Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-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 failure of the Government to protect Australia's borders from people smugglers

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

I have some very good news for the House: the government has finally stopped a boat. What is more, they have turned it back. Sadly, it was not one of the many other fishing boats seeking to illegally enter Australia. As the Leader of the Opposition said to me earlier today, the only boat Labor have managed to stop is the Margiris, also known as the Abel Tasman, and this is a boat they had previously invited in. They have actually stopped a legal boat, not an illegal boat.

I notice that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has decided not to take the MPI today. I suspect he is out of the chamber at the moment taking a briefing from the minister for the environment to understand how you actually do stop a boat. I will wait with patience as I learn how the minister may seek to implement those policies.

This is a sad matter. If only the government had shown the same resolve it showed to do a backflip and stop the Margiris and applied it to stop the 424 illegal boats that have turned up since the government abolished the Howard government's successful border protection policies, then perhaps we would not be in the terrible mess that we are in today. More than 10,000 people have turned up on more than 150 illegal boats this year. This is a scale of failure on our borders that is unprecedented. More people have turned up on illegal boats since the last election—in the two years of this government's term—than under the four terms of the Howard government in total, including the surge of arrivals that we saw over 1999 to 2001. There is a big difference between the Howard government and this one, and that is that, when faced with that surge of arrivals, the Howard government did something about it. And we all know what happened to the Howard government policies when this Labor government was elected.

This unprecedented failure has occurred because, when it comes to border protection and asylum policy, as with everything else under the Labor government, they just make it up as they go along. They fail to understand the issues that are in front of them. They fail to think through the consequences of their decisions. Those failures have been catastrophic. This is what happens when you do not believe in anything. It is easy to backflip on things you do not believe in. It is easy to change your position with the wind when you do not believe in anything. It is also easier to do this when you do not know where you are going. The government often reminds me of the person who drives around a roundabout with their head stuck out the window, constantly asking people for directions. I have got news for the government: when you do that—when you have always got your head out the window, wondering where you are going and asking people for directions—people will reasonably form the view that you do not know where you are going, you do not know what you are about and you do not know what you believe in. The Australian people are wise to that. The people smugglers are certainly alive to that, and they have this government's measure.

The government are always managing the politics on this issue rather than seeking to solve the problem. I seek to point that out this afternoon by running through the 'make it up as you go along' policies of the Labor government as they apply to border protection. We know that, when Labor came to power, they abolished the Howard government measures that had been so successful. I note that recently the former Prime Minister the member for Griffith, when pressed on this during a seminar he was addressing, said that the voters made him do it. It was not his decision; they made him do it, because he had promised it. So he blamed the voters for his decision to abolish the measures. And I noticed last night that Senator Evans says he still feels proud of his decisions as the minister for immigration who abolished the Pacific solution. I hope he is proud of the consequences of those decisions. We all know of the chaos, cost and tragedy that followed those decisions. If that minister is going to be proud of those decisions, he must own the consequences that flow from them.

Then there was the asylum freeze. When this government saw that its decision to abolish the measures that worked was clearly opening up once again this terrible trade in people, it announced the asylum freeze—its first attempt. This was a discriminatory asylum freeze that froze applications from certain people who were seeking asylum in Australia and froze them for one reason only: where they came from, their nationality—whether they were Sri Lankan or whether they were Afghan. This government made a policy in immigration which discriminated against a person's nationality.

On this side of the House—I know the member for Berowra would agree—we believe in a non-discriminatory immigration policy. That is why you will not see from us policies that discriminate on a person's application on the basis of their nationality. We stand for strong border protection. We stand for the universal application of strong border protection policies. What was the result of the asylum freeze? Over the three months in which the Sri Lankan asylum freeze was in place, we had 38 boats and 1,800 people. Over the six months of the Afghan freeze, we had 59 boats and almost 3,000 people. Around 1,200 of those were Afghans. So the asylum freeze, this government's first attempt, fell by the wayside.

Then we had the major diplomatic and regional embarrassment of the East Timor farce, where regional leaders were forced to endure endless polite conversations with the Prime Minister talking about a policy that was clearly absurd and was going nowhere. They were particularly concerned that it would provide nothing other than a regional asylum magnet to encourage even more people into the region than our own government had already attracted by their failed policies.

We need a return to the policies of uncompromising deterrence. The government are mixed-minded on this. They cannot get their thinking straight on this. On the one hand, they want to talk about deterrence and, on the other hand, they want to talk about accommodation. The true effect of the Howard government's policies was that we focused single-mindedly on deterrence. That is what those in our region want us to focus on as well. They do not want us to deal in half-hearted measures and less than half-measures, as the government are doing. They do not want to engage in the folly of going through the accommodation process and setting up mini-UNHCRs within the region, just to attract more people into the region. They want to focus on deterrence. They want to focus on border security. They want to focus on returns. They do not want this region to be the chosen location for people to fly halfway round the world to seek asylum in Australia.

Then of course there was the Malaysian farce, which continues to this day—this mirage of a policy that the government cling to as nothing more than an excuse to restore the full suite of Howard government measures. This was a policy made up on the run and poorly designed. It involved a five-for-one people swap. That is right: five for one. It is still five for one. They have not changed it. They have not thought that perhaps that is a little unbalanced, that perhaps that is not the way to go. They talk about their negotiating skills, and the Prime Minister is referred to as the great negotiator. Well, when you walk into a room and give the other person every single thing they ask for and offer to pay for it, guess what; they say yes. This was the great negotiation that the minister likes to talk about.

Well, clearly it wasn't. Five for one is not a fair deal for Australia. There is the 800 cap—the 800 cap, I stress—which the government refuse to budge on and refuse to talk to the government of Malaysia about, even now, as they say they are having discussions with them.

There is the issue of legally binding protections. I remind the House that yesterday—as we are doing in the Senate today—the coalition supported the designation of Nauru because we believe, on the basis of Nauru's signature of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, that legally binding protections are in place. That is why we supported it. That is not why the government support it. The minister specifically in his statement yesterday removed that and said that matters of legally binding protections were not taken into his decision. Well, they were taken into our decision. We supported the Nauru designation yesterday because we know that there are legally binding protections in place.

Then we had the bungled implementation of the Malaysia measure. This is the problem the government have. Whatever idea they have, whatever its merit, you can be pretty sure that they will bungle it in its implementation. Right from the date of the Malaysia announcement on 7 May, announcing something with no detail, with nothing negotiated and with no clue when the thing would be finalised and how it would operate was a catastrophic, bungling mistake. We saw weeks and weeks and weeks of uncertainty pass, as any potential real assertion in this measure was eroded by the government, more interested in a headline than actually getting something in place. The agreement came on 25 July, many, many weeks later, but this is where the government killed their own policy that they believed in so much. They said they would turn people around in 72 hours. The government's failure to implement their own policy and to get people to Malaysia within 72 hours opened up the opportunity for the injunction to be lodged on 7 August, and then it was confirmed again on 8 August.

This government butchers its own policy, so I can only imagine what is taking place now, when it is trying to seek to implement coalition policy. There was the 'let them in, let them out' policy of November, when the government was faced with the choice, after the High Court decision, of embracing the full suite of Howard government measures or embracing the policies of the Greens. It embraced the policies of the Greens. Since that decision, the number of arrivals to Australia has increased by around 280 per cent as a result.

There were the amazing adventures of Captain Emad—and where is Captain Emad, by the way? Have we found him? Maybe that is where the minister is. He is out looking for Captain Emad to tell him that he cancelled his visa, several months after he actually left! We saw in the amazing adventures of Captain Emad, in the answers to questions on notice, that the minister admitted that he had no idea who Captain Emad was when Four Corners went to air. He had no idea that he had given a protection visa to an alleged people smuggler who had put himself into Australia. And he confirmed that, had he known about this sooner, there was power under the act for him to cancel that visa. That power was in place. The amazing adventures of Captain Emad, almost more than any other of the amazing sagas of this government, demonstrate how it makes it up as it goes along.

And then there is the MV Parsifal, where this government was faced with a situation not unlike the Tampa situation, when asylum seekers who were picked up in relation to a distress call threatened the crew and the captain with harm to themselves. The minister at the table, the Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Justice, even referred to it as 'aggressive' behaviour. How did we meet these people when they came to Christmas Island? Were they met by the Australian Federal Police taking statements, identifying those who had made these threats, taking statements from the master of the vessel and the crew? Was a formal investigation launched when this happened? No, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship bus turned up, they were taken up for breakfast, and their processing was commenced. This is how this government deals with these issues on a daily basis. No wonder the Australian people simply do not trust the government when it comes to this.

And now, of course, we have the U-turn, the Nauru-turn, when it comes to this government, as it now takes up just one of the three critical measures that are necessary, in our view and from the view of history, to stop the boats coming to Australia. We said yesterday and we have said consistently for years that you need the full suite of Howard government measures if you expect the Howard government results. I warn the government on this point deliberately: do not wait until Nauru fills up because you have refused to put in place the full suite of Howard government measures, if you think you can come back to the coalition and seek further support for more of your failed policies. If you take on Nauru as you are now doing and you do not bring in the full suite of measures that we have asked you to do and that you have voted against, then you will see Nauru fill up, and our policy will be this—

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

The member for Cook can stop using the word 'you', because I am sure he does not apply this to me.

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will. I will say this clearly. If the government seek support from the coalition down the track and they have failed to take our advice and continue to resist the implementation of the full suite of Howard government measures, and they wait as Nauru fills up and fills up, the policy will be this: you break it, you own it. And that is what is going to happen with the government if they fail to implement the full suite of Howard government measures. Do not come back to the coalition when you find that the things that we said would not work on their own do not work. Put them in place now. If you break it, in terms of the Nauru policy, then you will certainly own it.

If the government wants to know what the real problem is when it comes to border protection, it simply needs to look in the mirror, because at the end of the day the biggest pull factor that this government offers to people smugglers and those seeking to get on boats is itself. It is this Labor government. It is the pull factor. Frankly, no matter what this government may introduce, that will not change.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I tell you the story of just one person. His name is Esmat Adine. He worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Kabul. He was one of around 250 people who left Indonesia on a boat to Australia in December last year. He was one of only 47 people who survived. Two hundred others on that boat drowned. About 100 bodies were later washed up on the shores of Indonesia. One hundred more are still at the bottom of the Java Sea. Last month, he told his story to the Australian newspaper. He said:

People were crying, some were praying, people were looking for each other, some mothers were looking for their children, some women were crying, where's my husband?

He said:

… the waves were like mountains. Children, women and young men, we were seeing them die …

One of those men was his cousin. He told the reporter:

He was struggling, I tried to get to him to help him, but I couldn't do anything …

This is the human face of this debate. In the last nine months, more than 400 people have died—200 people died in December, another 11 died off the coast of Malaysia in February, 90 more died in June, and 100 more died only two weeks ago. This is what we have to stop.

Whatever you think the solution is—I know there is a continuing debate in this place about that—we should all agree that governments should be given the powers that they think are necessary to save lives. That is what is being denied to this government by the Liberal Party and by the Greens. When parliament last sat in June, the Liberal Party and the Greens both opposed legislation that the government believed would stop boats and stop people dying. That is why we commissioned the Houston report. It makes 22 recommendations and the government is committed to implementing each and every one of those recommendations. The shadow minister for immigration talked about half measures. The government is the only party in this place that is committed to implementing all of the recommendations of the Houston report. Neither the Liberal Party nor the Greens are committed to implementing all of the recommendations, all of the measures, proposed by the Houston report.

Yesterday the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship made a designation by legislative instrument to transfer people to Nauru. He also indicated that the first transfer of people is likely to occur in the latter part of this week. There is information in the newspapers today about the number of Australian Federal Police officers on flights with asylum seekers. This debate gives me an opportunity to provide some more information to the House. I am advised by the Australian Federal Police that the overall number of AFP members supporting the transfer process will be approximately 90. The number of AFP officers on individual transfers will vary according to operational considerations and the requirements of each transfer. For operational reasons, the AFP will not go into more detail about the arrangements of each transfer.

The people of Australia are sick of us fighting on this issue. They want us to work together, and they want this problem fixed. Unfortunately, this debate has been infected by politics—and we have heard more of that from the Liberal Party and the Greens over the last few weeks. I have been in this job for about nine months. On my fifth day in the job I had to advise the Australian people that 200 people had been killed at sea—200 people who had been on that boat with Esmat Adine. I said then that the Australian people had had a gutful of this, and they wanted us to work together to fix it. Four days before those 200 people died the Prime Minister wrote to the Leader of the Opposition and said that 'the Australian people expect us to work together to ensure the national interest is upheld'. The PM said that she 'would be happy to make Minister Bowen available to meet with Mr Morrison in an attempt to identify a mutually satisfactory outcome'. The Leader of the Opposition wrote back two days later—two days before the tragedy—and said he 'did not see much point in the discussions'.

The day after 200 people died the government wrote to the Leader of the Opposition again and asked him to allow his immigration spokesperson to sit down with the immigration minister to reach a compromise—and he still refused. He demanded a new proposal from the government before any talks could begin, and so the government gave him one. Before those talks between Mr Bowen and Mr Morrison could begin, the Leader of the Opposition held a press conference and rejected the written proposal—effectively ending the negotiations before they even got started. These are not the actions of someone who wants to solve this issue. As I said earlier, whatever you think the solution is we should all agree that governments should be given the powers that they believe are necessary to save people's lives. This is what we have been denied by both the Liberal Party and the Greens.

The shadow minister asked in his contribution what government members believe in. This debate gives me an opportunity to tell the House that my view on the Malaysia plan has not changed. I still believe it is the best way to stop people getting on a boat and dying at sea. So does the Houston report. It says it believes it is 'vital'. Angus Houston, in the press conference that he held after he released the report, said that he believes that it is the best plan for the future. Paris Aristotle, another member of the expert panel, said in an interview:

In the long run … Malaysia is absolutely vital to this.

It is also absolutely clear that the Liberal Party will never allow the proposal to be passed. So the bill we debated last month was a compromise—it was the only thing the opposition were prepared to pass, and so we passed it. We cannot be held hostage in this place to stupid political fighting. This is too important for that. We have two options: either we pass legislation or we do not; we do something or we do nothing. If we do nothing, more people die.

My view has not changed on towing back boats, either. The Houston report makes it very clear that you cannot tow back boats when the country you want to tow the boats back to does not agree to take the people back. This is the case as we speak. The opposition's proposal is to tow boats back to Indonesia; the advice of Angus Houston and his panel is that you cannot tow a boat back to Indonesia if Indonesia will not let you. This is what Indonesia has said, on the record. Marty Natalegawa, the Indonesian foreign minister, said in March of this year:

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

He also said:

The general concept of pushing boats back and forth would be an aberration to the general consensus that has been established since 2003.

Later that month the Indonesian foreign minister was again asked a question about this, and he said:

Now, from that kind of mindset … naturally it would be impossible and not advisable even to simply shift the nature of the challenge from any … continuum to the other.

That is the Indonesian foreign minister saying that Indonesia would not agree to towing back boats. The Indonesian Ambassador to Australia is on the record on this as well. In March of this year he said:

… if you take that policy, it means that you bring all the burdens to Indonesia and what about our cooperation?

A senior Indonesian official, in July of this year, was interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald on this issue of Indonesian permission to tow back boats. He said:

It's exactly like you going to someone else's house and throwing dirt there … Why would we take something that is not our property?

So you have a senior Indonesian official, the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia and the Foreign Minister of Indonesia all saying that they do not support this policy proposition. In addition, you have the Houston report saying that, without Indonesian support, it cannot happen. Therefore it cannot happen.

I also believe it would be dangerous if it were to happen. On 25 January, the Australian reported a senior naval officer as saying:

They will disable their boats when they see us coming, they will burn their boats. The policy will encourage them to do so and it will place lives—navy lives and refugee lives—at risk.

We know this is true—because it has happened before.

I have gone back and looked at what happened when the Howard government ordered boats to be turned around. In the case of SIEV1, on 7 September 2001, naval personnel boarded the vessel, were threatened and forced to withdraw—and the passengers ended up going to Nauru. In the case of SIEV2, on 9 September 2001, 30 knives were found concealed on the boat and passengers threatened self-harm. They were also taken to Nauru. With SIEV3, on 11 September 2001, after naval personnel boarded the boat, they were met with violence and could not control the wheelhouse. The boarding party then left the vessel and the boat made a hard turn towards the naval vessel, and a collision was only narrowly avoided. Those people were also taken to Nauru. On 12 October 2001, on SIEV5, the ignition key and the fuel transfer pump were thrown overboard and the cooling pump was sabotaged. SIEV6, on 19 Oct 2001, was also sabotaged. When naval personnel attempted to repair the ship, fires were started, the deck boards were torn up and the boat ended up sinking. The passengers were taken to Christmas Island. These were all cases where an attempt was made to turn a boat around and the attempt failed.

There are more examples. On 22 October 2001, 15 people dived overboard off SIEV7. Others doused themselves in fuel, damaged the mast and started a fire in the hold. On 31 October 2001, SIEV9 was also sabotaged—fuel lines were cut. There was more sabotage on SIEV12 on 16 December 2001—fires and threats of self-harm.

Perhaps the best example of how dangerous this could be is the case of SIEV36 in 2009. That boat was not turned around, but the people on board the boat at the time thought that it would be. This is what the coroner, Greg Cavanagh, said on page 5 of his report:

… a group of passengers mistakenly believed they were to be returned to Indonesia … very shortly after … the vessel's engine was sabotaged and subsequently petrol was spilt into the bilge and ignited.

Following the explosion which occurred on that boat, 5 asylum seekers drowned and 40 other people were injured, including several Australian Defence Force personnel, who were treated for burns and for other injuries.

This could have been a lot worse. Corporal Jager, an Australian medical officer, needed to be rescued by her colleagues after her life jacket failed to inflate and two asylum seekers tried to push her aside to get themselves into the rescue boat. Her leg was injured and the coroner said:

… she would have died but for the efforts to rescue her.

This all happened because the asylum seekers thought the boat was going to be towed back to Indonesia.

On this important issue, the coroner was unequivocal:

If there had not been a Warning Notice served which suggested return to Indonesia, and if it had been made clear to the Afghan passengers that they were being taken to Australia and not returning to Indonesia, again the explosion probably would not have occurred.

This is the nub of this issue. It is about the danger to Australian Navy personnel and to refugees.

This is why the Australian Navy and senior Australian naval officers have criticised and opposed the opposition's plan—because it puts their lives at risk. Apart from that, it does not work anyway. People smugglers are not stupid. If they see a naval vessel coming and they think they are going to be towed back to Indonesia, they will set fire to the ship or put a hole in it and force people into the water—forcing our men and women to go in and rescue them.

I accept that the coalition are never going change their minds on this issue. The important point is that the time for fighting is over. We have been fighting on this issue for 11 long years. We have been fighting about this since the Tampa arrived 11 years ago last month. We have now passed legislation through this House. It is time to put down our swords and stop playing politics. Remember what this is all about: 400 people have died in the last nine months. We have to stop fighting if we want people to stop dying. That is why we have passed legislation through this parliament. At moments of great importance, when lives are at stake, this parliament needs to work together. That is what we did after Tampa, that is what we did after September 11 and that is what we all need to do now.

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

During question time, I get to sit just down there on the opposition front bench and I look up at the front bench of government. Quite frankly, it is hard not to feel a little terrified—because these are the people who brought Australia the pink batts fiasco. The Australian taxpayer paid for the government to put pink batts in people's roofs and then the Australian taxpayer paid for the government to take pink batts out of people's roofs. These are the people who brought us cash for clunkers. They brought us the carbon tax—something they promised they would not do—which is going to raise the cost of living for every Australian whilst doing absolutely nothing for the environment.

They brought us the live cattle export fiasco, where a Four Corners documentary actually stopped the boats; it stopped the boats going from Australian ports, supporting Australian famers, taking our cattle to our export markets. They brought us overpriced school halls that literally wasted billions of dollars. They brought us Fuelwatch and GroceryWatch. I could go on and on.

The truth is that we have a cabinet and wider ministry that do not seem to understand the impact of their decisions in the real world. When they look at an issue and make a decision, they do not understand how that is going to play out in the real world. Whether you blame this on the uniformity of their backgrounds or an outdated ideology, it does not matter. There is probably no more grievous example of their incompetence than their border protection fiasco. The cabinet surely looked at this from their view of the world and failed to understand how it would play in the real world. The tragedy of all of this is that they stuck to these outdated and wrong policies in the face of clear and mounting evidence that they had failed spectacularly. They refused to acknowledge from 2008 onwards that their failed policies had emboldened and facilitated people smugglers.

People smugglers are very vicious criminals. I have heard government ministers say this recently; they did not say it for a long time. People smugglers see a situation that we might consider with compassion as a business opportunity. They see our natural desire to help vulnerable people as a weakness that they can exploit and make millions of dollars off, on the back of human misery. Border protection is not an area where our good deeds go unpunished, and this is apparent from what has happened since Labor came to office.

The arrival of illegal boats in Australia is not a new issue. We have been facing it for decades to a greater or lesser degree. Over a decade ago, we faced a big spike in people-smuggling and illegal arrivals. Of course, the more people succeed in coming illegally, the more people will follow in their wake. So, around the turn of the last decade, as more people were successfully smuggled here, even more people followed, until the then Howard government decided that they had to take action. They could not accept this loss of control over Australia's immigration system and they decided that they were going to retain control over who came to Australia.

The Howard government pursued a suite of policies that, it is fair to say, were controversial within the community. Different Australians had different views about the way we should approach this problem. But what I think is absolutely clear is that they were 100 per cent effective in achieving the aim that was set out for them—that is, they stopped people-smuggling. You cannot argue with that as an empirical fact. From the implementation of those policies in 2001, over the years 2002 to 2008, while those policies remained in place, we had on average three boat arrivals per year. When the government changed in 2007, there were four people in the detention centre at Christmas Island; there are now a couple of thousand. Those policies inarguably achieved the goal that we had, which was to stop people-smuggling.

When the Howard government pursued those policies, they were roundly criticised by the then Labor opposition. They were criticised by the now Prime Minister, who was their immigration spokesperson, who said of the Pacific solution that it would never work and that it was inconceivable that a decade later we would be processing people on Nauru. Of course, a decade later, it is the Labor Party, her own government, that have introduced legislation to process people on Nauru. This goes to show that, in pursuing policies to stop people-smuggling that worked but that were vilified and criticised by the Labor Party, we were right. Our policies to stop people-smuggling worked; they stopped it dead. They were controversial but they achieved what we needed them to achieve.

Those policies were not just related to offshore processing on Nauru. They involved two other very important planks: turning the boats back around when it was safe and appropriate to do so, and a form of temporary protection visa that denied people smugglers the ability to sell what they are selling, which is permanent residence in Australia. Those policies, combined with offshore processing, made up the suite of policies that worked. The problem with the current government's approach is that they have embraced just one leg of that three-legged approach, and these half-measures are clearly not deterring people smugglers, because they are going for another record month in September, on the back of record months for illegal arrivals in July and August. The reason for this is that the Labor Party just do not have any credibility after announcing another policy U-turn on border protection. They have a history of not understanding the consequences of their policies when they make them.

It was their abolition of the Pacific solution that led to this crisis in the first place. That happened in 2008. The then minister, who astonishingly still sits in the cabinet, said it was his proudest day in politics. He maintains that position even in the face of the evidence we now have that it directly resulted in invigorated people-smuggling, which led to hundreds of deaths and enormous consequences for Australia and the Australian taxpayer. The abolition of the Howard government's Pacific solution was followed, inevitably, by an enormous spike in people-smuggling. It started slowly at first, but the more success people-smugglers had the more people sought to be smuggled down here, and so it increased. It increased in 2009. It increased in 2010. It increased in 2011.

During that time, the Labor Party refused to acknowledge that it was their policies that had created these enormous pull factors for Australia. They sought to blame everything else, despite the evidence that it was this change in policy that had led to people-smugglers bringing literally thousands of people here. They said: 'It's not our fault; it's the international situation, it's push factors. There's nothing we can do.' In the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, they stuck to those failed policies. But then, as the Australian people decided that they really could not stomach the fact that we were no longer in control of our immigration system, the government realised they had a political problem on their hands and they started doing a series of backflips.

They were resolutely opposed to offshore processing. They were then resolutely opposed to offshore processing in countries that had not signed the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Yet, during the 2010 election campaign, when they realised that border protection was one of their primary political problems, they came up with what can now only be called the 'Malaysia fiasco', whereby they did a five-for-one people swap—800 people for 4,000. Wouldn't you want to play poker with these guys? Ultimately it was struck down by the High Court, yet over a year later they still cling to this failed policy.

Prior to that, during the 2010 election it was the East Timor arrangement that they championed, one that was never going to fly, because the East Timorese were never going to wear it. If the Prime Minister had actually picked up the phone and spoken to the government of East Timor, she might have been aware of that.

The truth is that the Labor Party has no credibility on this. That is why, when they make the announcement that people now run the risk of being sent to Nauru, nobody takes them seriously. They do not have credibility. If they were serious, they would use every weapon available in their arsenal to send the message to people smugglers that this time it is different, that now offshore processing will take place on Nauru or in PNG, if it is available, that there is a return to temporary protection visas and turning the boats around when it is safe and appropriate to do so. Only this suite of policies has worked in the past and only this suite of policies will work to achieve the results we need, which is to squash people-smuggling.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Higher Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a question to be answered in this place today as we deal with this MPI: what interest do those on the other side have in continuing a debate on one of the most difficult issues that this nation and indeed countries internationally face today—that is, the movement of people around the world, particularly in our region? Those on the opposite side continue to talk about this issue because they believe it is in their political interests. The first two speakers talked about what they called a changing position of the government and completely ignored the fact that they have been all over the shop themselves. They ignored the deals they offered to the Greens, for example, in the last round of discussion on the legislation the government had put before the House. We could go around and around in circles in what I would argue is a fairly pointless point-scoring political activity and say that we need to debate this in this House. Even when we make a position clear about finding a good outcome that would work to stop people-smuggling, they shift their position again. That is the reality of what we face in this debate.

Before parliament got up for the winter break, as outlined at the beginning of this debate, people came into this chamber devastated by the fact that we have faced 400 cold, lonely, desperate, terrifying deaths at sea. That was the reality which so many on this side had struggled to deal with—to come to a policy position which we felt would stop drownings from occurring. It was not easy for many people on this side of the House to come to a policy position that really challenged competing principles and priorities, but we came to a position which acknowledged that the regional challenges we all face as nations dealing with the movement of people who are in desperate circumstances required a regional cooperative solution. That is what we had worked on as the government. It reflected the reality.

As happens—it may come as a surprise to some of those opposite—as time moves on and changes occur, you respond with new policies that are relevant to the new circumstances you face. That is exactly what this government did. It looked at the challenges it faced with people seeking to come here by boat and the changes that occurred in the behaviours of the people smugglers and in particular and most obviously the deteriorating conditions of and the purposeful damage to the boats when there were fears they were going to be turned around.

The reality is that large numbers of people who had placed their lives in the hands of people smugglers subsequently lost their lives. So we came before the winter break to the position of trying to find an outcome in legislation that would put a real and imminent discouragement in place for people getting on boats and risking their lives at sea.

As we well know and as history now shows us, we were not able to get the legislation through. I remember at the time those opposite making comments such as that they would not agree to Malaysia because it was not a signatory to the UN conventions. These sorts of positions disappear when they want to talk about other options in their suite like turning back the boats. In order to move past this deadlock, to find a genuine outcome that would stop people losing their lives at sea, the government asked the Houston panel, the three eminent Australians, to come together, to look without prejudice at all the options available and to provide advice to the parliament on the best options to stop the boats. We did that because we believed the time for politicking on the issue was over. I believe very strongly that the Australian community also feel that the time for politicking on this issue is over. Sadly, we are still here today politicking in this MPI. Given recent announcements by state governments, we are back to the perennial, 'Let's have a blue about asylum seekers.'

I believe people right across Australia are truly sick of the politicians fighting on this issue. It is a very sad day for all that this MPI is before us. If we want to make real progress on this important issue, we need to work together. That is the reality.

As the minister said at the beginning of the debate on asylum seekers, we have had a blue on this for 11 years. Over those 11 years the circumstances and the activities of people smugglers have changed, and they change in response to what we do. So we are attempting to find a coordinated suite of initiatives to put in place in order to stop the people-smuggling trade. Assisting us in our attempt to do so was the Houston panel, whose report made 22 recommendations. The government has committed in principle to all of them. The recommendations, I remind the House, include increasing the immigration intake under the humanitarian program to 20,000 per annum, and I understand that those opposite offered this increase to the Greens in discussing the legislation before the parliament prior to the winter break. Increasing the humanitarian intake is an important part of the suite of recommendations that the Houston report made. It sends a message to people that it is more beneficial to them that their claim be processed in the place where they are than that they take a risk at sea.

The Houston recommendations also involve: developing bilateral cooperation on asylum seeker issues with Indonesia and Malaysia, because the report recognises that asylum seeker issues confront all of us in the region; developing legislation to support the transfer of people to regional processing centres, including those on Nauru and Manus Island; creating regional places of processing where asylum seekers are not given any advantage over asylum seekers in any other regional area of processing and are instead processed by the UNHCR; reviewing the refugee status determination; and developing joint operational guidelines for managing search-and-rescue activities in the region. This is particularly important because the other danger, as outlined by the minister, is the risk to our own personnel who are involved in search-and-rescue operations at sea.

Only the Labor Party is committed to implementing all the recommendations of the Houston report. The other parties—the Greens and the Liberals—are cherry-picking whatever parts of the report they think support their political agenda. They are being dogmatic, and by being dogmatic they are risking lives. This dogmatic approach should not be acceptable on issues of national security or where people's lives are at risk. Angus Houston himself said that the panel's report needs to be implemented as a whole, and that is exactly what the government is doing. The simple fact is that the Liberals and the Greens are playing politics with the asylum seeker issue. Given how vociferous the shadow Treasurer was about the Greens yesterday, I am surprised at the position of the Liberals. However, sadly, we have come to expect every day from the Liberals that politics take precedence over good policy for the nation. I do not believe that this approach is in any way acceptable in an area of policy which goes to issues of national security and the protection of lives at sea. It is a disgrace to play politics with these issues.

The Greens are also risking the lives of others with policies that encourage vulnerable people into boats. I say to them that, when they counter talk of border protection by describing the motives and the desperation of the people who are seeking asylum, they are completely and naively ignoring the reality that the very people they expresses concern about are endangering their lives at sea. Danger to people's lives is the very issue that we are seeking to address through the Houston recommendations.

I had hoped that the Greens would work with the government on asylum seeker policy, but, sadly, that is not the case. You cannot agree to work with the government on some recommendations of the Houston report and not others, because the Houston report itself makes it clear that each of the strategies it has outlined works in conjunction with all of the others and that they should be treated as an entire package. It is time to stop the politics. There are lives at risk, both of asylum seekers and of our own personnel. (Time expired)

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

It is no wonder that the member for Cunningham does not want us to talk about this matter of public importance, because words can come back to bite you. Back in 2010, when she spoke in this place on the Anti-People Smuggling and Other Measures Bill, she was quick to praise the then Rudd government for the turnaround that it had made on the Howard government's people-smuggling laws and the framework we had put in place. She said that the point of this turnaround was to have a more humane framework for people who were seeking asylum and to take a much harsher position against those who were seeking to make profits from the exploitation of such people. That is what she said about the changes that her government made to the illegal immigration and border protection regime that the Howard government had in place. Look at where those changes have got us!

Protecting Australia's borders is one of the most fundamental roles that any government should play. It calls for strength and for resolve. It calls for a government to stand up for its people and protect their country. But what we have seen from this government is weakness and wavering. We have seen indecision and wringing of hands. The only resolve that we have seen from this government is an absolute commitment to shifting the blame, a strong commitment to doing anything but admitting that they got things wrong and a determined resolve to say anything other than make an apology for the damage, the waste and the deaths—how humane were they, member for Cunningham?—that resulted from their actions.

So averse to taking control was this government that they outsourced their responsibilities; they outsourced the responsibilities of the Prime Minister and of the immigration minister. 'It's too hard. We can't do it. It's too hard,' they said. Instead of reinstating border protection policies that were proven to work and instead of admitting that they tried to fix what was not broken to start with and that they had to go back to some of the coalition's original solutions, those so-called representatives opposite threw up their hands and outsourced their responsibilities to a committee.

But this is not the first time that this government has outsourced its job. When those opposite gleefully pulled down our border security policy amid all the backslapping and comments similar to those made by the member for Cunningham, they also outsourced the control of our borders. They outsourced the government's job, not to a committee but to some of the most disgusting and vilest creatures on this planet—the people smugglers. Let us be very clear about this. People smugglers are criminals who have sent hundreds of people to their deaths.

People smugglers are criminals who trade human lives for dollars. These are the people to whom the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments have outsourced control of our borders. The people smugglers are the ones who have been, and still are, in control of our borders. They are the ones who decide who comes to Australia and who does not. It is certainly not this government who are deciding that. The people smugglers are the ones who set the price. They control the market and they dictate how much it costs to risk your life on a boat journey to this, the promised land. And that price is high: thousands and thousands of dollars. The price is actually beyond the reach of most legitimate asylum seekers.

Again, let us be clear here. There is a difference between a genuine asylum seeker and an economic refugee. There is a difference between those fleeing persecution and those searching for an easier life. Even today, this government and those opposite refuse to use the term 'illegal immigrant'. Let us be clear on that point too. Australia has immigration laws. There are legal ways to enter the country, but there are also illegal ways. Paying $10,000 to one of the vile people-smuggling scum to get on a boat to go to Christmas Island is an illegal way of entering our nation. Many of the people on board these boats are not fleeing anything. They are not repelled; they are drawn. They are drawn to Australia and this soft-touch government and they are willing to travel through or over as many countries as it takes to get here.

Afghanistan is the place where many of them are coming from. If you look at an atlas, you can see that it is a landlocked country. Of all its bordering nations, Australia is not one—surprise, surprise. There are only two ways out of Afghanistan—by air or by land. If a genuine refugee flees from persecution in Afghanistan by land, the most likely, most direct route is by crossing the border into Pakistan, crossing the border into India, crossing the border into Bangladesh, crossing the border into Burma, crossing the border into Thailand or crossing the border into Malaysia. After travelling through all those countries—any number of which may have been a safe haven from persecution—it is still a boat journey or airfare to get to Indonesia. What is more likely is a flight out of Afghanistan. These people are not short of money. If they were, they could not pay the people smugglers. They could not pay for the airfare out of Afghanistan in the first place. But instead of flying to Australia, they get on a plane, with their passport, and fly to Indonesia. They wander down to a boat, dressed like they just walked off a street in inner city Melbourne, pay thousands of dollars to the people smuggler, jump on the boat, call Australia to come and rescue them and then throw their iPhone and passport overboard and wait.

This situation is a con and it should be viewed in the context of those genuine refugees we see on the news in refugee camps across the world, such as those in Africa, those who cannot afford to jump on a plane and fly to Indonesia, those who cannot afford to pay $10,000 to people smugglers, those who have had their homes burned, who have had their families killed and who cannot even afford to eat.

Australia is a lucky country. We are a generous country. We take our responsibility seriously. We have one of the largest refugee intakes of anywhere in the world. But because our Prime Minister and this government outsourced control of our borders to the people smugglers, those who are most in need are the least likely to receive assistance. The absolute flood of illegal immigrants taking advantage of this government's free water taxi service is a direct result of this government's failure to control our borders. Here's the thing about a border—if there's a great big hole in it, it is no longer a secure border.

What this government did was take down a three-panelled fence, which was the Howard government's border protection regime: (1) offshore processing in Nauru and Manus Island; (2) temporary protection visas, ensuring that if an illegal immigrant who entered here was actually found to be a genuine refugee, they would only be issued a temporary protection visa—that is, they would not stay here permanently but only until the threat in their country was gone—and they would not be entitled to permanent residency; and (3) turning back the boats where it was safe to do so. Then this government dismantled that three-panelled fence and wondered why the people smugglers were pushing through thousands of illegal immigrants. Then, when the committee that the Prime Minister and the immigration minister outsourced their jobs to told them to reinstate the fence, they reluctantly put up just one panel. They were dragged, kicking and screaming, to restore Nauru. That is one panel of the effective fence. Here is a lesson from fencing 101: one panel of a three-panelled fence will stop nothing.

The Howard government knew that it took more than one part of their solution to stop the boats. The coalition knows that it takes more than one part. Everyone knows it except those sitting opposite. You cannot build a rabbit-proof fence with one strand of wire. The Chinese did not build the Great Wall with a single stone. The Dutch did not hold back the sea by throwing in one shovelful of dirt and calling it a dyke. The dyke around Northern Australia sprung a leak under the Rudd government and now, under the Gillard government, it is a torrent; 10,000 illegal immigrants arrived by boat this year alone, with three boats in the past 24 hours. It is an absolute torrent of shame for this government, an embarrassment for this government, who says it has a plan to stop the boats. I say to the minister at the table, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, that, unfortunately, it is the wrong boats; it is the legal fishing vessels that we have up in the Coral Sea that you want to stop, but you cannot bring yourself to stop the people-smuggling boats.

It is clear this government has outsourced complete control of the country to the Greens. It took five years of the coalition and most of Australia telling Labor their border policy would not work. But it only took a few days of the Greens jumping up and down about a trawler and this government toed the green line by moving to stop that boat. The only boats this government cares to stop are ones like that and legal fishing vessels up in the Coral Sea.

Outsourcing decision making to a committee is not governing. Outsourcing border control to people smugglers is not governing. Outsourcing policymaking to the Greens is not governing. This government has not only failed but has made itself redundant, and if you cannot govern if you are out of a job. (Time expired)

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From what we are hearing from those opposite, it is as if they wanted that trawler to come in and stay here. They are having a go at us for introducing legislation in the next couple of days. It sounds as if they are very keen to have that trawler fish the entire supply from our waters. But this is an opportunity to speak about something else.

Today's MPI was either going to be this—a pretty lame motion that has been sitting on someone's desk for over a year—or a motion on the destruction of the Australian economy, the wrecking ball that is said to be coming to be unleashed on the Australian people, from the introduction of a price on carbon pollution. The MPI would not be on the need for us as a nation to improve the education standards, for example, of Australian school children. It would not be an MPI on the need for us as a nation to protect our fisheries from over-exploitation and collapse. It certainly would not be on the need for us to improve the health—and specifically the dental health care —of the hundreds of thousands of age pensioners around the country who cannot afford dental care in the private market. But, certainly, it would be about scaremongering and fear, which is all we have seen from the opposition. It certainly would not be on the need for us as a nation to take the necessary steps to sustain the Murray-Darling Basin. These are real MPIs that they could have brought to this House to contribute to the debate about politics and policies in Australia. Instead we see them bringing fear constantly to this parliament.

Today's MPI is another example of the fearmongering of the opposition. It was always only going to be a motion on one of two things—and the only two things the opposition can focus on are the price on carbon and asylum seekers. These are the two fearmongering things they constantly focus on. From a certain perspective, it simply does not matter which one of the two they chose, because they are exactly the same. From the opposition's perspective, they are one and the same—an opportunity to say that the sky is falling and that the world as we know it is nearing its end. It is nothing but fearmongering. It is really unfortunate, because we are playing politics here with people's lives.

This is a sneak preview of what you would see of an Abbott government. We all remember the children overboard. We remember the lies and the deceit that came from that, and we know the politics that was played around that. Extremist views have taken over the Liberal Party and the opposition. How far will they go to spread this fear? All they care about is an opportunity to scream out to the Australian media that we are facing the greatest threat to the nation since World War II. It is highly disingenuous, highly irresponsible and highly, highly cynical. In the case of their preferred fear campaign at the moment—that is, the policy of carbon pricing—we have seen that the world has not ended, regardless of what they have said for the last 18 months, that the economy is not being wrecked, that investment is continuing and the economy is still growing. But the fear that the opposition has spent the last 18 months whipping up, the distress that the opposition invested so much of their time and efforts into—and so much of this parliament's time refuting—has been seen in reality to be highly misleading, and deliberately so. Their fear is political and is only for political ends. We have all had the opportunity to engage in this policy process, especially over the last few months.

It was about three months ago when many of us spoke about how tragic it was to see lives being lost. We spoke about the many, many asylum seekers who have died at sea, who drowned in the waters to Australia's north. It was only three months ago that members of the opposition openly wept for the loss of life and the terrible, devastating impact that those deaths had on, not only the families of the deceased, but also the people on Christmas Island who had witnessed that great tragedy firsthand. And it was only three months ago that the government was again blocked by all opposition parties. It was only three months ago that these parties sabotaged the government's plan to stop the trade in people smuggling. They stopped the government's plan by throwing up the most ridiculous set of arguments and alternatives—but still they sabotaged it.

So we saw the government enlisting the panel of experts that we have spoken about in the last few days, and we saw that panel reporting to the government on how the best outcome could be achieved. We saw the government committing to all the recommendations from the expert panel—each and every one, not cherry-picking or choosing. On this side of politics we take advice from experts—unlike the opposition, which is taking advice from Gina Rinehart and wants people to work for $2 a day. That is what we see from the opposition. We do not see a focus on supporting the recommendations.

We do not see a focus on all of the recommendations being implemented as a package, which is so critical to their success. We see, before a single person has been transferred to the first of the off-shore locations, the opposition saying that they are not going to work. They are already screaming and scaremongering and saying that the recommendations are gone and that the world is in fact going to cease to exist as we know it—as they have said with other issues.

It is really telling that the opposition, earlier in the year, would not even say that it would support the government's implementation of coalition policy. They would not even support their own policies being implemented. Clearly they do not care about the policies, their implementation or the effectiveness of any policy. All they care about is fear. That is what they crave. Fear is their policy, and fear is what they can deliver to the Australian people—even from opposition. It is very scary to think that they could be in government.

In an area of public policy—which clearly has involved the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of people—we see this MPI brought here today, and again it is the opposition playing politics with people's lives. It really is quite disgusting that so-called representatives of the Australian people are happy to play their own brand of funny buggers and have the lives of people a distant second to their own political fearmongering and possible political gain. If the opposition were serious about this area of public policy, they would have come out supporting the recommendations of the panel of experts, as the government has done. If the opposition were serious about stopping the people smuggling, they would have come out supporting all options including not just Nauru, not just PNG, but the Malaysia people swap as well—as recommended by the panel of experts.

If the opposition were in any way serious about preventing more deaths at sea they would have come out supporting any and all actions of this federal government that would diminish the incentives of people to continue setting out to sea.

The ridiculous suggestion from the opposition that their policy is the solution to all of Australia's troubles and the only policy that will work—that of 'turning the boats around when it is safe to do so'—betrays their cynicism. It is perfectly clear from all advice that there are no situations in which it would be safe to do so. The opposition may as well advocate levitating people off the boats when they have the mental powers to do so. It is a hollow set of words that is, in reality, meaningless. The opposition have no effective policy in this area at all.

The motion moved by the member opposite is an empty and useless contribution to public debate in this place. I would suggest that if they want to be a government in any future parliament they should start developing policies that they can actually see themselves trying to implement. That is what we on this side of the House—the government—are doing. If the opposition are serious about this issue, as they say they are, the only thing they can do is try to add value and support the government's rollout of the expert recommendations.

We are committed to implementing all of the recommendations. The Australian people want this fixed. Unfortunately, this has been infected by the opposition. It has been infected since 2000, when we saw the politics of the Tampa and the politics of the children overboard affair. We remember.

The expert panel has said that Malaysia is absolutely vital to the success of this report. This is a very important issue that we need to solve. We need to ensure that we implement these policies to stop people boarding those boats and putting their lives at risk and to stop seeing people drown at sea. We know that this whole policy is all about preventing lives being lost. (Time expired)

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the comments of the member for Hindmarsh. I have worked with him on a committee and I have always found him to be a fair man, but sometimes we can make mistakes in the way that we present an argument. To attack individuals and not the issue takes us away from the debate that has to be had in respect of asylum speakers. Fearmongering as a terminology is not helpful, because—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've had the debate since 2000!

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me say that we have not really had the debate, because there are philosophical positions that people bring into this chamber based on personal biases and viewpoints. In the electorate, when I doorknock, I find that people express very strong views about the way in which they see the government as being inactive in protecting the borders of Australia. I recently sent out Hasluck's biggest survey, to every home in my electorate—there are over 94,000 registered voters and approximately 130,000 people living within the electorate. What came back from thousands of respondents as the single significant issue was the lack of border protection that the government has created. In the discussions I have when I am door knocking, people tell me that they do not set aside the humanitarian considerations for individuals who try to escape countries that are torn by war or are ripped about by the rife of what occurs within a society. What they do not like is those who queue-jump, those who pay significant money to people smugglers. They find that galling in the sense that they themselves come from overseas and are seeking family reunions. Many of them have said: 'I don't have an issue with New Australians or with people coming to this country, but I want my families chances to be considered equally in that context.'

They are angry about the lack of border controls. They have expressed the viewpoint that our navy has become a taxi service. They say that each time they pick up a newspaper or turn on the television they hear that another distress signal has been sent from another ship within the borders of Indonesia seeking aid from the Australian Navy. They find that equally frustrating, because there are many reasons for this. But it is of particular concern to a lot of people who are struggling to pay the bills or who find it hard to rent a house or have their children's needs catered for that Australia can take so many of these people at a large cost to the Australian taxpayer and not do more to look after our own first. Many of the families I have talked to were post-war migrants, who talk about the fact that when they came here they were given assistance but they had to make the effort to acquire a working knowledge of English and to fit into the workplace.

Four years ago, the Rudd-Gillard government overturned policies that were proven to work. That is evident from the figures at the end of the Howard government's term. Since then we have had a reversal of that. Senator Evans made the comment, and recently reaffirmed the fact, that he was immensely proud of one of his first decisions, which was to remove the three-tiered approach the Howard government had in place. Since then, as I said, we have had 22,000 illegal immigrants, in excess of 1,000 deaths at sea, a battering of Australia's international reputation and a $4.7 billion budget blowout. This was all avoidable. Sometimes when governments get it wrong they have the opportunity to remedy the impacts of decisions they have made about the way in which they have delivered programs and services. It is not hard to swallow your pride sometimes and say, 'We've got it wrong. We made the wrong decision. What we want is a bilateral approach. We will consider the options that are put before us.'

I acknowledge that the Houston report has a lot of merit. There are elements in that report that augur well for the possibility of seeking a joint parliamentary approach. However, there also have to be those factors that discourage the people smugglers, who trade on the fact that if you get somebody here they will not necessarily be returned.

The coalition supports policies that are proven to work. That means offshore processing, temporary protection visas and turning the boats around. These policies work together to stop the boats and end the needless deaths at sea. I would hate to think how many bodies, which we know nothing about, are floating in that ocean and how many boats have left their destination but have not arrived. In the last four weeks 40 boats and 2,457 people have arrived, including four boats and 246 people in the last 48 hours, but not one person is yet on their way to Nauru or Manus Island.

Under Labor, everything always costs more, delivers less and takes longer to implement. Offshore processing is proving no different.

The three regions which are host to the largest number of refugees around the world are: Africa, excluding North Africa, at 2.2 million; Asia and the Pacific region at four million; and the Middle East and North Africa at 1.9 million. Australia does not have the capacity to take all of these refugees. There must be some order to the system—and there was. It was achieved. Australia must also be allowed to determine who comes to our shores, who settles here and when. That is an important factor in the way in which we protect our borders. Again, I want to reiterate that no Australian has a non-humanitarian consideration. Afghan and Iraqi refugees account for almost half of the all refugees that the UNHCR has responsibility for worldwide. Three out of 10 refugees in the world are from Afghanistan and the second largest group is Iraqi refugees at 1.7 million.

In respect of the Malaysian solution, I note that the legislation that passed in the House has not yet authorised any country to be used for offshore processing This requires a special legislative instrument to be approved by both houses of parliament. This has not yet occurred as such an instrument has not yet been introduced by the government. As a result, there are no countries currently authorised by the parliament for offshore processing.

In relation to Nauru and Papua New Guinea, the coalition is confident about the presence of appropriate binding legal protections for people formally transferred by Australia and processed at these locations given their signatory status to the refugee convention. Accordingly, the coalition will support offshore processing at these locations when the government seeks these authorisations.

In relation to the questions you have raised, these matters have not yet been addressed in detail by the government and I encourage you to raise the matters directly with them. It is important that if Australians have strong views on this that they talk to their local members.

The government has not indicated what arrangements will be made for unaccompanied minors and children. In relation to the question of how long people will remain in offshore processing centres, this will depend upon a number of variables, including processing times and willingness to be resettled or returned to their country of origin if found not to be genuine refugees. If the government means what it says under their no-advantage test then it is possible people would remain on Nauru for some years, as this is the typical time for refugees awaiting resettlement elsewhere in our region.

The coalition does not want to see people in processing centres for longer than is absolutely necessary; however, nor do we want to see other vulnerable people unable to advance their claims by getting on boats made to wait even longer. The fact is you cannot forget the Howard government's policy outcomes on border protection—a 99 per cent reduction in boat arrivals.

Programs and initiatives that work have shown that there is a capability and capacity where there is a will. When you try to implement new initiatives they do work for a period of time but there is not the longer term deterrence. I hope that in the thinking of all of us involved that we reach a solution that will give people the opportunity to come the legal way and be given humanitarian consideration but those who are not genuine will certainly be returned. It is not about attacking individuals and their positions in respect of this matter. It is about looking at the issue and what it is that needs to be addressed, agreeing to processes but also looking at the deterrence that will mean that those whose trade is to smuggle people for their gain will be diminished in their effectiveness.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is now concluded.