Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Without doubt, one of the few things that nearly everyone in this place agrees upon is that the arrival of asylum seekers by sea presents a massive and unacceptable risk to both those making the journey and those forced to rescue asylum seekers who have met with misfortune because they have fallen foul of that risk. While there is major agreement about this, there is massive disagreement in finding a way forward to manage this risk. In an effort to burst open the deadlock that presents itself, the federal government brought together an eminent trio of Australians tasked with the objective of developing a series of policy proposals to help us deal with one of the most contentious areas of contemporary public policy.

The expert panel was made up of Paris Aristotle AM and Professor Michael L'Estrange AO, and it was headed by former Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston. The report, while carried out in a tight time frame, was thoroughly thoughtful and considered. It canvassed a range of options to help us manage this exceptionally challenging issue, but it was underpinned and its 22 recommendations were underpinned with a set of principles. It urged policy makers to do the same, ensuring a transparent, consistent approach to policy development and management. If members of the public have not read the panel's report yet, I would urge them to do so because it clearly lays out the scale and nature of the problem and then employs an incentive and disincentive approach to help deal with the issue. For example, the report recommended Australia's humanitarian intake be lifted to help those stuck in refugee camps to have their applications for asylum assessed quicker, instead of risking a journey on a people smuggler's vessel.

At the same time, the report recommended the application of the no advantage principle to ensure no benefit is gained by sidestepping regular migration arrangements. These quick examples illustrate what I referred to earlier about building incentive and disincentive within the way in which we deal with the dangers generated by people smugglers.

What struck me in the report is the breadth of its recommendations founded upon fact and data. It tried to come up with a set of workable arrangements on a tough issue, but it was also fair. It examined proposals put forward by government and examined options advocated by those opposite. It agreed that regional processing was a critical element in frustrating people smugglers and disrupting their trade, but it also looked at the opposition's proposal to tow back boats. From my perspective, it was heavily qualified and needed a number of strict conditions to be met. Again in my view, the notion that those opposite would stop the boats by towing them back is both too simplistic and too dangerous to be taken seriously. It risks the lives of Australian Navy personnel and undermines the very thing we need to tackle a regional problem, and that is regional cooperation. Our neighbours do not like this policy. They do not want a bar of it and the Leader of the Opposition knows it. That is why he stunningly failed to raise a policy initiative he rated as critical during his recent meeting with Indonesian President Yudhoyono.

We only need to contrast the dimensions and detail of the Houston report with the simplistic approach of some in this broader debate. In early September the coalition announced that, if elected, it would simply return any asylum seekers from Sri Lanka intercepted at sea without even assessing or determining their refugee claims. It was a breathtaking announcement for a range of reasons, not least of which that there was absolutely no context provided as to why, out of all the nationalities of asylum seekers arriving here, Sri Lankans have been singled out by the coalition.

What is also noteworthy in this unfathomable hypocrisy is that those opposite have suddenly found a voice, becoming the vocal advocates of the refugee convention. It was why the opposition refused to back our agreement on regional processing with the Malaysian government. They pointed out the fact that Malaysia was not a signatory to the convention, using such inflammatory rhetoric about a country that is a valued partner of ours and prompting Malaysia's Prime Minister to react to the nature of the opposition's claims at CHOGM last year. It even saw Malaysia's High Commissioner to Australia, Salman Ahmad, write to every MP in August urging moderation in the way those opposite were tarnishing the standing of his nation through outrageously offensive rhetoric.

But the convention became a point of principle for those opposite, despite the fact they would turn back boats to Indonesia, another non-signatory nation, and now they would turn back Sri Lankans to a country that is not a signatory to the convention. We have a situation where those opposite refused to support a transfer agreement with Malaysia because it is not a signatory of the refugee convention but then seek to establish a transfer agreement with another country that is not a signatory—Sri Lanka.

But it does not stop there. Refusing to even consider the application of a Sri Lankan seeking asylum and then returning them without regard to their safety on return flies in the face of the requirements of the convention. The opposition simply assume every application made by anyone arriving here from Sri Lanka is false. They effectively pre-empt the assessment process, they carelessly prejudge and they potentially ignore the non-refoulement obligations under the very convention they have become such ardent defenders of.

It is the type of policy that prompted the Human Rights Law Centre to write to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who announced this policy, to point out that besides contravening the convention their policy would be 'incompatible with the convention on the elimination of racial discrimination and Australia's own Racial Discrimination Act'. Why? Because in part the policy would single out arrivals from one country and in that process have the effect of singling out one ethnic group from Sri Lanka, the Tamils. It is worth pointing out that the opposition cited human rights concerns as a basis for refusing to support the agreement with Malaysia. Yet they seem to overlook that Sri Lankan Tamils seeking refuge have actually had their claims in Australia accepted due to a genuine fear of persecution stemming from a long, brutal civil conflict that cost the lives of 100,000 Sinhalese and Tamil civilians between 1972 and 2009.

While some may say that things are improving in Sri Lanka, there are some who say there is still a very long way to go. It is worthwhile pointing out that one of our closest allies, the United States, welcomed UN resolutions carried earlier this year calling on Sri Lanka to credibly investigate war crimes alleged to have occurred during that bloody civil war. Further, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on the record as saying that Sri Lanka will only achieve lasting peace through real reconciliation and accountability. It is disappointing that the Sri Lankan government has refused to heed this resolution, claiming it needed to complete its own domestic investigations without interference from foreign powers. The human rights abuses that are said to have occurred during the civil war are serious, especially those at the tail end of the war in 2009, when some groups claim that up to 40,000 people died.

These concerns persist today and will be the subject of briefings of parliamentarians which will be conducted as a result of the work of the Australian Tamil Congress, who have invited to Australia Mr M A Sumanthiran, a member of Sri Lanka's largest democratically elected Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance. Mr Sumanthiran is in Australia at, as I said, the invitation of the congress and they will be highlighting the need for the Sri Lankan government, with the support of the international community, to properly embrace the need for accountability as a vehicle to reach enduring peace in a nation that has suffered so deeply. Taking this into account and considering how recent this terrible war was, there are some genuine concerns about persecution and safety. That is why we have seen 647 permanent visas granted in 2010-11 under our humanitarian program—a relatively regular number considering that 579 visas were granted in 2008-09 and 689 visas were granted in 2009-10. These are not remarkably high but for the people granted asylum it means the world to them and they have made tremendous Australian residents and then citizens. Many have made there home in western Sydney within the electorates that I and my friend and colleague who is present here today, the member for Greenway, represent. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of them and I am proud to represent them in this place.

Given the relatively low numbers who have settled in Australia, the bulk within Victoria and New South Wales, I am simply at a loss to find the reasons driving the coalition's policy in relation to Sri Lankans seeking refuge. It flies in the face of their position, stated in reference to the opposition to the agreement with Malaysia, that such agreements must only be entered with signatories to the convention. It also flies in the face of their position that such agreements must be made with regard to adequate human rights protections. There is no consistency in that approach. There is little logic in that approach. That is why I am so deeply opposed to what they have put forward and it is what has driven me to submit this motion for the House's consideration. It is up to the member for Canning, who follows me in this debate along with the member for Pearce, to outline why this proposal should not be labelled as grossly hypocritical and discriminatory. As opposed to that, the government bases its approach on evidence and does so and manages our obligations consistent with the convention. While we have, as I have outlined, accepted a modest number of people from Sri Lanka seeking asylum, we have returned and will return failed asylum seekers after a thorough assessment of their claim for protection. Into the future, as we implement the recommendations of the Houston report, we will be able to do so in a transparent, understandable way but with an unshakeably firm determination to deny people smugglers the ability to profit from the desperation of others. I commend this proposed resolution to the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chifley for his motion and it gives me an opportunity to respond, and respond I will in terms of some of the issues that he has raised. For example, the premise of his motion is factually incorrect in that people are automatically returned, and I will deal with this later on. The issue arising from his motion that I want to deal with straight away is where he says it is terrible where Sri Lankans are returned to a country that is not a member of the convention. We are saying that Malaysia is not a destination because they are not a member of the convention as well. I will point out to the member opposite the difference is that those coming through Malaysia are not Malaysians; they are Afghans, they are from Iraq and a range of countries. But those coming from Sri Lanka are Sri Lankans, whether they be Tamils or Singhalese or Muslims. There is a great misunderstanding in this place and I know a little bit about this because I arrived back from Sri Lanka just one month ago, having spent a fair bit of time there. I visited not only those in Colombo as also I went to the north into the war regions and visited people there. I sponsor Tamil families in the north because I am interested in seeing that they get a fair go post civil war.

The member fails to understand that the number of people that are coming here by boat are not just Tamils. Many of them, being a large proportion—and I put the figures to the House the other day—are Singhalese and a large proportion are Muslims.

Now, before we go any further I must point out, so that there is no misunderstanding, that the coalition has called on the government to intercept illegal boats from Sri Lanka bound for Australia before they enter our territorial waters and come to an arrangement with the Sri Lankan government to send these people back. The government has completely rejected this, and almost 3,000 Sri Lankans have arrived by boat so far this year.

The Sri Lankan government has made significant steps to turn boats around. And, to that end—I would love to be able to table this, but I imagine it would be rejected—here is set of boats that I visited; 27 boats in Trincomalee Harbour, which had been turned around by the Sri Lankan Navy. Here is a boat, down the bottom of the picture, which his listing badly. The Sri Lankan Navy told me that that boat, under any sea conditions, would have sunk within two days because it was so unseaworthy. What is humanitarian about letting people do that massive journey to Australia by boat with a fear of losing their lives?

I will come to the other people I met shortly. But can I say that our policy is quite clear: where boats can be turned back they will be—and the Sri Lankan Navy is turning boats back and actively being encouraged to get to Australia by people-smugglers—because not only are they likely to lose their lives but, in most cases, they will not get a visa.

I will outline just how genuine, or not genuine, many of the people are who are coming to Australia from Sri Lanka. There is no longer the 'push'    factor from Sri Lanka—the civil war is over—it is the 'pull' factor, the sugar coated arrangement that Australia has provided to those coming here. I will give you an example. A document that I have obtained from the Sri Lankan High Commission to the Australian government points out that they have three people here on class XA resident subclass 866 and XB resident subclass 200 visas—or protection visas—who have contacted the Sri Lankan High Commission in Canberra to obtain travel documents to Sri Lanka. These people are Mr L Ibralebbe, passport No. N1608739; Mrs S Sivaharan, passport No. 885920; and Mrs R Somasundaram, passport No. N0174857. These people came and got humanitarian visas from Australia and, within months of getting these visas, sought travel documents to return to Sri Lanka. What sort of danger are you under if you claim to have humanitarian issues in the country and claim that if you stay there you will be tortured and you couldn't live there any more; and as soon as you get a humanitarian visa in Australia, you seek to return to Sri Lanka for a family wedding or funeral? It is just not credible.

I have also been given documents on voluntary repatriation from Australia. As a sample, there were 57 people here that have been repatriated recently, in the last month—names, addresses and the full details. Not only that; some of them have been rung in the last day or so—

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Is the honourable member going to name further refugees or people—

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, these are people who have returned to Sri Lanka. They have been contacted and this is the response. This gentleman spoke to his sister, who stated that 'he arrived at his home and was living without any problems for his safety.' These are real examples of people who have been either deported or voluntarily returned to Sri Lanka.

Another gentleman said he was a crew member, and therefore he did not get any payment like others, and he said he was living normally. Where is the persecution, the lock-ups and the beatings that are claimed? Another gentleman, Pakeewaran Sanmkan, was contacted and said that he was interrogated on arrival but was released, he is living at his home safely, he bought a motorcycle with the money he received and he is living happily. So much for being returned and being treated so badly.

Further, when I travelled to the north, I made it my point to go and visit the aid agencies like IOM and the UNHCR. From the aid agencies, I met with Mr K Vedharaniyam, the Coordinator North of the International Organisation for Migration, Kilinochchi office and Antoine Waldburger, Humanitarian Affairs Officer, UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and I said to them that there were these allegations that people are being beaten and tortured when they returned to Sri Lanka. They said, 'What rot! We are given the job of resettling them on behalf of the Australian government. We do it because they've sold everything to get to Australia, and we resettle them because they have nothing.'

They just said it was a fallacious argument, and this one of the top migration resettlement agencies. So I go down the road and I speak to UNHCR. I spoke to Yoko Matsumoto, the associate field officer, and Viktoriya Talishkhanova, from the UNHCR office in Kilinochchi, as well. They said the same thing to me—no issues with people returning; they just help resettle them.

When I was in Trincomalee—and after having been on the boats that I just showed you—I had been lucky enough the night before to meet some people that had been returned. Thirty-six people had been returned from a boat that had tried to get to Australia. This gentleman here is a Tamil gentleman who luckily enough spoke perfect English, so he interpreted for me, so nobody can say it was misinterpretation. Here, for the member for Chifley's case, is a Sinhalese fisherman with his wife and a five-week-old baby that they were trying to take on that boat and that could have perished at sea. When I asked the Sinhalese fisherman—not a Tamil fisherman—why he was trying to get to Australia, he said it was because they got paid more money. I went through the whole group of people that I have here—I was able to speak to all of them. Not one of them said that they were coming to Australia for any other reason than that could get more money. In other words, they are economic refugees. I asked each one of them whether they had any issues with being returned in terms of escaping or coming to Australia due to human rights. Not one of them said so, but they did say that should they get to Australia they might have to talk to some of their advisers about applying for visas, which is code for, 'We'll have to find an issue for claiming a human rights visa or refugee status.'

Just to demonstrate the hypocrisy of this, in the Australian recently we had the case of the first Tamil asylum seeker deported from Australia since the end of Sri Lanka's civil war, when Dayan Anthony was released. Mr Anthony had claimed that he had been kidnapped and tortured in 2009 and that he had been seized and thrown into the back of one of Sri Lanka's notorious white vans used in many cases of disappearance. He also claimed he had suffered back pain as a result of beatings sustained in Sri Lankan custody and had even given evidence at a hearing by the UN special rapporteur on torture last year. But yesterday, at home from the Sri Lankan people when he returned, he withdrew all his claims of torture and mistreatment, saying he had lied on the advice of a Malaysian Tamil people-smuggling agent in order to secure a refugee visa.

So that is what is going on. Genuine refugees, yes—for genuine humanitarian entrants. But those coming from Sri Lanka are economic refugees claiming to be humanitarian refugees. They are opportunists trying to get into Australia's soft welfare system.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to support this motion. I commend the member for Chifley for moving it. He and I represent an area of Western Sydney with a large subcontinent population, including people of both Sinhalese and Tamil background, and consequently this motion is of great interest to many of our constituents. Firstly, I am pleased to update the member for Canning, who has just spoken, on the latest 2011 census results in my electorate of Greenway, considering his claim in the parliament on 4 July 2011 that it was home to only 75 people of Tamil origin. I can inform him that, of the 50,151 Tamil speakers in Australia, Greenway alone is home to 4,203. Many of my constituents, including those of both Tamil and Sinhalese background, contacted me to express their rightful concern when, on 2 September, the shadow immigration minister and the shadow foreign minister, backed up by the Leader of the Opposition, stated that Australian authorities should send back asylum seekers to their country of origin, namely Sri Lanka, before assessing their claims.

As for the member for Canning's speech, there is a lot I could say, but I do not have much time. What I would like to say is that, by making a simple statement that the civil war in Sri Lanka is over and somehow all is right with the world, he really is saying essentially that every independent observer that has gone to this country and observed the atrocities that are still occurring—has observed what is happening in a very dire situation for many people of both Sinhalese and Tamil background—is making it up.

Mr Randall interjecting—

I have actually been to Sri Lanka, thank you, member for Canning. The dire circumstances in which these people are living, and those of all asylum seekers, must obviously be false!

You might like to tell that to people in my electorate whose relatives back home in Sri Lanka have disappeared since the end of the civil war. They have disappeared. They do not know what has happened to many of their relatives. These are people whom I deal with. These are people who tell me about the consequences in their homeland. So let's be clear about the relevant statements which appear to represent their new policy on refugees. They are very sensitive on this one.

Mr Randall interjecting—

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Canning is being disruptive. He will desist from interjecting.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Both the shadow immigration minister and the shadow foreign minister have articulated a new policy of sending asylum seekers from Sri Lanka back to their country of origin before assessing their claims. What those opposite are advocating is a rejection of the refugee convention and a rejection of our international obligations by not reviewing and determining asylum seeker claims on a case-by-case basis. By indicating that they will ignore the refugee convention and return boats to their country of origin without assessing these individual claims, these statements have shown that some in this place will adhere to the refugee convention only when it is politically convenient.

The member for Canning is getting very uptight, but this recent position advanced by those opposite has exposed their hypocrisy. When we look at their speeches on the migration legislation, speaker after speaker from those opposite got up and claimed that there was no way they could support a regional agreement with Malaysia because Malaysia was not a signatory to the refugee convention. It is a disingenuous and hypocritical play, but we have come to expect nothing less from those opposite. They are not willing to support the Malaysia agreement because Malaysia is not a signatory to the refugee convention, but they are willing to return asylum seekers to Indonesia and Sri Lanka, both countries that have not signed the refugee convention and, in the case of Sri Lankan asylum seekers, do it without assessing their claims at all. As the minister for immigration has stated, Australia has returned and will return failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, but we do not return asylum seekers to their country of origin without fully assessing any claims for protection. Under the convention, Australia cannot return people found to be genuine refugees to a country from which they are fleeing persecution.

I ask the shadow ministers this: what would they do if a boat of asylum seekers came to Australia from Malaysia? Would they return that boat to Malaysia? What country of origin is next to be deemed a source of purely economic refugees by those opposite for whom the refugee convention will be suspended? Afghanistan? Iran? I ask them that.

I will end by saying in the time allotted to me that those opposite are of the extremely misguided view that all Sri Lankan refugees are economic refugees and have no legitimate claim for asylum. By making this blanket claim that they should be returned to Sri Lanka before their claims are checked, the coalition is partaking in a dangerous and extremely concerning approach to asylum seeker policy in this country.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak to this motion, first of all I thank the member for Chifley for giving us the opportunity to debate the issue. I do not wish to engage in a debate which is just purely pointscoring. I think that these are serious issues. It is not just about boats; it is about people and people's lives. I think one of the things that the member for Canning has done this evening is point out the complexity in these situations not just with Sri Lankans but with people fleeing from many other places.

I am not sure about the lecture on ethics, because on 9 April 2010 the Labor government, with no warning, declared an immediate freeze on the processing of asylum claims of people from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka on the grounds that developments within those countries meant that they had no basis for asylum claims. That was an arbitrary decision based solely on country of origin which breached our legal and moral obligations to hear the claims of people seeking asylum. People in genuine fear for their lives were left in limbo, indefinitely detained in what I call maximum security prisons because I do not like the phrase 'detention centres'. I think it does not tell the story. Despite the Labor Party's own policy only two years earlier explicitly stating that 'indefinite or otherwise arbitrary detention is not acceptable', that detention should 'only be used as a last resort' and that asylum seekers should be treated 'fairly and reasonably within the law', only when the government finally accepted that persecution continues to threaten lives in countries long after the official end of conflict was the processing reinstated.

Then the government sought to enact the Malaysia solution, which would have seen anyone seeking onshore protection removed, without consideration of their claim, to a country which is not a signatory to the refugee convention. We have seen from this government the spectacle of women and children being shuffled around the country and locked in detention centres. Now the government has decided to implement a no-advantage test, which may see people being held indefinitely pending claims being processed.

We should not forget that these people are fleeing violence and persecution and that it is a significant and unpalatable option for someone to have to leave their home and cross the perilous seas to seek our assistance. Stemming the flow of refugees is best achieved wherever possible by addressing the factors which cause people to flee their home in the first place. Despite the end of the official conflict in Sri Lanka, paramilitaries exist and civilians are still at risk from reprisals from the various factions based on imputed political beliefs or ethnicity.

The Sri Lankan government needs encouragement and assistance to address the internal security situation. Australia should look to countries like India, which has a far greater portion of people fleeing into its areas, to also assist. I know that India has offered Sri Lanka a $1 billion loan to assist in rebuilding after its long internal conflict. That is to be commended. It is also setting up an Indian agency for partnership and development, which will oversee $11 billion of aid being distributed to Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh over the next five to seven years. Australia should work more closely with India to ensure that such development assistance is to some extent tied to improved internal security, which will help stem the flow of refugees. Yet, the government has presided over a consistent downsizing of our foreign affairs. When we should be stepping up our diplomatic engagement we are actually dumbing it down.

In dealing with these policies where life and dignity are at stake a cautious approach must be taken whenever there is a risk of returning people to potential harm. The fact is there are very strict criteria for determining whether a person meets the status of an asylum seeker. Whichever party's policies are in place, that test must be strictly applied to make sure that these matters are dealt with according to our obligations. We should apply that test regardless and we should learn from the mistakes we made with Cambodia where we returned Cambodians because we said the conflict was over because the Hawke government at the time had been involved in the peace process. We need to be very careful when we presume that these people are safe because the conflict is over. We should draw from history and recognise the fact that we could well return people to situations that threaten their lives.

Debate adjourned.