driven by Australia’s immigration policies then we should be seeing an increase in boat arrivals not only from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka but from every other country from which people are trying to leave, and they would also be paying people smugglers. But that is simply not happening. The opportunities for people from those countries are no less than the opportunities for people fleeing Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. In fact, their opportunities would probably be greater. Yet we are not seeing people from those countries fleeing to Australia in the numbers that would underpin the opposition’s argument that it is all to do with Australia’s immigration policies.

People smugglers are exploiting vulnerable people in desperate situations, placing their lives at risk and causing them additional suffering. There is little doubt that people smugglers use modern communication and navigation equipment. They may use leaky and unseaworthy boats, because they know the boats will ultimately be destroyed, but other aspects of their operations are much more sophisticated—and I noted the comments in respect of this matter by the member for O’Connor who quite rightly said that they use sophisticated means. I do not know but I suspect that it may also be a contributing factor to why we are seeing an increasing number of refugees leaving their countries and going to other parts of the world right now, because the operations of people smugglers have certainly improved over the last decade.

Counter people-smuggling activities rely on global strategies, cooperation between world governments and equally sophisticated intelligence-gathering and surveillance systems. To that end, I welcome and applaud the statement made in his address to this parliament by the President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, that Indonesia would introduce a five-year prison term for people convicted of people smuggling. Indonesia is a very important Australian ally in Australia’s fight against people smugglers. I understand that many other countries already impose substantial penalties on convicted people smugglers. I know that people have been convicted of people-smuggling activities in the UK, with one person being sentenced to 12 years, and that only last month in France a mother and son were facing sentencing for people-smuggling offences. People smuggling, assisting people smugglers and placing the lives of refugees at risk of death or serious harm are all serious criminal acts. The harmonisation of the immigration, security and intelligence acts to combat those activities, and the extension of the discretion and powers of the relevant organisations, makes good sense.

Of course, the most effective strategy to counter people smuggling is to remove the need for people to flee their home countries. And you do that by improving living conditions within those countries, by ending the internal military and racial conflicts, by stabilising the respective governments and by giving people a real future in their own countries. With that in mind, I acknowledge the Australian government’s $35 million in aid to Sri Lanka. Between 2005 and 2008, the number of internally displaced people assisted by the UNHCR increased from 324,699 to 504,800—an increase of 55 per cent. Following the end of civil war in Sri Lanka, there are currently about 250,000 Tamils from the north of Sri Lanka in camps for internally displaced people, living in atrocious conditions. Can I say here, in respect of the queue-jumping comments: there is no queue for those people, because, from my understanding of the briefings I have received from people from the Sri Lankan community, the world aid agencies are hardly allowed to go in there and provide them with the kind of aid that might create some kind of queue. So I am not sure how they can be accused of queue jumping when it is not clear that there is a queue.

The claim that people smugglers are targeting Australia because of ‘softening’ of government policy is a nonsense being spouted by an opportunistic opposition. The facts are that Australia, in comparison with other Western countries, has a very robust refugee policy that is tough on people smugglers but humane with refugees. Australia receives far fewer boat arrivals than other advanced countries, and the trend of boat people arriving in Australia follows the same trends in numbers fleeing to other advanced countries, where there has been no change in refugee policy whatsoever. Conversely, the Howard government’s temporary protection visa policy and Pacific solution made no difference to refugee trends in Australia compared with trends in other countries. Decreases in boat arrivals between 2001 and 2003 coincided with decreases in numbers fleeing to other parts of the world and, importantly, with decreases in asylum-seeker numbers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

During that time, between 2001 and 2003, the number of Iraqis claiming asylum globally dropped from 52,412 to 27,352—a 48 per cent drop. Between 2001 and 2003, the number of Afghans claiming asylum globally dropped from 52,927 to 14,216—a 73 per cent drop. And between 2001 and 2003, the number of Sri Lankans claiming asylum globally dropped from 14,532 to 5,633—a 61 per cent drop. Conversely, between 2005 and 2008, the number of Iraqis claiming asylum globally increased from 14,511 to 42,748—that is, a 193 per cent increase. Between 2005 and 2008, the number of Sri Lankans claiming asylum globally increased from 5,628 to 9,673—that is, a 72 per cent increase. And between 2005 and 2008, the number of Afghans claiming asylum globally increased from 7,723 to 18,440—again, a 139 per cent increase.

But here is the real hypocrisy of the opposition: the opposition never opposed our changes to the Pacific solution announced in December 2007 and ended in February 2008. They did not make a stand at that time. But now they come into this place and criticise the changes in policy.

Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, you would be aware that that committee has released three reports. You would also be aware that, on listening to the evidence presented to the committee, there was an overwhelming response by members of the committee to the policies adopted by the government. Those policies are encompassed in the recommendations within those three reports. From my recollection, the only variances from those reports were variances which suggested that the government should have gone further with the policies that it was amending in terms of making them even ‘softer’, if I could use that term.

Furthermore, by the time temporary protection visas were abolished nearly 90 per cent of people granted a temporary protection visa were then granted a permanent visa and only three per cent of those granted a TPV departed Australia. Having people here on TPVs simply encouraged other family members to come to Australia by any means in order to be reunited. Under the Rudd government our borders are being protected. They are secure. The reality is that none of the boats, to my knowledge, reach Australia. So when members opposite make the claim that our borders are no longer secure I put this question to them: how can they not be secure if not one single boat has reached our shores? That effectively means that our borders are as secure as ever because boats are being intercepted before they reach Australian shores and those on board are being detained until health, identity and security checks are carried out. In fact, the greatest undermining of the integrity of Australia’s immigration policies is coming from the opposition’s rhetoric that Australia’s border protection policies are soft. The opposition are encouraging boats to Australia through their constant mantra that Australia’s border protection policies are soft.

One of the cruel fallouts of the opposition exploiting the issue for political gain is the demoralising impact it has on refugees who have endured incredible suffering and risk prior to getting here, but who are being portrayed as criminals, economic opportunists queuejumpers, illegals and by any other term that turns Australians against them. These are real people with aspirations and values many of whom, since being granted asylum, have made outstanding contributions to our country. One such person is South Australia’s Lieutenant Governor, Hieu Van Le. Hieu Van Le fled Vietnam in 1997 with his wife, Lan. He was 23 years old at the time. His journey to Australia had detours and all the elements of risk imaginable. He finally arrived in Darwin along with others on board a leaky boat seeking refuge and asylum. He was greeted by a couple of Aussies on a fishing boat with the welcome comment, ‘G’day mate—welcome to Australia.’ How things have changed. I wonder what kind of welcome Hieu would have received today if he were arriving under the same circumstances.

Hieu Van Le settled ultimately in South Australia, studied at the University of Adelaide and completed a degree in economics. Hieu and Lan have two children, Don and Kim, both born in Australia and named after cricketing greats Don Bradman and Kim Hughes. In 2005 Hieu was appointed chairman of South Australia’s Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission, a role that he has fulfilled superbly. On 31 August 2007 he was appointed as Lieutenant Governor of South Australia, again in a role that he is fulfilling with dignity and distinction. This year, in the Australia Day awards, Hieu Van Lee was awarded the Order of Australia.

I have known Hieu Van Le and his wife Lan for many years. They are two great Australians. Hieu Van Le’s Order of Australia was very much deserved and I congratulate him on his award. His contribution to Australia has been outstanding. He was not a threat, not a risk and not a burden on our country. On the contrary, for a person who arrived here under very similar circumstances to those who are today being demonised by the opposition, Hieu Van Le is a model citizen whom we could all be inspired by, but he would not be here today if you believe the opposition.

In closing I want to respond to a couple of comments made in the course of this debate. One was made in the MPI today by the member for Cook when he said ‘We need to stop the boats because people die on the boats’. If people die on the boats, and I believe they do, and they are prepared to risk death then the policies of destination countries pale into irrelevance. There could be no greater deterrent than the risk of dying and if that does not deter people then nothing else will. Certainly, not the policies of the governments of the countries for which they are headed. Where is the opposition’s logic in saying that? The cold hard reality is that there is none. Through that very comment they have effectively argued the case that it is not the policies of this government or any other government for that matter that draws people to those countries and causes them to flee the country from where they depart. There is simply no logic in that argument.

It is clear that this whole debate is being run for political opportunism. To make matters worse I have not heard, to date, an alternative to the government’s policies on any of these matters. So the opposition criticise but they give no alternative. I commend this bill to the House because this is a complex matter and the government is dealing with it in a measured, responsible way.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. This bill purports to be about stopping people smuggling. To this end it amends the Criminal Code 1995 and the Migration Act 1958 to create and harmonise offences and penalties in relation to people smuggling. It amends the Migration Act 1958, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications Interceptions and Access Act 1979 to make a range of consequential amendments that will enable foreign intelligence to be collected in certain circumstances and clarify that only the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Foreign Affairs can advise the A-G on the need to issue a warrant for the collection of foreign intelligence. It also amends the ASIO Act 1979 to enable ASIO to carry out its intelligence function in relation to border security.

The amendments will create a new offence of providing material support or resources towards a people-smuggling venture. It will establish in the Migration Act an aggravated offence of people smuggling which involves exploitation or danger of death or serious harm. It will apply minimum penalties of eight years imprisonment with a non-parole period of five years, the maximum penalty being 20 years or $220,000 or both to these new aggravated offences and to multiple offences. The offence of providing material support does not apply to a person who pays smugglers to facilitate their own passage or that of a family member to Australia.

Whilst this bill is supported—because widening powers and offences does make sense—this bill still does not address the core problem of people smuggling. Though its title—the Labor government is fond of titles; Building the Education Revolution is a classic case in point—of Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill may sound grandiose, the bottom line is that this government has watered down the border protection laws to the point where the new laws are acting as a magnet to attract people to this country’s shores. On election eve the current Prime Minister of this country promised to turn the boats back, but, as the recent inquiry into the explosion on SIEV-36 revealed, by April 2009 the PM had clearly changed this promise. He just forgot to tell anyone. Yet people smugglers know.

So let us recap exactly what this Labor government has done to our border security regime to create the current illegal immigrant problem—the magnet that is drawing people to our shores. Let us step through each of the changes to understand the magnitude of what this irresponsible government has done to water down our laws. On 8 February 2008 the last refugee leaves Nauru. The PM stands there and says that the Pacific solution is closed. On 12 March 2008 the minister reviews the case of 61 people in long-term detention of more than two years. On 13 May, in the 2008 budget papers, we see an increase to the humanitarian program to 13½ thousand places, with a focus on Africa, Asia and the Middle East. On 23 May 2008 there is the finalisation of the review of people in long-term detention, with 31 people either granted visas or considered visas. On 29 July 2008 we see reforms to immigration detention policy. Detention in immigration centres is now a last resort and for the shortest time. There is a risk based approach to detention with a focus on community detention, and the department has to justify the detention to those in detention. It needs to be reviewed every three months.

On 22 November 2008 we see an overhaul of the citizenship test, including the deletion of mandatory questions. On 18 March 2009 there is the announcement of intentions to abolish detention debt and the introduction of legislation to achieve that. On 12 May 2009, in the budget, we see an increase to the humanitarian program to 13,750 places. On 25 June we see detention values announced in 2008 introduced through legislation through the migration amendment bill. The bill embeds in law the principle that people be detained based on the risk they pose and be held for the shortest practical time. On 1 July 2009 work rights are provided for asylum seekers so that people who have remained lawfully in Australia and actively engaged with the department to resolve their visa status are permitted to work. This overturned the previous 45-day rule, where only those who apply within 45 days are granted work rights. On 8 September last year legislation abolishing detention debt was passed. Starting it all, of course, was the end of the temporary protection visas and the immediate granting of permanent protection visas.

All of these steps slowly dismantled, brick by brick, the wall that stopped asylum seekers coming to Australia. It is patently clear that since the Prime Minister began this border protection rollback in 2008 92 boats and over 4,000 people have arrived illegally on his watch—24 boats and over 1,000 asylum seekers in the last 10 weeks alone. The Prime Minister may pontificate in question time and bring up statistics from a decade ago, but it does not change the fact that the previous coalition government stopped the boats in their tracks. They got the number down to zero. Now it is back to 92. Clearly something has changed, and what it has been is these numerous, brick-by-brick reductions in the border protection regime. Every tent, every donga, every demountable that is erected on Christmas Island is an admission of Labor’s immigration failure. To quote the words of the Deputy Prime Minister uttered in a different life, ‘another boat, another policy failure’.

In the first two months of 2010 we have had more than three times the number of people arrive illegally by boat than in the last six years of the coalition government. 2010 truly is Labor’s year of the people smuggler. Knowing full well that Labor cannot spin to the people smugglers—they know only too well the magnet that is pulling them—this government instead tries to spin to the Australian people. Labor claims that the recent surge in illegal boat arrivals is all about international push factors. It is nothing to do with the government—they cannot control anything—it is the push factors that are directing boats to our shores. Yet since the last surge in illegal boat arrivals a decade ago the number of asylum applications in Western countries has fallen by almost 40 per cent. Indeed, data released by the UK government Home Office showed that in 2009 asylum applications in the UK, Canada and the US all declined but in Australia they increased by 30 per cent. Where, may I ask, are the so-called international push factors? In the UK asylum applications in the December quarter fell by 30 per cent.

The Rudd government says that the spike is due to regional conflicts in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. The government knows only too well that the Sri Lankan traffic largely dried up over the previous summer, yet they refuse to advise on the nationality of recent arrivals of groups. I suggest it is to obscure this fact. But let us look at Afghanistan. There are 2.8 million Afghan refugees in the world today. This compares to about 3.8 million in 2001,when the coalition was dealing with the issue. 2.6 million Afghan refugees are living in Pakistan and Iran. More than half of these have never lived in Afghanistan. Since 2002, a year after Australian Defence Forces were sent to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, 5.6 million Afghans have returned home, including over 278,000 in 2008.

Afghanistan is a long way from Australia. It is hard to see how Afghanistan is a regional conflict. More importantly, there are closer asylum options available. Countries surrounding Afghanistan that have signed the 1951 UNHCR convention and the 1967 protocol include Iran, Yemen, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan; yet still they are drawn to Australia. The UNHCR figures for the first half of 2009 showed that there was a 27 per cent increase in asylum applications in Australia in 2008, yet the international average in industrialised countries was only 11 per cent—27 per cent in Australia, yet in the rest of the world’s 44 industrialised nations the average is 11 per cent. This government has the hide, the temerity and the blatant effrontery to look the Australian people in the eye and say: ‘It’s the push factors that are doing it; nothing to do with our policy. There is nothing we can do about it; it is all the push factors.’

Let me be absolutely and patently clear: the evidence just presented makes it abundantly clear that push factors are not the problem. If they were, we would be seeing the same trends in other countries, but we are not. We are seeing other countries slow down and, indeed, decline while Australia speeds up. There can be only one reason that would explain the volume in this data—that is, there are pull factors at work. And the only pull factors that exist are the things that have changed and those are the Rudd Labor government policy changes that are watering down the border protection laws.

I understand the ALP’s agenda. I understand the forces of the Left and the forces that have required this to be pulled down. I know why the Labor government is doing it, but why not just come out and say: ‘Look, it is Labor government policy. We’ve got to appease the Left. We have to water the whole shooting match down. There are no push factors; we accept responsibility.’ Why try and spin the bleeding obvious?

Some would ask the question, ‘Why stop the boats?’ As the shadow minister for immigration quite rightly says, ‘People die on boats,’ including a reported 105 Afghans who set off from Indonesia last October never to be heard of again. We should not encourage a practice that encourages people to put their lives at risk for the profit of organised crime.

It is a fact that less than one per cent of the world’s refugees will be granted permanent settlement in one of just 16 countries this year, including Australia. The need is great and places are few. That is a fact. Every place provided to someone who comes illegally by boat is a place denied to someone we might otherwise choose to help, and it is because our humanitarian assistance is capped at a certain number of places. For every one person we take who has paid a people smuggler, another person drops off the list for that year. It is a fact.

We resettle over 11,000 refugees annually in Australia, making us the most generous resettlement nation per capita on earth. We are one of the original signatories to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and as a nation of immigrants—my family came here in the mid-1800s—we continue to bat above our weight in support of UN peacekeeping operations and humanitarian work overseas. I think Australians are generous, compassionate and fair-minded people, taking in the most resettlement refugees per capita on earth. Our nation has a lot to be proud of. Our citizens can hold their heads high on the world stage when talking about resettlement, refugees and illegal immigrants.

We all understand that asylum seekers are seeking a better life. They are seeking better economic conditions. They are seeking a better freedom. These desperate souls pay abhorrent people smugglers upwards of US$20,000 a head to take them to Australia. But the problem, as many in our nation know, is that before these people arrived on our shores they were already free. When they left their homes and travelled through multiple countries like Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, they were free once they crossed the border of each of those countries. The persecution from which they fled had ceased when they crossed over the border of their country. The problem is that freedom in itself is not enough; they want an economic freedom of the kind offered by Australia. I do not blame them. I think Australia is the greatest nation on earth. Why wouldn’t people want to come to this great country? But many of those seeking asylum have lived for many years in one of these countries while preparing to try and come here.

In Africa there are thousands of people who cannot flee to different countries to secure freedom. They cannot afford US$20,000 a head to board a boat. Indeed, the brutal and harsh reality in Africa is that many would starve to death, be raped or killed if they even left the refugee camp that offers them scant, if any, protection. These are truly desperate people who need asylum. And it is a similar story in numerous countries across the world.

The reality is, as unpalatable as it may sound, that for every illegal immigrant who has crossed multiple borders, and in many cases has spent many years in another country looking for that better freedom, and comes by boat to Australia and seeks asylum a truly deserving refugee is shunted further down the list. Our humanitarian programs will only stretch so far. At present, they are the most generous in the world—to the credit of our great nation—but they are at capacity. That is unfair.

It is unfair that people should be able to pay their way on a boat to literally jump the queue. It is unfair that processes can be jumped or ignored because you can pay what amounts to modern day slave traders, called people smugglers, to get you to Australia. It is unfair that people will die in refugee camps waiting for their application to be processed while others pay to get a head start. I think this is how many Australians view the current illegal immigrant question. There is no question that our processes must be compassionate. They must be humane. Yet watering down our border protection laws is neither if it leads to a flood of human misery, which it has.

This is the great irony of what the Prime Minister and the Labor Party have done. In fundamentally watering down the border protection laws brick by brick by brick—laws that were responsible for reducing boat arrivals to zero—the floodgates have been opened. Let us not kid ourselves. The push factors have not changed. Indeed, the evidence suggests that push factors may well have declined. But the pull factors have increased because the watered-down policy is creating a surge in demand. As the surge continues, whilst the Prime Minister so ironically seeks Indonesian assistance, refugees seeking freedom continue to wait, pushed further down the line because of those seeking a better economic freedom.

This bill will make a modicum of difference, but only on the margins. The surge of asylum seekers will not stop until Labor Party realises the errors of their policy ways and reintroduces tough border protection laws. The Prime Minister stood there and said, as an election promise, that he would be tough on illegal immigrants and border security. Clearly the results, the watered-down policy, the resultant illegal immigrants, the 92 boats and indeed 24 this year show that promise has been well and truly broken, if it was even kept at the beginning at all.

At present this year—Labor’s year of the people smuggler!—will only get worse unless the government acts. I can guarantee the nation that, when this nation tosses this incompetent government out, we on this side will act quickly, decisively and with maximum effect. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we have stopped the boats before, and we guarantee you we will stop them again.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to lend my support to the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010. Deputy Speaker Moylan, no doubt you have been lectured so far and I will probably do so a little bit again. People smuggling is generally global and it is a regional issue. It is not something that is just contained to Australia. It is not something that will be changed by people talking about turning boats around and saying, ‘We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again—we’ll fight them on the beaches!’ All that talk may be great for competing out in the electorates, but if we are going to be effective in government we need to deploy a number of different strategies, with the overarching aspect that we must be humane in the way we approach this issue.

According to the UNHCR 2008 Global trends report there were 42 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide. Within that there are 15.2 million refugees. Effectively 15 million people around the world are on the move. Given these statistics, there is little wonder that asylum seekers fall prey to those who would seek to make a business out of this—people smugglers. People smuggling is an insidious trade. This government has deployed a wide-ranging and very determined approach to combating the scourge of people smuggling. We have committed more than $650 million to upgrade border surveillance and we are committed to implementing a comprehensive people-smuggling strategy to combat this issue. The government has expanded its presence in the region, with the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, and Australian Customs and Border Protection Service recently setting up and expanding liaison posts, which are devoted to deterring irregular immigration. We understand that people smuggling is a serious issue. It is serious, organised crime that involves criminal syndicates who in turn depend on enablers and facilitators. Right at the hub of this is serious and organised crime.

I would like to remind the House of the comments made by the Prime Minister back in April last year immediately following the fatal boat blast off the north-west coast in Australia, where he lashed out at people smugglers in unrestrained language. He said this:

People smugglers are engaged in the world’s most evil trade and they should all rot in jail because they represent the absolute scum of the earth.

He went on to say:

That’s why this Government maintains its hard line, tough, targeted approach to maintaining border protection for Australia.

Unlike the opposition, who like to muddy the water every time this issue is raised—certainly every time another boat is detected it is like looking and seeing those opposite salivate at the numbers—we on this side of the House are dedicated to providing greater resources to border protection than any previous Australian government. As I said, this is very much a global problem; it is not something that can be just contained to this island of Australia. The Sun-HeraldI do not ordinarily go about quoting the Sun-Herald, but it is convenient on this occasion—recently reported that while total asylum claims in Australia rose by 19 per cent between 2007 and 2008, there was an increase of 122 per cent in Italy, 121 per cent in Norway, 89 per cent in the Netherlands, 53 per cent in Switzerland and 30 per cent in Canada over that same period.

It must be said that we on this side of the House recognise that two big events occurred causing a large part of that rise in the number of asylum seekers in the industrialised countries I mentioned. Those two issues are the Afghanistan conflict and the Sri Lankan civil war, not a change in Australia’s border protection laws nor a move to treat people with dignity and humanely, but two significant conflicts that occurred over that period. In 2008, there was an 85 per cent increase in the number of Afghan asylum seekers claiming protection in industrialised countries and over the same period there was a 24 per cent rise in claims by Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

For this debate those on the other side should at least understand that people arriving unlawfully by boat in Australia are a small but nevertheless significant proportion of asylum seekers. Given the significance of this debate I was quite stunned to learn that on average people arriving by boat and seeking asylum in Australia are a little over seven per cent of total asylum seekers. To put that in perspective, that means that more than 90 per cent of people lodging refugee claims turn up at our airports. As I understand from the AFP, often they have fake documents or have destroyed their documents during their travels and once they arrive here they present to Australian officials seeking asylum. That is in excess of 90 per cent of asylum seekers.

It is for these reasons that it pains me to hear the claims of the opposition that they had such an effective policy in the Pacific solution which stopped the boats, turned the boats around. In the face of that, they accuse us of being soft on border protection. The truth is the Howard government’s temporary protection visas which the coalition hardliners claim were such an effective weapon only applied to people arriving on boats. Remember also the UNHCR in that period were pretty strong in their criticism of the Howard government. They were not simply strong on the laws themselves but they were also strong in their criticism of the less than ethical approach that those laws had in dealing with the rights of people who came seeking asylum.

Targeting the organisers and the financiers of people-smuggling operations is an important element in stopping this insidious crime. To be able to do that requires us to have a strong anti-people-smuggling framework. We know that people-smuggling activities involve significant risks and dangers and often eventuate in the loss of life. I do not know the statistics in Australia alone, but the thought of being so desperate as to get on a leaky vessel organised by people smugglers with your wife and family and take your life in your hands you would have to be somewhat desperate. I cannot think of anything worse. Having regard to my previous involvement in looking after law enforcement officers, I can only lend my very strong support to their claims that the only way we are going to effectively stop this is by addressing and deterring those people actively involved in this trade. If they can get a buck out of trafficking or smuggling people they will. If they could make their money by other easier means, such as drugs, they would do that too. We are dealing with this type of person and that is why we require strong and targeted laws to address this issue.

Financial gain is the driver for these smugglers. They are criminals and they have little regard for the safety and wellbeing of any of those people on board. They have been paid their money and that is where their commitment stops. Therefore this requires a very concerted approach, not only law enforcement once they arrive on our shores but also how we deter those criminals from their operations overseas. For that reason we are introducing in this bill a whole-of-government approach which coordinates the government effort in combating people smuggling by strengthening the Commonwealth anti-people-smuggling legislative framework. This framework will ensure that an appropriate range of offences is available to prosecute people smuggling and harmonise the various activities we have at our disposal across the Commonwealth to target this crime.

This bill comes at a time when Australia and Indonesia have signed a new agreement to combat people smuggling. Last week many of us were fortunate enough to hear President Yudhoyono speak at the joint sitting of parliament. He indicated that there would be greater cooperation between our two countries in order to combat people smuggling. That was singled out as one of the major issues to be addressed by Australia and Indonesia. He acknowledged that the boat issue was complex and that it certainly involved law enforcement, as well as security and humanitarian concerns. He also acknowledged that neither Australia nor Indonesia could do this alone. He went on to say that the framework of cooperation known as the Bali process will need to be improved through ongoing discussion and, more importantly, through joint commitment.

I think Indonesia, as our nearest neighbour, is important. It is a transit point for people seeking to come to this country and it is an area where people smuggling is currently in operation. It is of note that the agreement with Indonesia for the first time imposes a mandatory sentence of five years for those convicted of people smuggling. We will continue to work cooperatively with all our regional partners to disrupt people-smuggling ventures overseas as well as subjecting people smugglers to the full force of the law here in Australia.

I would now like to take a little time to talk in a little more detail about the bill before the House, which seeks to strengthen our anti-people-smuggling legislation framework and support the government’s plan to combat this scourge. First, the bill will harmonise a range of offences in the Migration Act and the Criminal Code to ensure that the strongest possible framework of prosecution and investigative action can take place in relation to people-smuggling activities. It is all very well to require our officers to be on hand and to make arrests. Having had a long association with the police, I can say that they are occasionally somewhat critical of a lack of successful prosecutions. Unfortunately, on a number of occasions the lack of prosecutorial success has been on the basis of conflicts within our current laws. This is one of the things that we are moving to strengthen by harmonising those provisions in the Criminal Code and the Migration Act so that there will not be those loopholes for people to escape.

This bill will introduce new categories of offences for people smuggling. For the first time, importantly, the bill will insert an aggravated offence of people smuggling involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm into the Migration Act. This will reflect the serious nature of the offence, and there will be a tough new penalty introduced that will range up to 20 years of imprisonment. The bill will also establish another new offence, providing material support and resources towards people-smuggling ventures, in the Migration Act and the Criminal Code. The maximum penalty for this offence will be 10 years imprisonment, a fine of $110,000 or both. Again, this is put forward because it is our genuine belief—we know it to be true, and I do not think anyone is going to be able to argue about it—that people smuggling is serious and organised crime. It is certainly organised in terms of its range of activities and, as I said earlier, it involves enablers and facilitators. They are the people who commission, in many instances, the actual illicit venture, and they are also the people who are less likely to be caught because they are at arm’s length from these operations under current laws. We want to bring them within the purview of these laws so that they too will be prosecuted. The Migration Act currently maintains mandatory minimum penalties for aggravated offences for people smuggling. The bill will extend the higher mandatory minimum penalties in the Migration Act to new aggravated offences involving exploitation or danger of death or serious harm, particularly where offenders are convicted of multiple offences.

I have spoken many times in this House about how this country faces its threats from a wide range of different sources—to its people, to its institutions, to our economy and even in some instances to our technology. These threats ordinarily come about through organised crime. We have unashamedly responded by introducing a new package of legislative and administrative arrangements to deal with this aspect of organised crime, people smuggling. Fundamentally, this approach will ensure that our law enforcement agencies across the country have the tools that they need to act on our behalf and, in doing so, protect our communities.

Consistent with the government’s national security strategy, this bill will also provide greater capacity for Australian government agencies to investigate and disrupt people smuggling. Again, this is not simply designed to catch those in the act of people smuggling; it is to go out and deter and disrupt those crimes, preventing them from taking place in the first instance. We know that the protection of our borders is critical to Australia’s national security, and therefore it is appropriate that our nation and our agencies be given the flexibility to improve their level of coordination across all agencies in order to defend our coastline and protect all those that they serve.

A number of other changes have occurred through this legislation. First, I will briefly touch on the issues of telephone interception and surveillance powers. This bill will make associated changes to the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act to enable law enforcement and security agencies to have access under both acts to appropriate investigative tools in relation to existing people-smuggling offences which are serious offences under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act and to those new offences prescribed under this bill.

ASIO powers will also be broadened under this bill, which will enable ASIO to use its intelligence capabilities to respond to people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity. This will now enable ASIO to play a greater role, where appropriate, in support of whole-of-government efforts to combat people smuggling and other serious threats to Australia’s border integrity. The bill also aligns the definition of ‘foreign intelligence’ in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act more closely with that of the Intelligence Services Act 2001. In practice, this will enhance the ability of the national security agencies to collect intelligence about people-smuggling networks and other non-state actors threatening our national security.

In conclusion, this bill demonstrates the government’s commitment to address the serious nature of people smuggling by targeting those criminal groups who seek to organise, participate in and benefit from this illicit crime. I commend this bill to the House.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010 as, indeed, I would be happy to support any measures which proposed to strengthen the integrity of our borders and oppose people smuggling as an activity. However, I do want to record, especially for the member for Werriwa’s benefit, that people smuggling is not a new phenomenon in Australia. Indeed, it has dominated the political landscape for some time now. Listening to members opposite in the recent contributions that we have heard, it is as if somehow people smuggling has become a new phenomenon and somehow we need special legislation to deal with this phenomenon.

For some time now, the opposition has been warning the government that weakening the integrity of our borders would lead to this situation. We warned people like the member for Werriwa—indeed, the government—that if you weakened the border protection system of Australia you would create pull factors which would encourage more people smuggling and more people to attempt to come to Australia by boat. That is exactly what has happened. The member for Werriwa said that we salivate each time there is a boat or another arrival of a group of people here in Australia and I record here that that is absolutely and utterly not the case. The opposition is very concerned at the risk to life and limb of asylum seekers attempting to get here by boat and at the risk to ADF personnel who are sent out to intercept boats. That is why we are so concerned to warn the government that weakening the border protection system of our nation is something that you ought not do and we have warned them of this repeatedly.

In August 2008, we saw the government remove the successful system which prevented people smuggling from being a major concern. I note that, in the contribution of the Attorney-General, he said that conflicts and turmoil in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Sri Lanka were driving a global surge in asylum seekers. It is interesting to make a short reflection on this comment which opened his remarks. Conflicts and turmoil in Afghanistan and the Middle East have been occurring for a long time and certainly push factors have been around for a long time. So why would there be a change in the climate or in the circumstances of people attempting to arrive here by boat from Afghanistan and the Middle East? The answer is the pull factors and the policies of the Australian government. I think that is borne out by all of the evidence in front of us as a nation today.

In fact, I would contend that the only reason we are here debating this legislation is the weakening of our border protection. What we have here in this anti-people-smuggling legislation is a graphic illustration for the Australian people of cause and effect in operation. I think it is true to say that the last government was tough on border protection. This government, however, has sent out a mixed set of signals. Before the election, it was tough on border protection. Of course it would have talked tough because that was before the election. After the election, the government went soft on border protection: ‘Let us undo the Howard government’s successful system because it is too hard line and has too many problems and why do we need it anyway?’ So it was tough before the election but soft after the election. Then we had the Prime Minister have a bet both ways and say he was going to be tough but also compassionate with his border protection policy. That is called being all things to all people.

This policy has failed. The result of the government’s changes in policy has been to relegate the claims of people who form part of the legitimate humanitarian refugee queues—the thousands of deserving people waiting to have their claims for asylum processed legally. I think that is the main failure of the weakening of the border protection system that the Rudd government has engaged in. Even last year, after we saw the increasing surge in arrivals in boats and people-smuggling activity, the Prime Minister had to come out, as the member for Werriwa was happy to record, and say that people smugglers were engaged in ‘the world’s most evil trade’. They were the ‘absolute scum of the earth’, he said, and ‘they should rot in hell’—very strong language indeed. I do record that the sending out of these consistently mixed signals has resulted in an increase and that pull factors are certainly playing a part in what is going on with our borders at the moment.

People smuggling is a criminal activity, and all members in this place are happy to record that that is their view. In 2010, long after the abolition of the Howard government’s highly effective program, we can see that there is now an increase in this criminal activity. I think people will recall, if they cast their minds back just a short few years to the time after the attacks of 9-11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, that there was plenty of turmoil in Afghanistan—plenty of reason for people to seek asylum or to leave Afghanistan and seek Australia. However, in the year following those activities, 2002-03, there was not a single boat arrival in Australia. In 2003-04, there were only three boat arrivals and, in 2004-05, there were again no boat arrivals. In 2005-06, there were eight boat arrivals. In 2006-07, there were four boat arrivals and, in 2007-08, up to the point when Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party changed the Howard coalition government’s border protection policies, there were just three boats. So, for the last six years of the Howard government, there were only 18 boats in total.

We heard the Prime Minister in question time today talk about 1999 and all of the factors that led to offshore processing, temporary protection visas and all of the things that the Howard government put in place to attempt to deal with the problem that had come up earlier. It was a successful program. So when you look at the three boats a year over the six years after the Howard government action—showing resolve and taking the action required—we now see a different situation. In August 2008, Labor changed the laws on border protection. I do not think they understood at that time that this would lead to consequences. I think those on that side genuinely thought that this could be done and the system would remain in place and nothing would happen, but since the Labor government weakened the robust border protection system we have had 92 illegal boats arrive, carrying over 4,100 people. We have had incidents on the seas which have involved ADF personnel and which have put them at great risk. It is certainly a great problem we now have to deal with in this legislation before us tonight. This year alone—we are only 10 weeks into this year—we have attracted 24 illegal boats carrying over 1,100 arrivals. Last week, we witnessed chaos, with five boats arriving in just six days. It does appear that pull factors are leading to an upsurge in people-smuggling activity and in asylum seekers seeking Australian shores by boat.

Of course, the purpose of this particular bill is to amend Australia’s anti-people-smuggling legislative framework, and I want to speak very briefly on the issues that are contained within this bill. In relation to the Criminal Code, this bill creates a new offence of supporting the offence of people-smuggling. It targets people who organise, finance and provide other material and support to people-smuggling ventures entering foreign countries, whether or not in Australia. The penalty proposed for this new offence is imprisonment for a maximum of 10 years, a fine of $110,000 or both. This bill also creates two new people-smuggling related offences within the Migration Act: firstly, supporting the offence of people-smuggling and, secondly, the aggravated offence of people-smuggling involving such things as exportation, danger of death or serious harm. This will carry a penalty of imprisonment for a maximum of 20 years, a fine of $220,000 or both. Of course, these are good, quality measures, and certainly ones that we support within this bill.

There are concerns, of course, with this legislation, and I want to turn to those. One in particular is how agencies which are being given extra powers and extra responsibilities in this legislation will meet the requirements that this legislation will impose upon them. In relation to the Surveillance Devices Act, the bill will extend emergency authorisation for the use of a surveillance device in investigations into the aggravated offence of people-smuggling. Currently, the ability to obtain emergency authorisation for a surveillance device does not extend to offences under the Migration Act. In relation to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, the bill will simplify the criteria to be satisfied by agencies when applying for telecommunications interception warrants for offences which are contained within the people-smuggling offences of the Migration Act. Under these amendments, agencies will no longer have to establish that the offence involved two or more offenders and substantial planning and organisation—again, worthy objectives of this bill.

The bill will amend the definition of ‘security’ in the ASIO Act to officially give the agency statutory power to obtain and evaluate intelligence relevant to the protection of Australia’s territorial border integrity from serious threats. This intelligence can then be communicated to various agencies such as the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and other law enforcement agencies. Those amendments are made in schedule 2 of the bill. These particular functions, which will include obtaining, correlating and evaluating intelligence relevant to security and communicating that intelligence are worthy objectives.

However, with the increase in responsibility for ASIO, this bill contains no measure to increase the funding or the capability of ASIO. Indeed, there are significant increases in the responsibilities of that agency in this bill, so for the bill not to contain any extra funding—and the bill’s explanatory memorandum states specifically that this bill will have no financial impact, so the government obviously intends not to increase the resourcing of this agency—is of concern. Clearly ASIO will have to find the resources within its existing budget—which, of course, will mean changes to the way it conducts itself and organises itself. This could have an effect on domestic security. It is a concern that the government needs to take seriously, especially when we are seeing an increase in the number of arrivals and an increase in people-smuggling activity. If you are going to propose that an agency like ASIO become a relevant agency in dealing with these serious criminal threats then, if you are not to provide those resources, you need to take seriously the diminishment of the responsibility of that organisation to deal with all of the threats that it is asked to deal with. Indeed, we do ask ASIO to deal with a series of domestic and external threats.

They are the concerns that I and the opposition have in relation to various provisions of this bill. But, in general, it is easy for me to say that I support measures which increase the integrity of Australia’s borders. People-smuggling is a horrific crime. The Prime Minister is of course right to speak very strongly about it. I just wish that he would at times be more consistent in his approach to people-smuggling because, if you do not take into consideration both the pull and the push factors in relation to this matter, I think you are ignoring a major relevant contributor to the activities of the people smugglers. If you are not severe in your ability to treat people-smuggling and its effects when they arrive here at the other end then I think you are encouraging people to take advantage of that system. That, of course, is something we do not want to do, for all of the reasons I have outlined: the risk to the lives of the people who are involved in the people-smuggling activity, that it relegates genuine asylum seekers and people waiting in refugee and humanitarian camps around the world for a place in our generous refugee program—and we have some 13,000 places available, which is very generous per capita as a country—to a longer and more difficult time waiting, and that it provides an incentive, if you like, or a system whereby people-smuggling is easier. That is what we warned the government about and have consistently warned the government about since their election in 2007.

In closing, we are here because of the government’s weakening of our border protection legislation. We are passing a bill called the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill because we have—if you want to term it this way—a crisis in people-smuggling activity which has been generated out of the weakening of Australia’s border protection laws and the abandoning of our tough system in August 2008. I am not here tonight to say to the government, ‘We told you so.’ I am here tonight to say to the government that this is a serious matter involving criminal activity and the government simply ought not be so inconsistent with its politics. It promised one thing prior to the last election then tried to deliver something for the left of Australian politics that ended up resulting in this bill before the House tonight.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Due to the very short time that I have available to me, I am sure I will be permitted to pursue my further comments on this bill when the debate resumes. I rise tonight to indicate my support for the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill 2010 and to indicate that I think that this is an important piece of legislation. It is important in and of itself but it should also be recognised as sitting amongst a suite of other initiatives that this government has undertaken around addressing the issue of people-smuggling, in particular in our region, and putting in place the perspective that the Prime Minister gave on this issue when he indicated to the nation that whilst—

Debate interrupted.