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

Mr Speaker has 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 implement a full suite of successful border protection policies.

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

It was only a small boat that illegally entered Australia's waters last night but it was a very significant one indeed because it marked the 25,000th person to have illegally entered Australia on 427 boats under this government—more than 25,000 people. It was just a boat with a small number of people on board. Interestingly, I note that the statement issued by the Minister for Home Affairs on 17 September differed somewhat from the one issued the day before. A statement on 16 September about a boat carrying 70 people said 'people arriving by boat without a visa after 13 August 2012 run the risk of transport to a regional processing country'. Interestingly, the statement of 17 September no longer carried that statement. They do not seem to be able to keep the policy straight on that side of the House from one day to the next, which is no great surprise.

More than 25,000 people have now arrived illegally in Australia on 427 boats under this government. With every boat arrival representing another policy failure—according not to me but to the now Prime Minister herself—this is a record of failure without peer. And it is a record of failure that continues unabated to this day. More than 5,000 people have arrived this financial year—a year where the Treasurer based his budget on just 5,400 arrivals. If there is anybody who has a hide, it is the Treasurer. He comes into this place and refuses to answer legitimate questions about where his budget is going—that is, south and in a hurry—and where the money is going to come from for promise after promise after promise as this government governs like there was no yesterday and there is no tomorrow, leaving others to pay the bill for the endless commitments.

The Treasurer today refused to answer the critical question: where is the money coming from for the further budget blow-out from this government on their border protection failures? The budget blow-out so far is over $5 billion in the last three years. Just how much greater will that blow-out be when they bring out the MYEFO and yet again it reveals a budget that is completely out of control due principally to the failures on our borders?

More than 10,000 people have arrived in 2012, the biggest year of illegal arrivals on record, and more than two-thirds of the arrivals have occurred since the last election. At the last election the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, said, 'We will stop the boats.' The effect of electing the government again after some 17 days was to start the boats again. Not only have the boats started again under this government, but it has gone into hyperdrive since the 2007 election. The people of Australia were given the opportunity to choose at the last election. The government was returned, and more than two-thirds of the 25,000 arrivals under this government have turned up since the last election. There are more than 10,000 people currently in the system, feeding into the endless appeals network set up by the government. That will drag on and cause cost for many years to come.

I notice once again that the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship is not at the table and my friend and colleague the member for Blaxland, the Minister for Home Affairs, has been brought in as the sub to represent him. Perhaps the minister for immigration is out looking for Captain Emad! I have got some news for him about where Captain Emad is later in my remarks. The minister complained in a press conference this morning that nothing he does makes me happy. I am touched by the minister's apparent desire to please—almost as touched as the member for Griffith, the former Prime Minister, is grateful for the minister for immigration's desire to please him! I acknowledge that the minister for immigration has had very little success when it comes to keeping me happy on these matters. When it comes to what this government has been offering on border protection he is actually right: I am not happy, Chris; I am not happy, Julia. I am not happy about 25,000 people illegally entering Australia on boats. I am not happy that more than 1,000 people are dead and more than 8,000 people have been denied visas seeking our protection who have applied offshore—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the member for Cook well knows that he should use people's titles rather than their names.

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

The member for Cook will refer to members by their title.

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

I am not happy about how this government and, in particular, this minister have been dragged kicking and screaming to the table on offshore processing only to implement the offshore processing policy in a half-hearted way. Not one person coming on a boat from Indonesia has so far been sent to Nauru by this government. But they maintain that they are sending a strong message up into Indonesia. Rather than seek to intercept vessels coming from Sri Lanka outside of our waters and working with the government of Sri Lanka for their safe return, they have opted to use the few places available so far on Nauru for Sri Lankan arrivals. The minister has still refused to say what the appeals process will be on Nauru and whether they will provide access to the Australian courts, giving vague and ambiguous responses to questions both from journalists and from members of this side at the same time.

I welcome, though, a development just lately: it has been confirmed that processing will now be done under Nauruan jurisdiction. But last week the Nauruan foreign minister said it would be done initially under Australian jurisdiction. I did not make that up. Those were the words of Dr Kieren Keke, who said that initially the processing would be done under Australian jurisdiction. That is exactly what he said. The minister has so far still not committed to also applying the universality principle to offshore processing on Nauru. There is no indication that all those who seek to come to Australia on illegal boats will be sent to Nauru.

When you decide to implement someone else's policies, you really should read the instruction manual. That is what you really should do. This government clearly has not read the instruction manual as to how you implement successful border protection policies. Instead, this government continues to make up those rules and policies on the run as it goes along. Labor's reluctant and half-hearted decision to restore offshore processing on Nauru is, frankly, not enough. Labor is operating on a one-legged-stool policy on Nauru, and they should not be surprised when that stool falls over.

The minister and this Prime Minister have the highest policy failure rate on illegal arrivals by boat on record. Despite their unprecedented failure, the government continue to refuse to acknowledge they got it wrong, accept responsibility for getting it wrong and the consequences that flow from that and, most importantly, put it right by restoring the measures that worked. The coalition has consistently argued for the full suite of measures that most effectively worked under the coalition to be restored. That is why we moved amendments in this House and the other place on two occasions to restore the policies of temporary protection visas and turning boats back where it is safe to do so. Those motions, both in this place and in the other place, on two occasions have been voted against consistently by the government. If Labor persist with their half-hearted approach on border protection and continue to refuse to restore the Howard government policies, they cannot expect Howard government outcomes. They cannot expect that.

If they break Nauru by continuing to take this half-hearted approach, they own it and they own the failures that go with it. They should not expect to come into this place and seek support for their past failed policies simply because they cannot read the instruction manual as to how you do offshore processing correctly and how you restore measures that worked under the previous government—and they are seeking constant excuses for not restoring those measures.

The problem, at the end of the day, is not just the government's failed policies; it is the government themselves. This government is a soft touch. Labor is a soft touch when it comes to border protection. They remain—this government, the Labor Party—a stronger pull factor for boats to come to Australia than any of the measures and any of the matters that have gone before it. This is because they just do not follow through. Of course they do not believe in it. But even when they are forced to the table they never follow through. Remember, it was the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship who threatened those participating in the Christmas Island riots with using the character test to deny their visas, saying:

I take the character test very, very seriously. One of the tests is if somebody is imprisoned for 12 months or more. There is a more general test, which simply goes to somebody’s conduct and general conduct, and whether that indicates they are of bad character. I will be examining those matters very, very seriously.

My question to the minister for immigration is: how many of the hundreds of people who were involved in the Christmas Island riots have been denied visas by that minister? The answer is none. Then there were the minister's further threats after the riots at Villawood. He said:

As I said in relation to Christmas Island, I will be applying the character test to those who may have been involved in this incident and I'll be applying it vigorously.

Again to the minister for immigration I ask: how many of the hundreds of people who were involved in the Villawood riots that saw buildings burnt to the ground have been denied visas under those tests by the minister for immigration? The answer, again, is none. That is not surprising, though, because this is the same minister who refused to get rioting protestors off a roof for 11 days, yet the New South Wales police could get rioting protestors off his own roof in 2½ hours.

This was the minister who allowed Captain Emad to have a protection visa while he was being investigated for his involvement in people smuggling and then cancelled his visa, months after he left, shaking his fist into the wind as he was someplace else. We found out where Captain Emad is, I am pleased to report. We have found Captain Emad. Captain Emad is in Iraq—interestingly, the place which this government said he was fleeing persecution from. That is the standard when it comes to this government and their record. Not only that, but his alleged widow and orphaned children, who all claimed that Captain Emad was dead, are all here today on permanent visas months and months later.

This is the minister, also, who said he was going to implement the Prime Minister's policy to open a regional processing centre in East Timor. This is the minister who said he was going to send people to Malaysia before it even worked out an agreement with the government of Malaysia, only to have the whole thing fall over in the High Court after an injunction was lodged because he was unable to deliver on his own failed policy to transfer people there within three days. He could not even get the instructions on his own policy right, and he tripped over it.

This is the same minister who most recently sat on his hands while Taji Mustafa, the UK leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation that has condoned the killing of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan and called for the military destruction of Israel, entered Australia. Then he refused to lift a finger even to inquire whether his visa should be cancelled. Given the minister's failing to act on rioting detainees burning down our detention centres and his refusal to even consider cancelling the visa of the UK leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, I have no doubt why the Australian people have no confidence in his most recent claim to take action against any noncitizens involved in the violent and extreme riots that took place in Sydney on the weekend.

The problem with this government is that when it comes to border security they just cannot be believed. They are not taken seriously. One only needs to look at their record to understand that. They are seen as a soft touch. They always have an excuse for doing nothing. They always have an excuse as to why you cannot do this and why you cannot do that. The net result is that they do nothing. But excuses do not stop boats. Excuses do not secure our borders.

Today it is very important that this House debates this matter because, as each day passes, as each day this government take their half-hearted approach—where they have been dragged kicking and screaming to implement a policy that they cannot even implement correctly—the people smugglers continue to have one over this government. That is why the Australian people know that, if they want to stop the boats, the only way to do that is to change the government. (Time expired)

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

This is a debate about the implementation of the full suite of border protection policies. And you cannot have a debate about the full suite of policies without referring to this report, because this is it: this is the full suite of border protection policies. These are the 22 recommendations developed by an expert panel led by the former Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Houston. This is what they recommended—a full suite of measures; 22—and we are the only party that is committed to implementing each and every recommendation in that report.

The opposition have refused to implement it. The Greens party has refused to implement it, as well. This is the full suite of measures and the opposition should agree to implement them. Let's have a look at each and every one of these recommendations.

Recommendation 1:

The Panel recommends that the following principles should shape Australian policymaking on asylum seeker issues.

The government agrees and supports these principles. The opposition's position on this is unclear.

Recommendation 2:

The Panel recommends that Australia’s Humanitarian Program be increased and refocused …

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, a few weeks ago, indicated that we support this. We will increase our humanitarian program from 13,000 to 20,000. The opposition, in June, said that they would support this. Now they have said that they would be reluctant to support this increase. So they have rejected recommendation 2.

Recommendation 3:

The Panel recommends that in support of the further development of a regional cooperation framework on protection and asylum systems, the Australian Government expand its relevant capacity-building initiatives in the region and significantly increase the allocation of resources for this purpose.

The government supports this. The opposition presumably oppose it.

Recommendation 4:

The Panel recommends that bilateral cooperation on asylum seeker issues with Indonesia be advanced as a matter of urgency, particularly in relation to:

The allocation of an increased number of Humanitarian Program resettlement places for Indonesia.

Enhanced cooperation on joint surveillance and response patrols, law enforcement and search and rescue coordination.

Changes to Australian law in relation to Indonesian minors and others crewing unlawful boat voyages from Indonesia to Australia.

In the report the expert panel talks about restoring discretion to Australian courts. The government supports this recommendation. The opposition have opposed it.

Recommendation 5:

The Panel recommends that Australia continue to develop its vitally important cooperation with Malaysia on asylum issues, including the management of a substantial number of refugees to be taken annually from Malaysia.

We agree. Again, the opposition opposes.

Recommendation 6:

The Panel recommends a more effective whole-of-government strategy be developed for engaging with source countries for asylum seekers to Australia , with a focus on a significant increase in resettlement places provided by Australia to the Middle East and Asia regions.

The government supports this. The opposition are opposed.

Recommendation 7:

The Panel recommends that legislation to support the transfer of people to regional processing arrangements be introduced into the Australian Parliament as a matter of urgency .

This is the legislation that has been introduced and passed by this parliament. It is the legislation that we have developed and passed by working together. The legislation passed through this parliament a few weeks ago, to the relief of most Australians.

Recommendation 8:

The Panel recommends that a capacity be established in Nauru as soon as practical to process the claims of IMAs transferred from Australia in ways consistent with Australian and Nauruan responsibilities under international law .

This capacity is being set up right now and is in the early days of operation. We have ADF boots on the ground, and the second flight carrying asylum seekers arrived in Nauru this morning.

Recommendation 9:

The Panel recommends that a capacity be established in PNG as soon as possible to process the claims of IMAs transferred from Australia in ways consistent with the responsibilities of Australia and PNG under international law.

The implementation process for this recommendation is now underway, as well.

Recommendation 10:

The Panel recommends that the 2011 Arrangement between the Government of Australia and the Government of Malaysia on Transfer and Resettlement (Malaysia Agreement) be built on further, rather than being discarded or neglected , and that this be achieved through high-level bilateral engagement focused on strengthening safeguards and accountability as a positive basis for the Australian Parliament’s reconsideration of new legislation that would be necessary .

In the report it says that the Malaysia agreement is vital. In the press conference that the former Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Houston, held after the report was released he said that the Malaysia agreement was the best plan for the future. And Paris Aristotle, another member of the expert panel, had this to say about the Malaysia agreement:

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

The government supports this recommendation. Not surprisingly, the opposition does not. So much for supporting a full suite of border protection measures. That was just the first 10; there are 22 recommendations in this report, and the opposition's position on them is much the same.

Recommendations 11 and 12 involve changes to family reunions. The government supports these. The opposition's position is still unclear. Recommendation 13:

The Panel recommends that Australia promote more actively coordinated strategies among traditional and emerging resettlement countries to create more opportunities for resettlement as a part of new regional cooperation arrangements .

We support this. Again, the opposition's position on this is unclear.

Recommendation 14:

The Panel recommends that the Migration Act 1958 be amended so that arrival anywhere on Australia by irregular maritime means will not provide individuals with a different lawful status than those who arrive in an excised offshore place.

Again, the government supports this recommendation. The position of the opposition at this point is unclear.

Recommendation 15:

The Panel recommends that a thorough review of refugee status determination (RSD ) wo uld be timely and useful.

Again, we support this. The position of the opposition on this recommendation is not clear. Recommendation 16:

The Panel recommends that a more effective whole-of-government strategy be developed to negotiate better outcomes on removals and returns on failed asylum seekers.

Again, the government supports this recommendation, as it supports the full suite of recommendations; the opposition's position is still unclear. Recommendation 17:

The Panel recommends that disruption strategies be continued …

We support this, and presume the opposition would do the same. Recommendation 18:

The Panel recommends that law enforcement agencies in Australia continue their activities in countering involvement of Australian residents who are engaged in funding or facilitating people smuggling operations.

We support this. The position of the opposition presumably is to support, but it is still unclear. The opposition have not gone through each and every one of the recommendations put by the expert panel and indicated their support or otherwise for every single one of them.

Recommendation 19:

The Panel notes that the conditions necessary for effective, lawful and safe turnback of irregular vessels carrying asylum seekers to Australia are not currently met …

This is an important one because this is the 'turn back the boats' proposal that the opposition have been putting in this debate for some time. In the report written by Angus Houston, the former Chief of the Defence Force, he makes it very clear what those conditions need to be. At page 53 of that report he says:

The State to which the vessel is to be returned would need to consent to such a return.

In other words, Indonesia would need to consent to the return of a boat turned back. That consent does not exist. Indonesia does not support this. This MPI is about the implementation of a full suite of measures, and the opposition talk about turning back the boats. Angus Houston, former Chief of the Defence Force, has said this is not possible unless Indonesia allows that to occur.

I spoke about this in the House when we had a similar debate last Tuesday, and I quoted what the Indonesian foreign minister, the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia and other senior Indonesian officials have said on this matter. It bears repeating. This is what Marty Natalegawa, the Indonesian foreign minister, said about this issue in March of this year:

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

He also said in March:

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, March of this year, he was again asked a question about turning back the boats, 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 foreign minister of Indonesia saying it would be a 'backward step', 'an aberration' and 'impossible'.

He is not the only senior Indonesian official who has made it very clear they would not support this, that they would not allow this to occur. The Indonesian Ambassador to Australia in March of this year said:

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

That is the Indonesian Ambassador indicating that they do not support this either. A senior Indonesian public servant was interviewed about this in July by the Sydney Morning Herald, and 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 the Indonesian foreign minister, the Indonesian Ambassador and senior officials inside Indonesia all saying that they do not support this, that they would not allow this to occur, and you have Angus Houston, the former Chief of the Defence Force, saying in the report at page 53 that you cannot do this unless the state that you are returning the vessel to allows this to occur. The Indonesians have made it very clear that they would not allow it to occur, so it is not possible to implement that.

Even if you could implement that, would you really want to risk the lives of Australian personnel? In the Australian newspaper in January, a senior naval officer said about turning back boats—

Mr Keenan interjecting—

Australian Navy personnel, whenever they have to perform tasks in the open seas, are at risk—I recognise that. But why should we put them under more risk than they already are? Do not just accept my view about it. The member for Stirling does not need to accept my view of it. Accept the view of senior naval officers serving in the Australian military right now. This is what one of them said on 25 January to the Australian newspaper:

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.

Last week—the member for Stirling participated in this debate—I listed a series of boats. In 2001, attempts were made to turn these boats back. The attempts failed, and injuries and other dangerous things occurred. I made the point there that the most dangerous example of turning back boats was what happened in 2009 with SIEV36. In this case the boat was not turned back but the people on the boat thought that it was going to be. There was an explosion on the boat. Five people died and 40 people were injured, including Australian Defence Force personnel. One of the Australian Defence Force personnel was Corporal Jager, a medical officer. She needed to be rescued by other Defence Force personnel when her life jacket failed to inflate and two asylum seekers tried to push her aside to get into the rescue boat.

This was a case of Australian naval personnel putting their lives at risk. It all happened because the people on the boat thought the boat was going to be turned back to Indonesia. Again, do not accept my word for it; accept the word of the WA coroner, Coroner Cavanagh, who in his report said:

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.

That is what this is all about, and that is why we do not support turning back boats—because of the unnecessary risk that it places Australian naval personnel in, people like Corporal Jager. It is a danger to Australian Navy lives and to the lives of the other people on the boats. That is why we will not do it.

There are other recommendations too. Recommendation 20 we will implement; the opposition will not. Recommendation 21 we will implement; the opposition's position is unclear. The opposition's position on recommendation 22 is unclear as well. We agree to all of the recommendations in this report, the full suite of measures. We are the only party committed to implementing all of them. The opposition will not. The Greens will not. If they are committed to the full suite of measures, they should implement all of them. (Time expired)

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

Last night we reached another shameful milestone in Labor's border protection catastrophe—the arrival of over 25,000 people illegally under Labor's watch. Twenty-five thousand and two people have arrived here illegally on 427 boats since the Labor Party came to office. We need to be very clear about why this has occurred. It has not occurred because of the international situation. It has not occurred because of extraneous issues. It has occurred as a direct result of the Labor Party's policies since they came to office. Government speakers in this debate should not continue to make excuses for why this has occurred. They should simply apologise to the Australian people for getting it so wrong over the past five years since they came to office and for refusing to acknowledge the failure which has compounded this issue at every available turn.

In any functional government a policy failure of this magnitude, which has cost so much to Australia and cost so much to the people who are seeking asylum, would have led to the resignation of the responsible ministers. Yet, the ministers who are responsible for Labor's border protection catastrophe—and these include from the Prime Minister down—continue to sit in charge of areas of government policy which they have been shown to be completely incapable of administering competently. We hear talk from the government about breaking the people smugglers' business model but what they refuse to acknowledge is that they are the people smugglers' business model. The people smugglers did not have a business when the Labor Party came to office and, because of the policy missteps that the Labor Party took, they reinvigorated people smuggling and they have subsequently provided succour to people smugglers from the series of bungled decisions taken.

This is the problem with the Labor Party. They do not have any credibility when it comes to this issue and it is that lack of credibility that means, when they announce new policy measures, the people smugglers do not take them seriously, because they have announced things in the past which they have never followed through on. That is why they need to show this time that they have actually got some firm resolve to stop people smuggling and to implement every bit of the arsenal they can implement and every policy measure they can find that would convince people smugglers they are now serious about stopping this evil trade.

The truth and sad reality is that the Labor Party have had every policy position imaginable since they came to office except for one that we know would actually work. We know it would work because this is not a new policy problem for Australia; it is a policy problem that Australia has faced before. We have implemented policies that have actually done what we needed them to do by stamping out people smuggling. What we need to do, and what the Labor Party should do, is acknowledge that they have bungled this issue ever since they came to office, acknowledge that it is their credibility that is now the problem and implement the full suite of Howard government border protection policies that we know will do the job as they have done in the past. When we were faced with this issue over a decade ago we implemented this suite of policies and it worked. It worked to stop people smuggling, and it is the only suite of policies deployed that has achieved the result that we needed to achieve.

The Labor Party's failed history on this issue is an exercise in how not to run government. They have bungled the implementation of so many policies and they have been so comprehensively wrong in their approach to this issue that the people smugglers could not possibly take seriously what they do now. The history on border protection is littered with failure—from abolishing offshore processing when they came to office in 2008 to the Oceanic Viking, which was when the people smugglers stared down this government yet again. They sent a very clear message that they do not have the resolve to address people smuggling. There was the asylum freeze, the most discriminatory policy ever implemented by an Australian government, that froze Afghan and Sri Lankan claims for asylum in Australia for a defined period of time—three months and six months respectively—which led to all the problems we saw in our detention network after that. It was a detention network filled to bursting, which led to violence, the burning down of part of the Christmas Island detention centre and riots at Villawood. The government's response was to let people out of detention and to refuse to take action, as was outlined by the shadow immigration minister, against the people who had perpetrated those criminal acts within our detention network.

We then had an act of desperation during the 2010 election campaign with the announcement by the Prime Minister that the Labor Party were going to pursue a detention centre on East Timor. This was done without consulting the East Timorese government and predictably led them to say that it was never going to happen. Sadly, even though it was obviously doomed to failure, the government then sent out Australian diplomats to engage in the embarrassing farce of pretending that they were still negotiating with the East Timorese about placing the detention centre on their territory.

We then had, when the East Timorese proposal was rightly abandoned, the so-called Malaysia solution when the government negotiated a swap of 800 people for 4,000 people with the Malaysian authorities without negotiating appropriate human rights protections in a country that is not a signatory to the United Nations convention on refugees, which was something the government had claimed was vital previously. This was struck down by the High Court. Subsequently we have seen the government back-pedalling on this ever since looking for another approach to their method that has provided such an incentive for people smuggling since they came to office.

Because of all these failed policies, the Labor Party has absolutely no credibility on border protection issues. That is why they have to implement the full suite of Howard government policies if they are going to be taken seriously by people smugglers and if they are going to be shown, finally, to have some resolve to address this issue that they have created for Australia since they came to office.

It is very important that we process people in Nauru and Manus but it is also vitally important that we re-introduce temporary protection visas and turn boats back around when it is a safe and appropriate to do so. Temporary protection visas are vitally important because they destroy the thing the people smugglers are selling: permanent residence in Australia. If they cannot sell permanent residence in Australia, they do not have a product to sell. When we have temporary protection visas we say that, yes, we are happy to protect people from persecution from their own government, as is appropriate and as we are required to do. But being a refugee is not necessarily a permanent condition. Conditions within countries change. When conditions within a country change for somebody who is seeking refuge here to the point where they would now be safe to return home, we think it is appropriate that they return home under those circumstances.

We heard the Minister for Home Affairs, the minister who would be responsible for implementing this policy, go through yet another series of excuses about why turning the boats around cannot be done. Primarily, he quoted a series of Indonesian officials, saying that they do not think it is a good idea. This is an example of the incredible weakness of this government. In the past, we did do this. We did it over half a dozen times and the Indonesian authorities accepted it. That is because we dealt with Indonesia from a position of strength, not from a position of weakness—where we had changed our policies to the point where we reinvigorated people smuggling—that has provided Indonesia with a problem.

I know how the Indonesians think about this issue because I went to Jakarta and I spoke with legislators there. They asked me, 'Why is it that you are coming to Jakarta to discuss this issue with us when we all understand this is a policy disaster that has been created in Canberra? Australians should be fixing their policies before they talk to us about what we can do to help.' Quite frankly, I think that is a perfectly reasonable position for the Indonesians to take. They know that we put the sugar on the table. It was the Labor Party that changed policies to reinvigorate people smuggling. They created this problem not only for Australia but also for our regional neighbours.

The Labor Party have been wrong on this issue for over a decade. They have been proven to be wrong by the record of over 25,000 people arriving here illegally. They should admit they are wrong and they should embrace the full suite of Howard government measures, the only suite of policies that actually worked to stop people smuggling.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is interesting listening to the member for Stirling. You would have thought those opposite had opposed our changes in 2007 but they did not oppose them in the Senate. The shadow minister at the time, Sharman Stone, supported them. The Liberal Party supported those changes.

Again, those opposite complain about the Malaysian transfer agreement but they refused to vote for it in this parliament. When that bill passed this House, they were running around this place offering amendments to other members, offering an increase in the humanitarian intake to 20,000—that subsequently became a recommendation of the Houston report—and now they are backing away from that. We had the member for Cook ask why we have not cooperated with the Sri Lankan navy to turn around boats on the high sea and then we had the member for Stirling come in and talk about the processing of Sri Lankan claimants. It is a very interesting catalogue of inconsistencies that the opposition bring up.

There are inconsistencies in this MPI. Those opposite talk about the full suite of policies. But in most of their MPI speeches they ignored the Houston report and its 22 recommendations. There was barely a mention of those recommendations. You hear government ministers talking about this report in great detail, going through it recommendation by recommendation. Indeed, the Labor Party and this government, the Gillard government, are the only people who are committed to the full implementation of those recommendations. The Greens are not committed; they want to cherry-pick the recommendations. The Liberals are not committed; they also want to cherry-pick the recommendations. The reason they want to cherry-pick the recommendations is they want the toxic debate that has gone on in this country for a decade to continue. The reason they want that is because they are interested in the politics of this issue and not in the policy. They have always been interested in politics and not in policy. That is why they are so inconsistent, so consistently inconsistent.

Day by day, week by week, we see the Liberals are desperate in the face of a fading primary vote that has been inflated over time by exaggeration and negativity—and that is all that was keeping it afloat—and they now are the subject of the public's considered judgement on that exaggeration and that negativity, and the air is slowly coming out of that balloon. The Leader of the Opposition is desperately floundering about half hiding and half seeking a new negative campaign to run. The member of the Cook just wants to reheat the old negative campaign, this old favourite of the Liberal Party, inconsistently nitpicking from day to day, undermining the government and the Australian national interest. That is why we see him out there—even though we have had the second plane land in Nauru and even though we have had offshore processing begin—day by day in the doorstops, in front of the cameras, basically nitpicking and seeking to send a different message than the Houston report sends or the government wants to send to people smugglers.

We know that this undermines the national interest, undermines the message of the Houston report, undermines parliamentary legislation and undermines the consistent message: do not come by boat, do not risk your life, do not pay a people smuggler. We know the terrible results of some of the accidents on the high sea. We have seen the terrible results. We know what is at stake: people's lives are at stake. We know the danger our ADF personnel put themselves in when trying to deal with this issue.

And yet the member for Cook is out still there, applying himself to this issue with only two political aims—not a policy aim but just political aims: votes for the Liberal Party—and his other hand firmly clasping his own leadership baton. We know that is what it is all about. It is about this sort of contest to replace Abbott at some point in the future. We know that it is all about getting his profile up. And he uses this terrible issue as an incense burner to his party's desperate desire for primary votes, its desperate thirst for office. He uses it as an incense burner to his own vanity—and what a dark vanity it is, that he would undermine the national interest in this way.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Wakefield has strayed into deeply offensive territory and should be asked to withdraw.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There was nothing unparliamentary about it and nothing that was deeply offensive to the shadow minister for immigration.

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

The member for Wakefield would assist the chamber if he would withdraw those comments. The member for Stirling has said they were deeply offensive, and it would assist—

Mr Champion interjecting—

It would assist the chamber. As you would have heard during question time, the Deputy Speaker did ask a member to withdraw comments that may not always be considered unparliamentary or offensive.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Out of deference to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will happily withdraw. But it is deeply disappointing that we still see the opposition and the Greens playing politics with this issue. And we all know why they play politics with this issue and they want to throw bricks every day at the government. Then when someone calls them on it we have this chronic sensitivity about it. I do not think it is good enough. I know my constituents do not think it is good enough. They were certainly aghast when the opposition refused to vote for legislation that would have allowed the Malaysian transfer agreement, allowing offshore processing to begin six weeks earlier. Instead, they all went on the winter break.

The government is the only party in this parliament that is committed to implementing the Houston report's 22 recommendations. We have legislated to begin offshore processing and it has begun on Nauru. It is sending a message to people-smugglers, to the people who might be tempted, might be desperate enough to pay a people smuggler: do not come by boat; do not risk your life. We are developing cooperative bilateral agreements with Indonesia and Malaysia and we are in the process of improving the Malaysian agreement along the lines advocated in the Houston report. And that will be the thing that strikes fear into the hearts of people smugglers and stops their business model.

But this is also being done with compassion in mind, and that is why we have increased the humanitarian intake to 20,000 places—and that is an important thing to do. If you are going to say to people that they should take the appropriate approach, that they should wait, that they should be assessed by the UNHCR, that they should not take a dangerous boat journey, then people should have some opportunity to start a life in Australia, if they are refugees.

The Gillard government is committed to resolving this problem, despite being frustrated by this parliament on numerous occasions, despite being frustrated in the other place, the Senate, by this Liberal-Greens 'noalition'—this marriage of convenience that is going on. They talk tougher on the Greens but they like preferencing them in Melbourne and they like doing deals with them in the Senate to frustrate the national interest.

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

That is what happened. That is the way you voted. That is what is recorded in the Hansardyou voting with the Greens against offshore processing, against the Malaysian transfer agreement. That was the agreement that would have sent the strongest possible message to people smugglers, and you voted against it, to the disappointment of your own constituents. I have no doubt about that.

We believe in backing the Houston report recommendations, and we sincerely hope for bipartisan agreement on this, more than anything. We need to put an Australia-first position on this, to our region and to the people who would take advantage of legitimate refugee processing—the people smugglers, who do this to make money. They put people on dangerous voyages on dangerous boats, encourage people to risk their lives. That is their act. It is not a government or an opposition act; there are criminal networks in our regions that do this, and we want to see it stop and we want to see it stop as soon as possible. And we would beg the opposition just for a modicum of cooperation in this matter.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just say, if the Labor Party concentrated on policy with an outcome rather than policy to wedge the member for Griffith, we might actually get somewhere with this debate. To the member for Wakefield, I would say that our current Prime Minister used to step forward, when she was the opposition immigration spokesperson, and say, 'Another boat arrival, another policy failure.' She played politics all the way through with this. How she enjoyed her moment in the sun. She was the champion, pointing out the obvious flaws and how she had a better way. So we fixed it. We grew a spine and we fixed it—we stopped the boats with a full suite of policies.

The former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told all Australians it was push factors, that it was not an economic issue. We would repeal this vile legislation and we would leave the gate open. What could possibly go wrong? So they repealed the legislation and there was rejoicing in the street. 'Sorry, what was that? Boatloads of people coming from Indonesia? Surely it's only opposition scaremongering.' There have been over 25,000 people arrive since this policy was rescinded. Over $5 billion has been thrown out the window because of these poor policies. I want to be on the record saying, if I were sitting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran or Iraq, I would love to come to Australia. I don't blame them for wanting to make the trip. What I do say is that the Australian taxpayer is being treated with contempt by these people and by this government.

We have so many vital issues being ignored by the overworked immigration department, because they have to work on these people who come by boat. I know the term 'queue jumper' is frowned upon by many, but that is what they are. We have people all over the world wanting to settle in this country, and these people, because they have the cash, are forcing the issue in their favour.

What we have seen in this poor policy decision is every hatemonger in the country peddling misinformation and hate via unsigned emails. Every member of the House is subject to them. If this government could get its borders under control, every member of this House would have at least another hour per day to do positive things in our electorates. Instead, we are having to correct the lies passed on as truth that tell people all sorts of vile garbage aimed not to inform but to inflame.

I believe in immigration. I believe in humanitarian refugees being brought to this country and to my city. I believe in that because all of us in this place—apart from my friend and colleague the member for Hasluck—come from immigrants. We have all had ancestors who have come to this country to make a better life. But we have all come through the front door, because we were asked, and we did the right thing. There is a huge difference between someone asking you into their house and someone breaking in through the back door. I saw an episode of Q&A where a young Afghan lady, very well presented and beautifully spoken, was asked what she would say to the people in the line who she pushed back to get to Australia. Her answer was that there was a line to come through the front door, and they saw an open window and jumped through that. The fact that she was never asked a follow-up to explain herself, asked what she would have said to the people from Chad or Somalia on why they had to continue to wait, is beyond me.

What we saw on the streets on the weekend was truly disturbing. I just want to say that the Leader of the Opposition had it right when he said that we do not want people to leave behind their culture or their religion when they come to Australia but that they do have to leave their hatred behind. To the mindless few who went so feral on the weekend, I say: are you happy now? Has that made you feel better? I also ask: what do you think you have achieved with this for your cause? I defend the Muslim religion and its immigrants into this country all the time against the attacks from people who do not want you here, who fear change and think you will try to take over our society. Many of those who believe this are actual immigrants, still with heavy accents.

The ex-chair of my political party's federal campaign last year is a Muslim. He is a good man. I went to a Muslim community get-together recently. There were dentists, engineers, doctors, university lecturers and tradespeople in the gathering. Apart from the men and women sitting on either side of the aisle, it was like any other community gathering. One old man stood up and said that there was no word for 'democracy' in the Koran. The mullah who was there said he was entirely correct—but he added that there was no word for 'chlorine' either, yet you use that to clean your pool. He went on to say that the high ideals of Islam are almost identical to those of Christianity and of every religion on the face of the earth: respect for the individual, treating each other with honesty, being human beings.

I was very pleased to see the Muslim community come out today, united in stepping away from the behaviour of a few on the weekend. This is the first step in many you will have to make to repair the damage that has been done by these idiots.    To the idiots and thugs who did this on the weekend, I wish I could use the language of the front bar on you in this House to properly vent how my community feels about you, but I cannot. All I will say is that you have an option to leave, should you wish, because none of you are welcome here anymore.

The difference between asylum seekers and humanitarian immigration is vast. I spoke to my local community regarding immigration. I want to state what I said to them for the record. I believe that with the increase in the humanitarian intake my city can play a major part in helping people integrate into society. But, as with so many of the policies of this government, we do not see any detail as to what is happening on the ground. If we are to increase the intake, we must also have the services there to back that up. We cannot leave it to the volunteers at Townsville's Migrant Resource Centre to pick up the slack. They must be supported. Where is the plan? We cannot expect Aitkenvale State School to simply accept more students with language difficulties without increased support. Where is the plan? We have heard nothing in my city to tell us that there are any plans at all to assist with these challenges. This government is great on announcement and moves on so quickly after it, and blow the detail. It can come a long, long time after, because they are not interested in that. They are interested in the politics of the wedge and keeping the member for Griffith occupied.

The homestay policy, whereby people will pick up $300 per week, is an issue for me as well. I think it is, again, lacking in support. To the people who have signed up, I say: congratulations and good luck. But I am very concerned about this, and I would not be opening my house to them. I said at the time and I say again that I never want to see a story about a slum landlord with 17 people living in his house in poverty while he collects $8,100 of taxpayers' cash each week. With this government's lack of follow-through, that will happen.

We need to fully address the issue. As the member for Cook has said, offshore processing is merely one leg of a stool. It will fall over if you do not have the temporary protection visa—the one that says you can come to this country until the trouble at your home is over, and then you can go home. That stops the boats; that helps, as well as offshore processing. You must turn back the boats. Nothing sends a message through clearer than seeing a boat full of people going back to port—nothing. And we must improve our relationship with Indonesia. We have treated them like second-class citizens since this mob were elected.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Competitiveness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Turning back the boats will do that!

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You, the minister at the table, have treated them like second-class citizens since your mob was elected. The only person to show any form of international leadership from a governmental perspective has been President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. We could learn a bit about statesmanship from him, and you could too. The minister, who was at the dispatch box earlier, said the Indonesians will not work with this. I say that if I were spoken to as this government has spoken to the Indonesians I would not deal with you either. Get on a plane, go over and sort it out. Sit down with them and tell them what is going on.

But to the people of Australia I say this, in conclusion. When my great-grandfather came to Australia in 1902 he had to change his religion to get a job. He was a Catholic. To become a civil servant and serve with distinction, which he did—he ended up being the superintendent of Westbrook Boys Home—he had to become an Anglican. So there have always been problems with religion in this country. My father will always tell you that he spent every Christmas from 1936 to 1949 at Westbrook Boys Home, outside Pittsworth—but he was never an inmate.

So we have always had problems with religion in this country, we have always had problems with people mixing. But my great-grandfather did not take to the streets and belt a copper when things did not go his way. My great-grandfather did the right thing. He made the choice and he went about it the right way. He made the changes he had to make—

Mr Champion interjecting—

You're out of your seat, mate; get back over there if you want to interject. The whole thing about this is that we have lost the case. You guys sit up there and tell us we are playing politics, when all the way through your whole raison d'etre has been aimed at the bloke you should be sitting next to: the member for Griffith. That is all this is about. That is all you people are about and it is all you will ever be about with this thing. Shame on you. You should just get on a plane and go over and speak to them and fix the thing up at the start, which is where it should be fixed.

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

Order! I remind the chamber, yet again—and the member for Herbert was guilty of it during his speech—the use of the word 'you' is a reflection on the chair. You are speaking through the chair, not to the chair.

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

If there is any shame to be had with respect to this issue, the shame should be directed towards the members of the coalition, who continue to play politics with an issue that concerns the lives of real people. The time to play politics is over. Let me assure members opposite that in my discussions with people in my electorate they continue to tell me that they wish the politics in respect of this issue would end and that the parties would work together to try to find meaningful solutions to try to resolve what is indeed a national and an international problem.

The people in my electorate are sick and tired of the politics. When this House broke up for the winter recess just a few weeks ago and we were at a deadlock with respect to this very issue, the one message that came back to me time and time again was that people wished that the House had continued to debate the issue until a resolution had been reached. In doing that, what they did not want to see is any more lives being lost in respect of the very issue we are debating. They wanted to see the people-smuggling business ended and they wanted to see the people smugglers brought to account. The community is indeed sick and tired of the politics associated with this issue. With respect to the comments from the members opposite it is clear once again that that is all they are really doing. The community is not interested in rhetoric. The community is interested in the matter being resolved in a responsible way and not having the coalition come into this chamber, as they have done again today, playing their political stunts with respect to this MPI.

The motion itself seems to be at odds with what it is saying. On the one hand it talks about the failure of the government to implement policies and on the other hand it fails to acknowledge that the very policies they would like to see us implement—policies that might be effective—were blocked by the members opposite. So, if we are going to implement a full suite of policies, we can only do so with the support of other members of this House, and that support was simply not forthcoming when the government tried to implement policies such as the Malaysia agreement, which I will come to again later on.

It is also interesting that if you talk about a full suite of policies—and the Minister for Home Affairs made this point very well when he went through the recommendations of the expert panel—and you go through the 22 recommendations one at a time you start to see that for most of those recommendations there was no support forthcoming from members opposite. You want a full suite of policies, and the House has one presented to it by an independent expert panel, and who opposes it? The members opposite. Again, I will come back to some of that a bit later on.

It just highlights the shallow arguments and the double standards put forward by the members opposite. They are prepared to come into this House, as they have done again today, and talk about perhaps two of their critical policy areas that they argue the government should have adopted as part of the policy response to this issue. The first is that we should be turning back the boats. With respect to that issue, the coalition have shown that they have no regard whatsoever for the lives of the people on board those boats, let alone the lives of the Australian Defence Force personnel who would be required to do this. In fact, the issue of turning back the boats was considered by the expert panel and it was rejected on the basis that there are not adequate conditions in place to enable that to occur safely.

The other issue they talk about with respect to their polices—and the policies that they believe are the full suite of policies that we did not implement—is the issue of temporary protection visas. With respect to the issue of temporary protection visas, again, it was notable that the independent expert panel did not recommend the reintroduction of temporary protection visas. It is also notable that, at the time that the Howard government had those policies in place, temporary protection visas afforded only a three-year protection process. They did not provide any access to services in this country for people on them and nor did they provide for the family reunion sponsorship program that was in place at the time. As a result of not having those provisions attached to TPVs, we saw families, including women and young children, try to make the dangerous journey of coming to Australia. We also saw lives lost possibly as a result of having that very policy in place. But I highlight that it was interesting that, of all the 22 recommendations the independent expert panel put to the government, TPVs were not one, and nor was turning back the boats, given that we do not have the appropriate conditions in place right now. Yet members opposite continue to come in here and say that they are the policies we should have adopted. It is interesting that, in saying that, they are rejecting the advice of the independent panel.

The independent panel was put together and commissioned by this government when the deadlock was reached. It was an independent panel made up of Angus Houston, Paris Aristotle and Michael L'Estrange, people who I believe members from all sides of this House would have the utmost respect for. I have never heard members opposite criticise the ability or competence of any of the members of the expert panel. Yet those opposite do not accept that their recommendations are appropriate. They say we should ignore the recommendations of the expert panel. In fact, if my recollection is correct, even before the expert panel handed down its findings the members opposite said that they would ignore its recommendations, because they knew better.

In the six weeks the expert panel was given to do its job, it consulted widely with every major sector in the country—government departments, NGOs, refugee communities and academics. Indeed, I understand that it received some 550 written submissions. That is how much effort they put into putting together a policy that was going to be effective, before bringing it back to the government.

I would like to quote from the foreword of the report of the expert panel:

We believe that the only viable way forward is one that shifts the balance of risk and incentive in favour of regular migration pathways …

That is exactly what the panel did in their recommendations and yet members opposite again choose to ignore that. Can I highlight that amongst their recommendations the panel recommended increasing to 20,000 places the humanitarian program we have in this country, developing bilateral cooperation on asylum seeker issues with Indonesia and Malaysia, developing legislation to support the transfer of people to regional processing arrangements, including on Nauru and Manus Island, and reviewing the refugee status determination and joint operational guidelines for managing search and rescue activities in the region. That sums up the key recommendations that I might have time to speak to.

The point I make about the work of the independent panel is that their formula was very simple: you create incentives for people to follow due process; you create disincentives for those who do not. The issue here is that, whilst the coalition come into the House and attack the government for this policy, what they are really doing is attacking the work of the independent panel, because they are attacking the 22 recommendations which were put forward to the parliament and which the government has in fact adopted. If you are going to criticise the government, then bear in mind, members opposite, that what you are really doing is criticising the work of the independent panel, who put their time and effort into developing a comprehensive policy that I believe deals with all of the issues.

I want to bring to the House's attention some of the facts. At the moment we are dealing with over 42 million people who are displaced around the world. Of those, about 3.6 million are in the Asia-Pacific region; 15 million are defined as refugees and one million are asylum seekers. That is the nature of the problem that we are dealing with. We are also dealing with a problem where most of the people come to this country from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iran—all countries which are in turmoil and conflict right now and all countries from which most of us, if we were living there, would dearly love to get away. This is an issue that deals with the lives of real people, who are often traumatised as a result of where they are living and by their journey to this country. Those people are often women and children. The issue needs to be dealt with in a responsible way, and that is what this government is doing. (Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the comments of the members for Cook, Stirling and Herbert in today's matter of public importance, 'The failure of the government to implement a full suite of successful border protection policies'. And what an absolute failure it has been. The failures of this government—their reckless spending, their record debt, their waste, their mismanagement—will be remembered by this nation for many decades to come.

History will record Labor's policies on asylum seekers and their undoing of the previous coalition policies as one of the most monumental policy failures in our nation's history. We all know the history, but it is worth recalling it for those on the other side with short and selective memories. In 1999 people smugglers sent 3,721 people on 86 boats seeking asylum in Australia. The following year people smugglers sent off another 2,939 asylum seekers and in 2001 the number grew again, with 5,516 people making that dangerous voyage on 43 boats. During that time we had lives lost. Over 353 people were drowned at sea during that time making that crossing.

We should never forget that one of the most vocal critics of the situation at that time and the policies of the Howard government was the current Prime Minister, who infamously said, 'Another boat arrival, another policy failure.' So what happened? The Howard government took the necessary steps with a three-pronged policy: (1) offshore processing on Nauru, (2) temporary protection visas for those found to be genuine refugees and (3) turning the boats around where possible. There were times when that was possible. There were several occasions, which we often hear denied, where those boats were turned around.

The suite of those three policies combined worked. The numbers speak for themselves. If we look back to before the policies were introduced, between 1999 and 2001 over 12,000 asylum seekers arrived by boat. But in the entire seven-year period when that suite of three policies was in place just 278 asylum seekers arrived—an average of fewer than 50 a year. The facts are that the Howard government policies worked. Lives were saved. In the seven years after their introduction not one single death at sea was recorded.

But we know what happened then. With the election of the Labor government in 2007, all three prongs of that suite of policies were unravelled by the Labor government, to cheering of the people smugglers. And look what happened. Since then, we have seen 25,000 asylum seekers arrive on our shores, with 1,000 people dead, having drowned at sea. The cost to the Australian taxpayers is now approaching $7 billion. We have seen asylum seekers riot at Villawood detention centre, setting fire to nine buildings, including a medical centre and dining hall. In July last year, we witnessed the spectacle of our Australian Federal Police having to fire tear gas and beanbag rounds at asylum seekers on Christmas Island after riots broke out. We have seen the embarrassing adventures of Captain Emad, where a people smuggler was able to disguise himself as an asylum seeker and was operating within a few kilometres of Parliament House.

Look at the cost—a $4.7 billion blow-out over the last three years, $4.7 billion that could have been spent on so many other needy causes in our society. If we average this out, it is a cost of $188,000 per asylum seeker. We know that Labor plans to sack several thousand public servants to try and deliver a surplus. That $4.7 billion blow-out could pay the wages of over 70,000 public servants for a year. But that money is now gone, wasted by the failed policies of this government on asylum seekers.

And the costs go on. Since the last figures were published in the midyear budget update in November last year, the contract to staff Australian detention centres has blown out by $638 million. The cost went from $1 billion to $1.6 billion due to Labor's failure to reintroduce the three policy pillars that were successful in the past. And the number of unauthorised arrivals continues to grow. On top of that cost, we also have to add the $1.3 billion cost for the increase in humanitarian aid arrivals—and that is before the cost of reopening Nauru, which should never have been closed in the first place. The cost of opening Nauru and Manus Island is $2.3 billion—$2.3 billion that could have been spent on so many other worthy causes has now been taken out of the economy. And the costs go on and on.

The report entitled Settlement outcomes for new arrivals released last year by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship found that five years after settlement in Australia 94 per cent of Afghan refugee households were still receiving Centrelink benefits. Likewise, 93 per cent of households from Iraq were still receiving Centrelink payments five years after resettlement. A report commissioned by the immigration department last year found that some refugees are sending welfare payments received from the Australian taxpayer back overseas as part of a multibillion-dollar industry to help relatives in their home countries. The report estimated that up to $6 billion flows out of Australia every year in payments to people overseas.

The costs go on. This year alone free legal advice for asylum seekers is going to cost Australian taxpayers at least $60 million. This is happening at a time when Australian citizens are being denied legal aid and, worse, the federal government has recently increased all court fees, trying to raise another $100 million. The Law Council has said these increases in court fees 'have a significant impact on access to justice', 'substantially increase the cost of the justice system as a whole' and are 'likely to create a further financial barrier to all court users'. So Australian citizens miss out simply because we need to pay $60 million in legal fees for asylum seekers.

Then there is the cost to the taxpayer of running 'asylum air'—the cost of transporting asylum seekers who have thrown away their passports before boarding boats to Australia. Recently released figures show that 99 per cent of asylum seekers, who need passports to fly into Indonesia before they make their voyage to Australia, had 'lost' their passports when they arrived by boat at Christmas Island. The cost to taxpayers of transporting asylum seekers around our nation was over $70 million in the last year alone. To put that $70 million cost into perspective, the government could pay for a return air ticket from Sydney to the Gold Coast for no less than 350,000 Australians.

We have seen continual denial by this Labor government. They were dragged kicking and screaming to reintroduce the three pillars of the tried and tested policies of the Howard government, but they have refused. Only one of the three has been implemented, and we simply cannot expect Howard government results if we do not put in place the full suite of Howard government measures. Labor continue to remain in denial. How many more boat arrivals, how many policy failures, how many tragedies and how much more cost to the Australian taxpayer until Labor concedes that the Howard government had it right and to fix this problem they need to go back and reintroduce the full suite of policies? (Time expired)

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

Order! The discussion is concluded.