Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Cook proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The rolling crisis in the Government’s immigration detention network.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia’s immigration detention network is collapsing under the strain of Labor’s failed border protection regime. Under Labor, our immigration detention network is in a rolling crisis. Last Sunday week, after a series of breakouts on Christmas Island, the Prime Minister said to reporters here in Canberra that ‘this is a situation that is well in hand’. Within 24 hours of the Prime Minister claiming that the situation was in hand on Christmas Island, tear gas was being dropped, beanbag rounds were being fired at protesters and Christmas Island had descended into a week of chaos.

Yesterday morning the minister at the table, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, boldly assured the nation, with the same assurance that the Prime Minister sought to assure people around the country last Sunday week, that his advice was that all asylum seekers had been accounted for. Yet last night on Lateline he had to admit that there were still at least two missing—there may well have been more; he was not able to be exactly sure—after a face-to-file check failed to accord with a headcount. This is the status of the management of our immigration detention network.

What concerns me about this is that the government is pretending that there is nothing here to see. I asked the minister whether he knew, when he went out yesterday morning and sought to assure Australians that everything was under control, that further checks had to be undertaken. I asked him whether he knew that there is not just a headcount but that you have to do a face-to-file check, as he mentioned last night. If he did know that, why was he so quick out of the blocks to try to create the impression that everything was under control, just like the Prime Minister was?

As is usual in this portfolio, the government protests as to certain facts but, as the facts become known, it is clear that the minister is in charge of absolute chaos. Yesterday on the ABC the member for Wannon nailed this pretty accurately. He knows, as I do—particularly as I come from New South Wales—that the minister is known in the New South Wales Right as a numbers man. But it is clear that he could not get his numbers right on Christmas Island yesterday. The numbers that he should be concerning himself with are the ones on Christmas Island, rather than the numbers within the New South Wales Right faction here in Canberra—where I understand he has been exceptionally busy of late. Perhaps I could suggest to the minister that to find those asylum seekers an all-points bulletin should be put out to the bowling alleys of the country, where they lost the last people who had broken out of the system. Or perhaps they are down at the Melbourne aquarium, where they found the last one. There is a whole series of places they could be. The minister may be advised that, next time, before he goes out and starts pretending that everything is okay, he might want to check that they have done all the checks, so that he can give proper assurance rather than giving false hope, as he continues to do on a daily basis about the status of our immigration program and about the status of our detention network that is in complete chaos. It is a rolling crisis.

I remind those in the House that on 21 November 2009 a bloody fight—as it was described—broke out on Christmas Island, involving 150 Afghans and Sri Lankans. They attacked each other with broom handles, pool cues and tree branches. Three detainees were medivac’d to Perth, 10 were admitted to hospital on Christmas Island and 27 others were injured. On 20 to 22 September 2010 there were rolling rooftop protests at Villawood. Literally, beds were burnt—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—Beds were burning!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Beds were burning at Villawood, as they were on Christmas Island last week. There were beds burnt at Villawood and people stayed on the roofs for a number of days in that fairly appalling scene. On 1 September 2010, 90 detainees broke out of the Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin. That cost taxpayers $430,000 to fix the mess. And not just that, but it cost a further $790,000 to upgrade the centre because of the security problems at that place, because it was not developed to deal with this level of policy failure. Mind you, I note that we learned in estimates that no-one was charged over that incident either.

On 15 November 2010, there was a violent brawl at Broadmeadows involving 50 children. One was hospitalised. On 17 November there was another rooftop protest at Villawood. At the Airport Lodge in Darwin there was a protest over several days, from 7 to 10 February, which ended with 11 people hospitalised and a further 11 taken to the watch house. On 27 and 28 February there was a riot at Christmas Island in the family compound, where 13 people were injured, windows were smashed, three asylum seekers were arrested and 15 young males had to be moved off the island. On 16 March 2011 there was a mass breakout at the Asti Motel. They walked down Smith Street in Darwin at will. Hundreds of them walked down Smith Street in Darwin, while—not to be outdone—a rooftop protest was also underway at the Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin.

On 17 March there was, for once, a quieter protest, but a protest nonetheless, at Curtin. We should be watching Curtin carefully, because the minister knows that things are boiling up in Curtin as well. On 12 and 13 March there were mass breakouts at Christmas Island, and that was the same weekend the Prime Minister sought to tell everybody that everything was under control. Then, of course, from 14 to 17 March riots broke out on Christmas Island as hundreds engaged in violent protests. Buildings and beds were burned to the ground, staff were holed up and unable to escape, police were assaulted, tear gas was used and beanbag rounds were deployed.

Such is the crisis that has occurred under this government and under this minister that Federal Police had to take by force a Commonwealth facility. That is a disgrace. That is absolutely a loss of control. Not only have they lost control of our borders; now they have lost control of the detention network—and the chaos continues.

This is not the first time we have seen riots and other protests in our detention network, as those on this side of the House know. But there is a big difference now as opposed to when the coalition was in government. When this side of the House had to deal with the difficulties of people coming to this country, we acted. We took steps; we took action; we stopped the boats. We did that through a series of measures, not just one measure. The minister tries to make out that there was just one measure here and one measure there. There were a series of measures put in place and, as a result of those measures, the boats stopped. The number of boats reduced to an absolute trickle. I noticed that last night the minister said that his goal at Christmas Island is to get a detention population to 2,000. That is his goal!

I see the Father of the House here today. The Father of the House put in place a series of measures that ensured that when the coalition left office in November 2007 there were not 2,000 people on Christmas Island, there were not 2,000 people in the detention network; there were four people who had arrived illegally by boat who were in our detention network. That is a goal the minister might want to take up. Rather than 2,000, he might want to think about trying to get the number to four. But to get it to four he has to do some things which I do not think this minister has the resolve to do. Resolve, as the member for Berowra knows, as the former Prime Minister knows and as those who have served in that capacity know, requires you to take difficult decisions. Resolve requires you to send messages when there is chaos in our detention network and requires that you immediately sanction those who are involved in rioting.

This is a minister who is happy to have a three-month review and not know who was involved in the riots last week. He is not happy to suspend those people immediately. They are going to wait for about six months, and after that period of time, maybe even in 12 months time, when he does his general character test review case by case, he may well decide to deny them a visa. But you have to go on his form. It was revealed in this House yesterday and today that three people on SIEV36 were part of a plan, as the Northern Territory coroner said, to scuttle that boat. An independent assessment and review by the coroner found that they sank the boat. The minister knows that the general character test does not require a criminal conviction. He knows this absolutely. He knows that at any time, regardless of any other criminal proceedings, he could have revoked those visas. He could even change those visas. He could have given them a 449 safe-haven visa. But this is a minister who decided not to act. As long as this minister decides not to act, the boats will keep coming, the detention centre chaos will continue and we will continue to see the harm, the waste and the frustration of the Australian people who are angry about one thing: a government that cannot run an immigration system. They are sick to death of a government that simply refuses to listen to them and understand that what infuriates them is a government that has lost control of our detention network, our borders and our immigration system. Their only answer, as the Prime Minister did shamefully in this place a few weeks ago, is to say, ‘The Australian people feel this way because they have been victims of a race baiting campaign by the opposition.’ That is a disgrace. Before the last election the Prime Minister said, ‘If you are concerned about border protection, you are not a racist.’ Commander Bradbury over there I am sure put this in there because he knew—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will refer to the member for Lindsay by his correct title.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will refer to the member for Lindsay by his appropriate title rather than what I referred to him as before. It was the member for Lindsay who—before he went on that great expedition to Darwin, the well-known port in Lindsay—went out there and encouraged Australians that he was all keen on border protection and so was the Prime Minister, and the people of Lindsay did not have to worry about the government thinking they were racist because they were concerned about the government’s border protection failures. They did not have to worry about that, because that was all behind us. But in this place several weeks ago the Prime Minister restated her assault on the Australian people for having concerns about her border protection failures.

They have no policy at all. This is their policy to stop the boats: East Timor. We can have a processing centre in East Timor—as a new millennium project, I suspect. It will not be this millennium; we will have to wait for the next one. It will be the millennium processing centre at East Timor in the next millennium, to go with the Millennium Dome, I suppose, from this millennium.

The minister was saying last night: ‘It takes time and we have to wait and wait. We do not have an immediate plan; we have a long-term plan.’ I think a millennium is a particularly long period of time. But this is the plan that the government has and it is a plan that is coming to nothing.

This is a plan that worked: on 1 September 2001 Prime Minister Howard said, ‘There will be third-country processing at Nauru’; 19 days later the centre opened. Eight months after the Prime Minister announced her processing centre in East Timor, it is no closer to coming into being. This is a processing centre that is a ‘never-never’ solution.

The only other proposals they put forward, apart from removing the Howard government’s regime, was the asylum freeze. That worked well. It led to a tripling in the amount of time people spent in detention and a doubling in the detention population and it was such a great deterrent that over 50 boats turned up in the meantime and over 2,000 people. Every time this government touches this area, it completely turns to mush. The cost that is paid in humanitarian and financial terms and in the integrity of our immigration program is simply too high.

I have a challenge for this minister. This minister has to decide this week whether he is going to be part of the solution or part of the problem. This minister has to decide whether he is going to walk out of this chamber today and walk into the Prime Minister’s office and say: ‘We’ve got it wrong. We shouldn’t have changed the policy of the Howard regime. It has absolutely turned to mush. I am sitting in a sea of disaster when it comes to our detention network and you will not let me take the decision.’ That is a decision that I am sure the minister knows he has to take—he would know he has to take these decisions—and he can decide to do that today or he can roll over to the Prime Minister and continue to swim in this sea of absolute failure.

I do not think the minister will do that. I think this minister is part of the problem not the solution. His only answer to date is to go out there and employ another six media officers to spin the boats away. You cannot spin them away; you have to act and you need to act now.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset I think it is appropriate, given that these issues have been raised, that I put on the record my appreciation and the government’s appreciation and acknowledgement of the work of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Serco and the Australian Federal Police in managing the very serious incidents—riots and protests—at Christmas Island over the last week. I think it is appropriate that that is put on the record. Sometimes staff of departments are criticised, and there is a place for that, but it is also appropriate that we thank them. And I do thank them at the outset of this debate.

There are legitimate issues for discussion in this very complex policy area, and it is right that they be raised. I will not take a lecture from members opposite on the issue of riots in detention centres. I will not take a lecture from members of the Liberal Party. The member for Cook in a short acknowledgment said, ‘We had issues too.’ He quoted issues in detention centres about protests, escapes and fires over the last couple of years. He said in a dismissive note, ‘Of course there have been incidents before.’ He did not talk about the riots and protests at Baxter. He did not talk about the riots and protests at Woomera, Curtin, Christmas Island and Nauru. He talked about some people walking down the street; he did not talk about the 480 people who left detention centres in one go under the previous government.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We acted.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He says, ‘We acted,’ and those protests, riots and fires started as early as 2000 or 1999. He says, ‘We acted.’ I am not going to take a lecture from the member for Cook on those issues.

The member of Cook raised a number of issues, and I am happy to deal with them one by one. Let me deal with the last: the matter he referred to as spin doctors. He says the government’s answer is to hire more spin doctors, more media advisers, through the newspaper. He says we have just created six new positions.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ve advertised them.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He says, ‘You’ve advertised them.’ It is very important not to mislead the House. Let me explain to the member for Cook how the Public Service works. When somebody leaves a position, they tend to be replaced. When they are replaced, there tend to be advertisements, so not every advertisement in the newspaper is a new position. In fact, of the six positions advertised this week, four are existing positions. The member for Cook could have given me a call. He could have put in an FOI. He could have asked. The member for Cook says there are six new positions, and it is wrong.

I feel obliged to share with the House the budget of the national communications branch of my department: $2.98 million in the year 2010-11.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s all right.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dawson says, ‘That’s all right.’ It is a lot of money and it is exactly half the amount we inherited from the previous government—not exactly half but around half: in 2007-08 it was $4.23 million and in 2006-07 it was $3.8 million; more than the current budget of the national communications branch.

If the honourable member for Cook wants to start this debate, I do not think this is essential to the debate. I do not think this is a key point, but if the honourable member for Cook wants to raise matters, he needs to be sure of his facts. He needs to make sure when he says things to the House that he is correct.

The member for Cook also raises the matter of character and, again, he has been unsure of his facts. He has been wrong. The member for Cook said in the House the other day, as I mentioned during question time, that the minister’s power to deal with character issues is not appellable; it cannot be appealed to the courts. All he had to do was lean across to the man sitting next to him, the former minister for immigration, who had his decisions on character matters appealed to the courts and had a particularly disastrous result because proper and due process is very important in these instances. I am very clear. I have said previously that I will take character into account in these processes. I am more than happy for the member for Cook when that has happened to then question me about how that occurred. I am more than happy for the member for Cook, if he is still in his current portfolio, to ask me how they were dealt with and what the result was. He can try and pre-empt the decisions all he likes.

He makes the point that character issues should be taken into account, and I agree with him. He might ask the member for Berowra, the member for Menzies or Senator Vanstone how they took character into account when considering matters at Baxter, Woomera and previous riots, protests and fires, and the millions of dollars worth of damage caused in those incidents. He could ask them how they took character into account, but I would say each case is taken on a case-by-case basis, as is appropriate.

The member for Cook raises the matter of the counts at Christmas Island and the face-to-file checks. As I made clear last night, the initial check indicated that everybody had been returned and the numbers were appropriate. Then there were some anomalies identified through the face-to-file check. They have been further checked, and I can advise the member for Cook and the House that I have been advised by the department of immigration, the Australian Federal Police and Serco that those matters have been resolved and everybody is in the detention centre—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Morrison interjecting

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Cook has had his opportunity.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

who should be in the detention centre now those final checks have been done. I am more than happy to advise the House of that.

The member for Cook, quite rightly and appropriately, raises the issue of the opposition’s alternative approach. I think the member for Cook and I would agree on some things in this House. I think we would agree that the appropriate way of dealing with pressures on detention is to break the business model of the people smugglers. I think we would agree on that. I think the member for Cook would say, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ He has different terms for it, as he is entitled to. He says, ‘There’s sugar on the table. You’ve got to remove the sugar.’ That is a different way of saying the same thing. The member for Cook likes to say that. Let us go through the member for Cook’s policy prescriptions. He raised it.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Morrison interjecting

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the honourable member for Cook that he is still under warning.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He said, ‘We have a suite of measures.’ He is right about that: there are a number of measures on the table from the opposition. I have never said, as he alleged I had, that there is only one measure. Whenever you ask the member for Cook about the solution to any problem in the world, he says, ‘Nauru.’ You could ask him the solution to global warming and he would probably say, ‘Nauru.’ You could ask him the solution to famine in the world and he would probably say, ‘Nauru.’

Nevertheless, I recognise that he has a number of measures on the table. Firstly, he has the detention centre, the offshore processing centre, at Nauru. He says that that would somehow reduce the incentive to come to Australia. He says that a detention centre at Nauru would create uncertainty as to the result of your claim for asylum in Australia. I thought: Okay, let’s have a look this. How would that work when you take into account that, of those who were settled out of Nauru, 96 per cent were settled in Australia or New Zealand?

The member for Cook says, ‘This would create uncertainty. This would stop people coming.’ It was so uncertain that 47 got settled in other countries—that is true. Out of the thousands of people, 47 people were settled in other countries; 96 per cent were settled in Australia or New Zealand. A detention facility at Nauru, with all due respect, would be another Christmas Island—an offshore excised place, a different country, but with the same result of people being processed and settled in Australia. He says, ‘Take the sugar off the table. You’ll have to spend some time in Nauru, maybe 12 months, and then you end up in Australia.’ What is the difference between being processed in Nauru, Christmas Island or Curtin? I am not sure, but the honourable member for Cook seems to think it would make a difference.

The member for Cook needs to answer some questions. Who would run the Nauru processing centre? Would it be the International Organisation for Migration? Has he been to Geneva and met with them and asked them if they would run it? Has he met with the UNHCR and asked them to run it? Or would it be run by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship? If, for example, the member for Cook tried to get an international organisation to run it and those international organisations said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding! We tried that last time. It was a disaster. We’re not going to associate our name with that sort of project,’ he would have to run it himself through the department of immigration, and we all know the legal implications of that, following the recent High Court case.

With respect, the member for Cook then talked about temporary protection visas in point 2 of his suite of measures, as he likes to call them, and he is right. He says: ‘We would introduce temporary protection visas.’ What is the impact of uncertainty there? How does that take the sugar off the table? Consider this: of the 9,043 people granted temporary protection visas, 8,600 were then granted permanent residency—95.1 per cent. So you have 96 per cent of the people at Nauru making it to Australia and 95 per cent of the people who got temporary protection visas were given permanent residency.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Morrison interjecting

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are saying it is not true. You do not think that 95 per cent of the people who got temporary protection visas ended up with permanent residency in Australia? That is a very interesting approach.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Morrison interjecting

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Cook has had a fairly good go. He will now remain silent.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am more than happy. He is making some fine interjections which I would like on the record, but I do respect your ruling and the office that you hold, Mr Deputy Speaker. What would be the impact of the temporary protection visas? We should check the history and see the impact. The member for Cook very proudly says, ‘Temporary protection visas, after they were introduced, reduced the number of boats arriving in Australia.’ He says the number of boats fell.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is exactly what happened.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is exactly what happened. My old friend, the member for Stirling, comes in and says the number of boats fell. Well done. The number of asylum seekers went up. After the introduction of temporary protection visas, 8,000 people came over the next two years, but it is okay because they came on bigger boats! The number of boats went down, but the number of people went up—

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Keenan interjecting

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The honourable member for Stirling will also remain silent.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and the proportion of women and children taking that dangerous journey on boats went up. Before the introduction of temporary protection visas, 13 per cent of people who arrived in Australia by boat were women and children. After their introduction, it was 48 per cent. So, if we are concerned about women and children on boats, I am not sure temporary protection visas are the answer.

So here we have a suite of measures. Measure No. 3: turn the boats back. That was a triumph in the election campaign. The ‘boat phone’—remember that?—Admiral Abbott, at Kirribilli House, on the phone saying, ‘Turn that one back’; ‘Don’t turn that one back.’ That is what we had. The member for Cook has to explain this: if his policy is to turn the boats back—he said it would be in limited circumstances, where it did not cause danger; I respect that—perhaps he could share with the House what those limited circumstances would be. What would be the circumstances when the lives of our naval personnel and the lives of the asylum seekers would not be put at risk? The other thing the member for Cook might like to explain is this: he says he is going to turn them back, but to where? The member for Cook might say, ‘Indonesia’—the logical place to turn them back to. The Indonesian government has said, ‘Not on your nelly. You’re not turning them back to us.’ When the member for Cook made his announcement and the member for Warringah, the Leader of the Opposition, made his announcement during the election campaign that we would turn the boats back to Indonesia, the Indonesian foreign ministry said, ‘We think not. Not to us.’ Minister Natalegawa, the Indonesian foreign minister said:

… simply pushing back boats to where they have come from would be a backward step.

So I am not sure where he would return them.

Then we have point 4 of the honourable member for Cook’s suite of measures. I have to say, this one is probably my favourite. This is about the number of visas that would be made available to offshore entry and onshore entry. He says, ‘We would limit the number of visas available to people who arrive in Australia by boat’—to, I think, 3,750. What would this create when you think about it? You would think, ‘Okay. Let’s have a look at this idea. Maybe this has got some merit. We’ll consider it.’ The member for Cook would say, ‘If you are one of the first 3,750 people to arrive in Australia by boat, you get a visa. If you are the 3,751st, sorry, you stay in detention’—unless he would abolish mandatory detention. I am not sure that is his policy. That is a rolling detention crisis if I have ever heard one. The first 3,750 get a visa and the rest have to wait. Don’t you think that would create quite an incentive to be one of the first 3,750? Don’t you think we would have quite a rush to be part of that process? Don’t you think we would have people saying, ‘Let’s get on a boat and make sure it is in the first few months of the year to make sure we’re one of the 3,750’?

That is the suite of measures that the honourable member for Cook refers to. I refer to it as a suite of fraudulent policies which would have no impact and may have a negative impact.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ve got 30 seconds to give us your policy.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Cook remains under warning.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Cook needs to be held to account and he needs to explain how these so-called policies would work, because we says, ‘We have the policies that work.’ They do not work, because they do not match the people smugglers’ business model. They do not remove the incentive for onward movement, or secondary movement, which the honourable member for Cook correctly refers to as the movement through the Asia-Pacific region. I will tell you the way to stop onward movement; I will tell you the way to reduce the people smugglers business model and eliminate it: you enter into a regional solution for a regional problem.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We agree.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Cook says, ‘We agree.’ He thinks the region is Iran and that we should have a transfer agreement with Iran. We do not have that approach. We have the approach that we live in the Asia-Pacific region and we will enter into an Asia-Pacific regional partnership, because an international problem needs a regional solution and an international solution, not harsher punitive measures in the hope that they work and in the hope that they will make a difference, which they will not. (Time expired)

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must start with a confession, and that is that I have a soft spot for the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. Sometimes I feel that we need to save him from himself. To do that, I think we need to at least give him some facts in this debate. If that is the case, maybe he will stop coming in here verballing, misleading and telling the Australian people more untruths. I would like to do that for a few minutes today. Firstly, I want to rebut some of the things that he said about our policy regarding third-country processing on Nauru. Nauru, as we know, was used in the past in a suite of policies that did something that this minister could never claim to have done: they stopped the boats. It was not the only policy; it was part of a suite of policies to which the opposition would return to achieve the same result when the government changes.

The minister, for some unknown reason, keeps referring to the fact that 95 per cent of the people who are on Nauru came to Australia with permanent visas. I want to give him some facts issued by none other than his predecessor as the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans. On Friday 8 February 2008, in a press release from the government, Senator Evans stated:

A total of 1637 people were detained in the Nauru and Manus facilities, of whom 1153 (or 70 per cent) were ultimately resettled from—

those facilities—

to Australia or other countries. Of those who were resettled, around 61 per cent (705 people) were resettled in Australia.

The minister continually and wilfully misleads by saying that that figure is 95 per cent. If he had any integrity he would come back in here and correct the record, because that is a press release, which I am happy to table, from his predecessor as minister for immigration.

The other thing the minister does, and I think this is most unfortunate, is to continue to claim the fiction that when we introduced our suite of policies, including temporary protection visas, it somehow resulted in more people arriving in Australia illegally. That is completely and utterly untrue, and I just want to go back and remind the minister of the statistics. From 2002 onwards, for five years prior to the government changing when the Labor Party won the election, we had on average three boat arrivals per year. That is the equivalent of one arrival every four months. Three boat arrivals a year is a weekend’s work for this government. The statistics are completely and utterly irrefutable. The policies that we introduced, which were incredibly controversial at the time and criticised up hill and down dale by the Labor Party as being inhumane and not what they would do, worked to drive the people smugglers from their evil trade and stopped the boats from coming down to Australia.

I also want to address the issue, which the government raises, of the so-called ‘boat phone’. It worries me a lot, seeing that this minister clearly has no idea what is going on in his own portfolio, that they talk about the fact that, if a boat were to undertake an action on the high seas, a naval crew would not refer back to political authorities for permission to do anything. Anyone who has any understanding of how Customs and Border Protection works knows full well that a naval commander, before he took any such action, would of course go up the chain of command and that there would ultimately be a political decision about the sort of action to be taken. So this idea that somehow it is unusual for political authorities to control what their military forces do is ludicrous, and it does make me worry about what this minister actually understands about what is happening within his own portfolio.

Yesterday we saw a classic example. The minister fronted up at a press conference and said, rather unfortunately, that all the people who had escaped from Christmas Island had been accounted for. Later on he was contradicted in that, first of all by his own officials and then by officers of the Australian Federal Police. A great many events have occurred over the last week. We have seen extraordinary scenes within all our detention centres and particularly, of course, on the Christmas Island detention centre. As the shadow minister for immigration has said, we have seen the extraordinary and unprecedented sight of the Australian Federal Police being called upon to retake a Commonwealth facility by force because the Commonwealth had lost control of that facility. We saw detainees use violence against other detainees. We saw detainees use violence against Commonwealth officers. We saw widespread break-outs and riots. We saw buildings being set on fire and weapons being used.

How did we get to this situation? How is it that, when the government came into power in 2007, there were four people in our detention network who had arrived here in an unauthorised way by boat, yet now we have over 6½ thousand people in our detention network who have arrived in the same way? You have to laugh about the fact that the minister cannot manage to conduct a headcount within his own facilities. I wonder how hard it would be to conduct a headcount when you only needed to count four people. I suggest that it was a lot easier under the policies of the previous government, because the policies of the previous government had stopped the boats from coming in the first place. Ultimately, that has to be the goal of government policy, yet—sadly—this Labor Party just refuses to listen.

As I said, I do have a soft spot for the minister for immigration, so it was impossible for me not to squirm when watching him on Lateline last night. It was impossible not to feel his embarrassment as he was peppered with questions by the presenter and was unable to answer even basic questions on the facts of what is going on in his own portfolio. You have to wonder why you would even bother being a minister in this Labor government. You have consecutive prime ministers, Rudd and Gillard, treating the cabinet with contempt and making policy on the run. Then you have the spectacle of ministers who do not seem to be in charge of what is happening in their departments. The minister last night could not answer any of the questions in a categorical way. Everything had to have a caveat of ‘I am advised’ or ‘I have been told’. He does not give the impression of a minister who is in charge of events within his own portfolio.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I always understood that the idea is that ministers try to be in charge of and shape events within their portfolio. They should not just be hapless victims at the mercy of events. They should not just be talking heads for the department that go out and do press conferences and shrug their shoulders while explaining to the people the circumstances of the latest disaster that has happened within their portfolio as though everything is beyond their control because ultimately they are only the minister.

If you were squirming when the presenter asked the minister to explain some basic facts about what had been going on within his own portfolio, then you really had to feel sorry for the minister when the presenter finished off the interview by asking him about the ‘never-never’ solution in East Timor. That has become an international embarrassment. Australian diplomats are forced to run around the region pushing an idea that everybody in the room knows is never going to happen. I was lucky enough to visit East Timor in January, when I also visited Indonesia, and the East Timorese were quite forthright—as they have been whenever this issue has been raised—that they have absolutely no intention of hosting an international facility at Australia’s behest. Quite frankly, it was very hard for them to hide their disgust at the way the Australian government had treated them.

I also had the opportunity during that visit to visit Indonesia. I talked to some of the members of the committee that are looking into outlawing people-smuggling within Indonesia, something that is very important. They were very polite. They came and met me, and we had a very polite meeting. At the end of it they finally said to me: ‘You know, we are a little bit bemused about why we are always talking to Australians about people-smuggling. They come up here and ask us to do more when the Australian government is pursuing a policy that encourages the people smugglers to continue to bring people to Australia in an unauthorised way.’ That is a fair point. That is why Indonesian officials have said publicly that they would like Australia to take the sugar from the table. They would like Australia to clean up its own house and to stop encouraging people to come here in an unauthorised way and apparently doing everything we can to encourage people smugglers to be in charge of Australia’s immigration system.

The East Timor never-never solution is the ultimate embarrassment, and I urge the government to stop pretending that this is ever going to happen, stop damaging our relationships with our regional neighbours and admit that this is not going to happen. If they were serious about third-country processing they would pick up the phone, talk to the President or Prime Minister of Nauru and ask to reopen the facilities that the Australian taxpayer has already funded on that island.

Words will not solve this problem. The people smugglers need to know that this government has some resolve to stop them from bringing people down here in an unauthorised way. Unless the government shows that resolve, more people will come and we will continue to have this rolling crisis within our detention network. (Time expired)

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In politics people often say that if you say something often enough, long enough and hard enough—if you repeat it over and over—people will get to believing it. That is what I have heard from the coalition over the years. They keep saying: ‘Under the Howard government we had the solution and we stopped the boats. We stopped the people coming.’ It is simply not true, and the evidence does not support it. I will turn to that later on in my contribution, but I wanted to state that at the outset. I am sure some of the honourable members opposite now believe it, because they have said it long enough that they have deluded themselves. It is a fact that it just did not work.

With this debate what causes me concern is to have to be debating such a critical humanitarian issue in an atmosphere of attack and demonisation. Both planks—attack and demonisation—are there for one reason only. The honourable member for Cook raises this MPI today, but he and his coalition colleagues are doing it simply to try to gain political support by pretending to have solutions and demonising the others. It is always easy to demonise people we consider to be the others—people who are different from us, who are boat people, who come here differently. Gone are the days when there was bipartisan support on this issue. I hope that one day we can return to that, because the people around the world who are refugees and who are seeking asylum in countries around the world, particularly the wealthy developed countries, deserve better.

The honourable member for Cook talks about a crisis. There is a crisis, and it is an international crisis. It is a crisis for the tens of millions of refugees worldwide. A large percentage of those are women and children, so there is clearly a crisis, but it is in the international area. In talking about this issue there sometimes is also the charge that if you express some support for common decency you are a bleeding heart. I am happy to be accused and wear that badge. If talking about and acting on common decency means I am a bleeding heart, so be it.

I want to turn to the issue of the honourable member for Cook and others saying that under the Howard government they stopped the boats and they have the solutions or the suite of measures that the honourable member for Cook refers to. There were 240 boats that arrived under the Howard government. They carried over 13,600 asylum seekers. It is all within the timing. We have to look at the timing and at what is happening internationally and in our region. The boats stopped coming because global circumstances changed, and that is a fact. That happens because of what is happening in the international community with the conflicts in our region and the conflicts around the globe. The Taliban regime fell at the end of 2001, and millions of Afghans were able to return home. That is a fact. In 2003—

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Christensen interjecting

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr McCormack interjecting

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I cannot hear. The honourable members opposite are disturbing me.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the honourable member has raised a valid issue with me, and I would ask the honourable members for Dawson and Riverina to observe the standing orders.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. In 2003, the Howard government started to build a detention centre on Christmas Island that cost $400 million. They were planning for more boat arrivals; otherwise, why would you build a detention centre? They were anticipating that the people would come. The opposition, through the honourable member for Cook, say that their suite of measures will fix the problem of turning back boats ‘where circumstances permit’. That is a hollow promise too. Of the 240 boats that arrived under the Howard government, only seven were turned back. And that was given up, too, because they realised under the Howard government that that did not work. No boats were turned back after 2003. The practical reality is that there is nowhere to turn the boats back to. Who are you going to turn them back to? Send them back to where? To avoid being turned back, boats are sabotaged, putting Australian Customs and Border Protection and Defence personnel at risk. We have seen it and do not want to do that.

Then temporary protection visas were introduced. We have heard that the temporary protection visas worked, that they stopped the people coming by boat. They were introduced, to the best of my memory, in 1999 and, after that, still about another 8½ thousand people came on boats, so I have not seen the evidence that temporary protection visas worked. Yet here we are being told that if we reintroduce them that will fix it again. The reality is there is no easy fix for this issue. Whether you are in government or in opposition, the position has to be that it is a work in progress, that we have to work through it and come to reasonable solutions to shared problems, because the issue of refugees is a shared problem.

Of the people who did come here and were granted temporary protection visas—about 11,000 people—only three per cent ever left Australia. We said to about 11,000 people, ‘You’ll have a temporary protection visa and, even though you’ve fled a country with conflict and you fear persecution, you can live here with this uncertainty under a temporary protection visa.’ Yet only three per cent of them ever went back. It is cruel, apart from being a failed solution to that problem.

The opposition also talk about going it alone on offshore processing. Mr Abbott has agreed with the government on the need for a regional processing centre—I have heard him say it. But the federal Labor government is committed to getting it right. What we are talking about is establishing a regional centre with the cooperation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in a country which is a signatory to the international Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. That is critical because if we are going to have a shared solution to a shared problem, to have it in the region with the cooperation of the appropriate body, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and, I would imagine, working with the International Organisation for Migration, then it has to be done within that framework. That is where the conversation is taking place at the moment.

I have a couple of points about East Timor. The President of East Timor, His Excellency Jose Ramos-Horta, has been given carriage of this matter for Timor-Leste. He said that Timor-Leste accepts in principle to accommodate a regional assessment centre, but the opinions of all East Timorese sensibilities will be listened to before a final response is given on the Australian proposal. They are involved in those conversations about that issue. A meeting is coming up soon in Bali where I am sure that issue will be on the table.

There is one person I think of who sets quite a moral barometer for this issue, the late Peter Andren. I remember that he was a very popular member in his own area. He spoke on this always from the point of a moral position. Yes, when you are in government you have to have practical solutions, sensible solutions, but we are looking at people—(Time expired)

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government’s immigration network is indeed in crisis. The system is out of control. As a consequence of Labor’s failure, our detention network is stretched beyond its capacity. When the coalition left government only four people who had arrived illegally by boat where in detention. Today that figure is more than 6,300, including more than 1,000 children.

I call on the Gillard Labor government to assure Darwin residents and Northern Territorians that they will be safe, given recent events that have occurred on Christmas Island. If you want a more visible example of the depths of the crisis Labor have created with their failed border protection policies you need look no further than the Asti Motel in suburban Darwin. On 16 March this year, 100 detainees walked out of the hotel heading downtown to Darwin. This was not people rioting and escaping from a remote or secure facility. We have experienced riots and protests and breakouts from the Berrimah secure facility as recently as last week.

Territorians are enduring riots beside residential houses. The Asti Motel is surrounded by houses and units right in the suburbs of Darwin. My office is inundated with calls from residents who no longer feel safe and secure in their own homes. This is outrageous. I cannot understand why my constituents should have to feel frightened and insecure in their own homes, experiencing riots on their front lawns as a direct result of the Gillard Labor government’s failed border protection policy. Territorians are not watching riots on TV, they are watching riots outside their bedroom windows.

The Northern Territory Police and the Royal Darwin Hospital, like many of the other services that are provided in the Northern Territory, are already stretched to capacity. How can this Labor government say that there is going to be no pressure on Territory services as a result of their failed border protection policy? In September 2010, when 90 detainees escaped from the Berrimah detention facility and staged an all-day protest on the road, there had to be a significant impact on NT Police resources. This is just one example. There have been a number of breakouts. As I said, there were people walking down the mall. It is just disgusting. There were also riots which resulted in hospitalisations at Royal Darwin Hospital. Territorians all know that Royal Darwin Hospital is stretched to capacity—but we are told this failed border protection policy will not impact on Northern Territory services at all.

It gets worse. Asylum seekers are being housed in residential apartments in the suburbs. How can this be, when Darwin is experiencing its worst housing crisis? The government are trying to hide these people by renting the apartments under a veil of secrecy. This is typical of this government—they hide the facts from Australians. They have form. When the plans for another onshore detention facility were announced recently in Darwin, they said it would cost $9.2 million. But, as we know, it will cost $83 million, and that is just for starters. I am holding up the front page of the Northern Territory News, which outlines it all. The Labor government’s failed border protection policies are costing Australians hundreds of millions of dollars each year—money that could be spent on vital services and infrastructure. The $83 million that has been identified as the cost to build the new detention facility in Darwin could be spent on building other things, such as three new schools or four new cancer centres, or for nearly a thousand nurses in our hospitals. What about 900 police officers on our streets? Maybe it could build five new suburbs. This money could even establish the eight new GP superclinics that the government have failed to deliver.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s a lot of money.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a lot of money. It goes without saying that this $83 million could even have gone a long way towards replacing infrastructure damaged in the floods and the cyclones of the past summer.

Further, I have received an email which is typical of concerns that I am hearing from constituents in my electorate, and I would like to share it:

Dear Mrs Griggs,

I just want to express my disgust about the government building yet another detention centre, especially in Darwin. I am so annoyed that we can find the money to support overseas illegal immigrants yet we cannot find the money to build a second hospital for Darwin. These people are costing the country a hell of a lot of money and it gets up my nose.

Building this facility in Darwin will put a drain on our resources. Yes, it may create some jobs. However, try and organise a plumber or an electrician in Darwin. Some of these guys won’t even go near normal households because they’re too busy working on large-scale government projects.

Every time an illegal immigrant gets sick they will be putting a drain on our health system. We as Territorians wait a long time at A&E. Now we’ll be pushed even further down the queue because of these people.

My daughter attends Durack School, and she quite often comes home with raffle tickets so that the school can fundraise to purchase the most basic of items for the school. Government schools should get this funding automatically. If we can afford to spend the money on decent accommodation for the illegal immigrants, along with all the other privileges that they receive, why can’t we afford to look after our schools?

Natasha, please turn back the boats. Spend the money on Australians. There are a lot of them out there that need our money. Please have a look at this article I watched on A Current Affair, ‘Saving Vicky’. This lady needs our money and, as a taxpayer, I am more than happy to support this lady. I am not happy paying for illegal immigrants.

There are also a number of reader messages from the Northern Territory News that I would like share. The first says:

Why riot + protest? If they aren’t happy, i would happily pay a one-off tax to send them home.

Another one says:

So … More beds for detainees & prisoners?? Why not more beds at the hospital?

Yet another says:

Tell these rioting asylum seekers they just failed the test and deport them. In Aust, non compliance has consequences.

Territorians are not racist. We just want border protection policies that work. The Territory does not want to be the Commonwealth’s social experiment, and we do not want our constitutional weakness used so that Labor can dump their problems and the outcomes of their bad policies on us. We want genuine economic opportunities, not those that come from bad Labor policy.

The Territory has a strong multicultural background, and Territorians welcome people from all cultural backgrounds—but Labor are taking advantage of Territorians’ goodwill. Accepting refugees does not mean we accept Labor policy. We have a housing crisis and, increasingly, our own economic refugees because of the cost of living rises under this terrible, terrible Labor government. We know that, if there is a carbon tax introduced, Territorians will pay more because the carbon tax is going to be a tax on remote and rural Australia, and it is going to impact on the cost of living in the Territory when we are already experiencing very high pressures. Territorians want a guarantee from this secretive and deceptive government that Labor’s failed border protection policies will not impact on the safety, the security and the economic welfare of Territorians. It is an interesting fact that this Labor government have built more detention beds in the Northern Territory than they have hospital beds. Palmerston people are waiting for a new hospital. What will they get? A new detention centre. Maybe the minister will turn the detention centre into a hospital when he fixes his border protection policy. My beef is not with the businessmen who are building the detention centre at Wickham Point. My beef is with this deceitful Labor government whose failed border protection policies have made it necessary and who clearly cannot be trusted.

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

I suggest that the real rolling crisis is with respect to the position of the Leader of the Opposition and how much longer he will be in that position. This matter of public importance before the House today is all about diverting attention from the divisions within the coalition and onto other matters. When it comes to the opposition we can be certain that they will never allow the facts to get in the way of political opportunism and that they will distort the facts in order to create concern and fear and raise emotions amongst people. We just heard that in the contribution by the member for Solomon. Quite frankly, her contribution is not worth responding to, but I will respond to one critical factual matter. As a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration I visited Darwin and visited the detention facilities there. The practice of using a motel in Darwin to house refugees and asylum seekers was a practice that was begun by the Howard government. To suggest this practice was started by this government is quite clearly distorting the facts.

As I said, the coalition never let the facts stand in the way of their political strategy. This matter of public importance debate today is just like the issue of climate change because time and time again we are seeing the coalition distort the facts. In fact, they are doing it quite deliberately to create fear and concern amongst members of the broader Australian community. I wonder what the member for Pearce, the member for McMillan and other coalition members in this place whom I know do not share the kinds of emotions and concerns that I have heard from other members of the coalition today feel when their colleagues bring into this place this kind of debate and use the kind of language that has been used as part of this debate. It is clear to me that when it comes to immigration, refugee policy and climate change the coalition is very clearly divided. To some extent it gives me some comfort to know that, even amongst their ranks, there are people who are level-headed and consider this matter in a measured way.

We are dealing here with the lives of real people, people who in most cases have undergone trauma, persecution, danger, loss and serious suffering. This is a critical international humanitarian issue and we should not play politics with it. As a country that prides itself on freedom, equality, democracy and civil rights, this whole issue with all the complexities associated with it must, for the sake of the people we are dealing with, be handled in a considered and rational policy setting—not with the simplistic, distorted rhetoric that the opposition come into the House with.

The opposition come into this House and criticise the government. I believe the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship quite adequately addressed this point, but I want to reiterate some home truths here. They come into the House and are very critical of the government but they do so without putting forward any rational, credible policy alternatives. You would think that, as the alternative government, they would at least do that. They have no position for which there is any credible level of support by any of the mainstream agencies, government departments or overseas governments with which we have to work in managing this issue. If they are going to come into the House and criticise the government, they should at least offer a better proposal that has been endorsed by the very agencies, governments and countries we have to work with. Do not come in here and simply criticise.

Let me go to some of the facts relating to asylum seekers. I heard members opposite being critical of the government. They claimed the government facts were incorrect. I will get back to some of those claims if time permits. I will go to the facts that were prepared by the Parliamentary Library—not by the Labor Party or by the minister, but by the Parliamentary Library. These are the facts. Fact 1: Australia has had a long history of accepting refugees for resettlement. Since 1945 some 700,000 refugees and displaced persons have found their new home in Australia.

Fact 2: when the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established in 1951, there were approximately 1.5 million refugees internationally. So not long after World War II there were 1.5 million refugees internationally. As at the end of 2009 there were an estimated 43 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, including 15.2 million refugees, 983,000 asylum seekers and 27 million internally displaced persons. So we went from 1.5 million not long after World War II to 43 million and that does not include the additional 25 million people who have been displaced due to natural disasters of the types we have seen in recent times.

Fact 3: the majority of asylum seekers still arrive in Australia by air. Even with the recent surge, boat arrivals are still less than half of Australia’s onshore asylum seekers. Fact 4: Australia is not being swamped by refugees. That is what the opposition would have people believe. They are doing their best to portray that myth. For over 10 years, and even during the time of the Howard government, about 13,000 refugees per annum resettled in this country and that includes all the boat arrivals. So the number of people who have resettled in this country in the last decade or so has been around 13,000 per annum in total. That has not changed and is not about to change. Around the globe right now there are 377,000 people seeking refuge in other countries a year. That is the number of applications that are processed to the knowledge of the UNHCR. In fact, Europe gets over a quarter of a million claims every year and has done so for the last three years, the USA gets about 50,000 claims a year and Canada gets about 33,000 claims. So that puts Australia’s 6,500 claims into context.

I want to make two quick points. One is to rebut what the member for Stirling said when he was critical of the minister’s use of facts. He was referring to the rates of Manus Island and Nauru asylum seekers who were ultimately given asylum. He said the figure was about 70 per cent. My hearing of the minister’s comment was that it was Australia and New Zealand he was referring to when he was referring to the 90 per cent plus. I want to make that point absolutely clear. I think most members of this House would agree that there is little difference between Australia and New Zealand.

The second point I want to make is this: the same kind of fear campaign that I am hearing here today was run before Christmas in respect of the Inverbrackie detention centre that has been set up near Adelaide. Inverbrackie has been established and, contrary to all the fear that was being promoted by members of this House, people have settled into that community and settled in very well. I will quote from the Southern Cross, the online Catholic paper issued only recently. It said:

… Mount Barker and Adelaide Hills parishes say they have been inundated with the generosity of parishioners and locals wanting to donate goods to Inverbrackie residents.

The article goes on to say:

Pam Ronan said that the Catholic R-12 College in Mount Barker was keen to welcome the refugee children into the school community.

Patricia Brady said:

People have responded so generously and it is not just from the Catholic community but from all of the community.

That is the kind of reaction that people are getting in the Mount Barker area to the people coming into Inverbrackie, not the fear and concern that was being suggested before Christmas by people in this very House. The Sunday Mail report just before Christmas in Adelaide confirmed again the same kinds of feelings.

This motion is all about diverting attention from the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion has now concluded.