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

I rise in support of the Migration Amendment (Reinstatement of Temporary Protection Visas) Bill 2013. The bill was moved by my colleague the shadow minister for immigration and citizenship and is in line with the coalition's long-held belief that we need to return to the successful border protection policies of the Howard government if we are to regain some control over our borders and have some control over who comes to our country.

There was an announcement by the government about an hour ago that there was another illegal boat arrival today. That means that there have been more illegal boat arrivals this financial year alone—and bear in mind that we are only three-quarters of the way through this financial year—than occurred under the whole 11 years of the Howard government. That is just an indication of the unprecedented wave of illegal boat arrivals that we have been experiencing because of the failed border protection policies that have been pursued by the Labor Party since they have come to office.

Given that very serious record of failure, it strikes me as very strange that the Labor Party will not return to the point where they broke the system. That was when they came to office and did things like repealing the issue of temporary protection visas and abolishing the Pacific solution. They refused to implement their stated policy for the 2007 election, which was to turn the boats around. It strikes me as very strange that the Labor Party do not go back to the point of August 2007 when they broke the robust system of border protection they had inherited from the previous government. When they made those policy changes they sent the message loud and clear to criminal gangs of people smugglers that Australia was once again a soft touch, that Australia was once again refusing to have the resolve to stand up to their evil trade.

In September 2008, literally a month after those changes had been made—the abolition of the Pacific Solution and the abolition of temporary protection visas—the people smugglers went back into business. In September 2008 we had the first wave of illegal boat arrivals come down to Australia again. They came in what was, in hindsight, only a trickle. Subsequently, at the end of 2008 and in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and this year the unprecedented rate of arrival has been continuing to increase to the point where we have had over 14,000 people arrive illegally this financial year alone, and almost 240 illegal boats. That is getting very close to one illegal boat arrival per day. That is not a rate that we can sustain in Australia. As a result, even though the detention network has been massively expanded to cope with this influx, the government has been forced to release people into the community to live on welfare, with no entitlement to work, in a way that I think is detrimental to them and also to the Australian taxpayer.

This bill is an attempt to rectify some of the damage that the Labor Party has done, and it makes perfect sense to me and my colleagues in the opposition that we should seek to reinstate the strong border protection policies that the Howard government used to solve this problem when we were faced with it in very similar circumstances in the decade up until the year 2001. Prior to 2001 we had a substantial increase in every given year of illegal boat arrivals. Success breeds success with people smuggling: the more the people smugglers could get people down here illegally the more people would seek out the services of the people smugglers and the more people would arrive in Australia illegally. The Howard government was faced with very similar circumstances. Success bred success and the number of illegal boat arrivals continue to increase in the late 1990s and in the year 2000. In the year 2001 the Howard government said: 'Enough is enough. We are not going to accept people smugglers controlling our immigration system. We are going to do what is necessary to close that trade down.'

People smugglers are not some sort of modern-day Oskar Schindlers; they are the most diabolical criminals who cared absolutely nothing for the human cargo they smuggle down here, to the point where you can hear dreadful anecdotal stories about people who have employed the services of the people smuggler only to be left in the high seas where the crew abandoned ship. We will not know the extent of the people who have been lost trying to take this journey because it is impossible to get an accurate understanding about the number of people who have lost their lives taking this journey. Certainly, it would be in the hundreds. There is no doubt that hundreds upon hundreds of people have died trying to make this journey—hundreds of adult women and men and also children and babies.

It is not the case, as the government would have people believe, that there is nothing we can do about this, that we have to accept that there is nothing we can do to close down people smuggling, that it is going to be ever-present and that it is going to continue to increase. That is not the case. The reason we know that is not the case is we have solved this problem in the past. The Howard government was faced with very similar circumstances. In 2001 it took tough but necessary decisions that were controversial within the Australian community at the time. What you cannot argue is that they were not successful. Once those measures were taken they essentially completely and utterly closed down people smuggling.

In the years after 2001-2002 and up until 2008 when those policies were reversed, we had an average of three illegal boat arrivals per year. Three per year; that is one every four months. If you want to put that into context, last weekend we had six illegal boat arrivals. So, we used to have three a year under the Howard government's successful border protection policies and now we can have double that arrive on one given weekend under the Labor Party's failed border protection policies.

The way we are going to reverse this is to go back to those successful policies that have actually worked. A very successful part of those policies was temporary protection visas. Temporary protection visas work incredibly well because they undermine the product that people smugglers are selling. People smugglers are selling permanent residence in Australia. If you undermine the ability of people smugglers to sell permanent residence in Australia you undermine their ability to go out into the international community and to sell their product for a very large sum.

You can understand how permanent residence in Australia is a very lucrative product. Temporary protection visas undermine the ability of people smugglers to do that, and that is why they are such a successful part of a successful border protection regime. That is why it is vitally important that this parliament embrace measures to return to temporary protection visas so that we can once again control who comes to Australia.

This bill would restore two classes of temporary protection visa: subclasses 785 and 447. Both of these subclasses of visa were available under the former coalition government, and they are of course also in keeping with Australia's obligations under the refugee convention.

The temporary protection offshore entry visa would be for a term of up to three years. That term would be set by the minister or his or her delegate. This visa gives the holder the right to work and to special benefit payments, and also access to Medicare. I do think that the right to work is particularly important because at the moment we have the situation which I think is the worst of all worlds both for the people concerned and also for the Australian taxpayer. That is where people are released into the community with only the right to live on welfare. This seems to be the absolute worst of all worlds for all policies.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

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

We have interjections from the members opposite. What we do know is that we used to have a successful border protection regime in this country. Astonishingly and stupidly they reversed that when they took office in 2007. As a result, we have the catastrophe that has unfolded on our borders ever since: 14,000 people this financial year alone on almost 240 illegal boats. And yet, foolishly the Labor Party refused to embrace measures that we know will work to stem the flow of illegal boat arrivals and will work to stop people smuggling.

That is what this bill will give effect to. Temporary protection visas, in conjunction with turning the boats around and a serious effort at offshore processing, will restore the policies of the Howard government. If we restore the successful policies of the Howard government we can again control who comes to Australia and we can again exercise some control over Australia's borders—something that has been completely lacking under the weak regime of the Rudd and Gillard governments.

Government members interjecting—

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Acting Deputy Speaker is speaking! Show some respect for the chamber, please, members.

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

I say from the outset that this Migration Amendment (Reinstatement of Temporary Protection Visas) Bill 2013 to reinstate TPVs is a bad policy. It was a bad policy when it was introduced in 1999 by the then Howard government. We repealed TPVs in 2008 and they are still a bad idea in 2013. We hear the issue of migration raised continuously in this chamber and in the other chamber, and we hear about refugees constantly.

One point I really want to make is that for many, many years in this country, people have been arriving by boat. My parents arrived by boat after World War II. The place they came from was absolutely devastated by a world war, by a civil war and then by an economic crisis. As a child, sometimes I would ask my mother why on earth she came to this country: 'Why would you leave everyone behind? Why would you leave your family, your siblings, your mother, your father and everything you have known your entire life to go to the other end of the world, where you knew nothing?' She said to me, 'The answer is that, as human beings, we need the ability to dream and I did not have that ability in Greece at that point in time.'

We made our way to Australia, just to have the ability to be able to dream and perhaps realise those dreams. That is why millions of people have made their way here to Australia. In her case, she had a choice and she took that choice. But many of the people who are coming today—what we call 'unauthorised boat arrivals'—do not have that choice. Their only choice is to stay where they are: to be executed, to be discriminated against, to see their children suffer and to know that there is absolutely no hope in the world for them. What we have done here in this place, over the last 10 years or so, is make this an issue for political gain—without thinking of those human lives and those human beings.

When I go overseas I make a point of always asking politicians, mayors and people in authority about the refugee issue in their country. Throughout Europe, wherever I have been, I ask that very same question: 'What is the approximate number of unauthorised people that have crossed your borders?' In one instance, in Athens last year, when I met with the Mayor of Athens, I found that 500,000 people living in the city of Athens had gone there without any papers; they had found their way there. In Italy, there were 6,000 arrivals per day. In Spain, there were similar numbers. Yet, here in this place, we make an issue of a few thousand per year. Why? Because of what I said earlier—for political gain.

This is a bad policy. Temporary protection visas were a bad idea in 1999 and they are still a bad idea today in 2013. That is why I do not support the bill. At the time of their introduction, TPVs did not exist anywhere else in the world and were subject to widespread criticism. The worst feature of the TPVs is that asylum seekers found to be owed protection have to undergo the entire assessment process again every three years. This is very unfair and I find it very inhumane.

Let me read to you a direct quote from Ebrahim, who lives in Adelaide in South Australia and who was a temporary protection visa holder. These are his exact words:

Who could explain the unfairness of TPV better than myself who had to live over 5 years of his life in absolute uncertainty of what future holds.

It wasn't the length of time away from my family, but the uncertainty of whether this country would recognise me a refugee before I have lost my whole family.

My hope went so down and life got so dark that at one point human beings started seeming so careless about my suffering and my beautiful kids' right to life.

As a result of total mental breakdown I was forced to try ending my own life. I couldn't see no future and no life ahead neither for myself and nor for my kids.

Ebrahim

That gives you a small insight into what we were doing to people in their mental capacity and their mental suffering. The people on these visas can never have certainty of a new life in Australia. A total of around 11,200 TPVs were granted between 1999 and 2008, when they were abolished, as I said, by the incoming Labor government. A relatively small number of unauthorised air arrivals were granted a TPV—around three per cent. The remainder were granted to irregular maritime arrivals. Temporary protection visas did not lead to people leaving Australia. That is fact. The vast majority of people holding temporary protection visas were ultimately granted permanent protection and are still here today. More than 95 per cent of people ever granted a temporary protection visa were found to be genuine refugees and granted a permanent visa—95 per cent. So we know that they do not work as a way of sending people back, as we heard from the previous speaker. And we also know that they never worked as a way to stop people coming to Australia in the first place. Whilst there is destruction, whilst there is famine, whilst there are wars and catastrophes around the world, refugee and people movements will continue, no matter what you put in place. As I said earlier, those people are leaving because they have no choice. That is why they get on a boat and come here.

The fact is that the TPVs were a spectacular failure. In the year they were introduced by the former government, there were 3,722 unauthorised boat arrivals. During the next two years there were 8,459 unauthorised boat arrivals, including 5,520 arrivals in 2001—that is, after TPVs were introduced. In summary, TPVs have been tried and were a failure. They only succeeded in keeping mostly genuine asylum seekers in years of limbo, as we heard from Ebrahim, with the prospect of being returned to the place of persecution hanging over their head.

Let me read out another comment, which was provided to me today by the CEO of the Australian Refugee Association in Underdale in my electorate, by Peter Laintoll. He says:

From ARA's perspective there were a number of key issues that were raised and voiced on a number of levels regarding TPV's. In the early days of TPV's being issued, asylum seekers were told they may never have access to permanent residency. This had a catastrophic effect on the mental health of many asylum seekers as they were in a continual state of insecurity and felt they did not belong in Australia, knowing they could not return to their home country.

So, not only were they still suffering from the stress and anxiety of having to leave behind family and country, they were exposed to many years in detention with few support services (at least this has changed over the years) but they were released into a community where many could not speak the language with very minimal support.

They also were unable to access trauma counselling so this compounded their isolation and mental health issues making it even more difficult to successfully settle into Australian society.

Another issue of TPV's was the inability to access family reunification, meaning more women and children were risking their lives in the ocean to be reunited with their husbands, fathers, families, etcetera.

Often TPVs were also excluded from English classes and job training, making it near impossible to access meaningful employment. Further their trade skills were not recognised in Australia. The positive of the TPV story is that, whilst most were told early on that they would not be able to access permanent residency, most if not all received their protection visa.

These words are from the CEO of the Australian Refugee Association.

TPVs are not good enough for our nation, and we can do better. That is why, unlike those opposite, we engaged the best in the business to give us expert recommendations on the best and fairest way to process asylum applications made by people coming to Australia. I am not saying it is perfect, because in a perfect world people would not have to flee for their lives. And in a perfect world no-one would have to make the terrible choice to stay in an unsafe place— (Time expired)

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight is an opportunity for dispassionate debate about a very sensitive issue and I acknowledge the strong feelings held by members on the other side of this chamber, one of whom has just spoken. I recognise his strong feelings on this issue, but the debate around temporary protection visas is one for which we do have to peel away the emotive and look at the essence of the debate. Yes, he is correct that there are significant movements between countries and between areas that are at war, engaged in hostile internal disputes, many of which will qualify for, and seek out, protection.

But tonight is a chance for us to improve that system and not to stick with the system that we are experiencing under the current government. I do not think that tonight is an opportunity for us to pick through the remnants of what has been a disastrous management of this issue by the Rudd government and subsequently the Gillard government, most clearly exemplified by the fact that, if this were truly a more compassionate approach that had been carefully planned and orchestrated by this government, we would not have seen the economic blow-outs to managing our borders, because this government would have planned for them in advance. It is clear that it did not.

From that first budget blow-out of $2.3 million in 2008-09, which became $233 million the following year, which became $1.3 billion for the following two years and this year already is in excess of $2.1 billion, this has not been a compassionate government, carefully unpicking Howard's successful border protection laws. No, this is a government that did it unknowingly and is now reaping what it sowed, which is complete incontinence of its border protection arrangements. That is no better illustrated than by any table available in the public domain of the arrivals, which have blown out since 2008.

This proposal to introduce a 785 and a 447 visa that provide temporary protection is a simple one that has already been outlined by our previous speaker. It is quite simply that those who seek the protection that Australia's obligations entitle them to, those who will come through secondary countries, those who have illegally arrived without a visa—by definition illegally—on Christmas Island, Cocos island or Ashmore Reef, those who pass a health and character check, are eligible for a temporary protection visa.

I was so interested in the previous speaker's allusions to Ibrahim, who gave a very impassioned plea in favour of permanent protection, because, in that somewhat mangled case, in that very, very emotional quote, came at the start an appeal for the safety of his family, and it finished with an economic case for the future of his family. When we tease that apart, the great irony of this government's argument is that 8,000 people like Ibrahim's family languish in border camps, unable to apply for a humanitarian visa because of the lack of control that this government has demonstrated. That is correct. Let me say it again: Ibrahim's family, for whom he hopes so much, are trapped in border camps unable to come to Australia because this government lost control of its protection arrangements. That is 8,100 and even more now—the number is counting—potential applicants crowded out by the loss of control over the borders and the arrivals that we have seen.

Family reunification is an important part of the current sugar that entices people to travel, as is permanent residency. They are the two major issues that, if you ask arrivals, they will tell you they are seeking more than anything. We do not blame people for seeking that protection, but the point is that there are many people just as worthy who cannot make the trip, and at some point a state has to be able to step back and say, 'We consider these arrivals on the basis of need, not simply who is closest, not simply who engages our protection, not simply someone who turns up on a reef and not simply someone who has the money to pay for the trip.' It has been made very clear before that the great majority of these arrivals travel commercially by air to other Islamic nations where they do not need a visa, so none of these people turned up with no means. None of these people effectively fled their home and put in an appeal for asylum. No, in many cases they have already passed through nations where that protection is already offered and it has not been sought, nor have they necessarily sought protection from the local UNHCR office. These are simple observations and I know that they are, in many cases, generalisations, but every one of us here can only speak from our personal experience.

It is simply not enough to say that as a politician you have travelled around to meet other politicians and you have asked them for their views on immigration. It is simply not enough to turn up in Afghanistan and look through a bus window and make observations about what a border camp is like. It is not simply enough to travel in a delegation of colleagues and to be basically led around by the hand and have the suffering explained to you. You have to go and live in that country to understand.

I have been lucky enough to work with minorities in northern Afghanistan for a number of months and actually live in the country concerned. Those people, when you ask them, will tell you a very different story. You will not hear of these people coming to Parliament House. Their story will not be told here by minority groups in this country; no, you need to go to the source—to the situation in which they live—and listen.

She has not been to that town. She has not toured the parts of Afghanistan directly affected. She may well have had all the conversations over a cup of tea in Western Sydney about this issue, but the other side of this chamber is completely removed from the economic deprivations going on in many of those countries and the fact that the great majority of them can never countenance making a trip such as this.

All one can ask of a state is to treat those people equally, to treat those who are stuck within the borders, making their first appeal as they cross—because they cannot make it from within their own boundaries—and those who make a journey equally. But, until you cease offering permanent residency as the end result, you will continually have a problem where those who can assemble the resources are the ones who take priority and necessarily squeeze out the rest.

The figures were fairly simple: over six years of the Howard government, there were 16 boats with 272 people. It was not that hard to assess those people in great depth. The problem is that when you start getting 8,000, even 10,000, arrivals per year, suddenly it becomes very challenging to assess them meaningfully under the treaty. It becomes extraordinarily difficult. The previous speaker, the member for Hindmarsh, said about 90 per cent of these applications are actually being approved. That says to me two things: firstly, how can they seriously consider these cases, and in depth; and, secondly, that is the system working.

I do not have a problem with people being properly assessed; what I do have a problem with is large proportions of people at even greater risk being completely excluded. I have a problem with Ibrahim's family, from the previous speaker's contribution, being stuck in a border camp, not able to apply. No, they cannot. They will sit there and never be able to lodge an appeal.

Ms Smyth interjecting—

Okay. That is fine, because there are plenty of people who are not yet in your electorate who would also like to be looked after by this country, preferably those who are in greatest need. You have ignored them, Member for La Trobe. She has ignored them, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams. She has ignored them by hanging on to this notion of permanent protection without considering the most important part of the Howard government interventions, which was temporary protection visas.

If we peel all of this back and just look at the treaty, we are obliged to provide protection—you are nodding on the other side. We are not obliged to provide permanent protection. I think every person on the street would realise that in half of the world, at some point, there is some form of internecine, tribal, religious, political or ethnic destabilisation or form of violence going on. You name a part of the world and I will tell you the country where it is happening. It is happening in most nations around the world. By definition, everyone is eligible for asylum? No, they are not; they have to make that case.

Ms Smyth interjecting—

That is right. At this stage, you on the other side leave those people languishing without help and your government will only look at those who turn up on Ashmore Reef, and that is not good enough. There are 8,100 people who have been squeezed out and crowded out by a government that cannot run this policy effectively.

Mr Neumann interjecting—

Okay. I take the interjection from the member for Blair about increasing the amount. We will increase it to 13,750; what does that achieve? It has simply blown out your budget by $2.1 billion. So, no matter how many times you increase that number to make it look like this is orderly migration, the fact is that this is a government that has never been able to budget for these increases.

Mr Neumann interjecting—

It is patently clear that you have lost control of the borders. This government has never been able to budget ahead for the true cost of the arrivals—again, evidence that they have completely lost control of the borders, which is a basic requisite of being in power. It is a basic requisite of being able to run a nation. Providing figures from Greece and Italy as evidence, saying, 'If nations like Italy and Greece can handle half a million arrivals then so can Australia'—well, that one needs to be sold in Parramatta and in Ipswich. The members of parliament opposite are very bold in this chamber but are suddenly very reluctant to debate it when in their own electorates. TPVs are the future. They are the Howard formula that worked in the past; they will work again with a newly elected coalition government.

Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What the previous speaker's contribution reveals to me is what I had long anticipated and that is that those opposite would rather resile from convention obligations internationally and ultimately have no concept of them. It gives me a considerable degree of concern about their capacity to have Australia under their watch represented on the international stage. It is extremely troubling.

When I came to this place I had hoped for something more than the absolutely scurrilous offerings that pass for public policy from those opposite on the question of asylum seekers. Yet again we are served up this evening the dross that passes for their proposed legislation in this place.

Temporary protection visas introduced by the Howard government were a resounding failure on any measure: humanitarian or practical. They failed from the point of view of providing protections to refugees. They failed as an effective means of dissuading people from making the perilous journey to Australia to seek refuge. They failed from the point of view of the mental health impacts on those who were held on temporary protection visas. They failed then; they will fail now. This is simply garbage public policy that is being pushed here this evening by those opposite.

What I ultimately aspire to—and I should say this at the outset of this debate—is a regional arrangement which affords asylum seekers convention protections, which treats them fairly and consistently and which engages countries in our region that are not currently convention countries to become convention signatories or adopt substantially the protections afforded by the convention. That kind of role is the role that Australia has typically played in advancing its perspective on human rights and humanitarian obligations right around the world. It is the right push for Australia to make.

I realise that that will require detailed work. I realise that it will require relationship building in the region and time, and I certainly understand the efforts that have been made by successive ministers for immigration from this side in the Bali process and otherwise to try and achieve that outcome. In the meantime, while I certainly cannot say that I have been comfortable with everything the panel report has recommended—and that would be well known—it has presented recommendations which allow that important work to be carried on.

But TPVs have utterly no place in the panel's recommendations and they have utterly no place in Australia's response to the circumstances of asylums seekers. It should be made clear that neither in the recommendations of the Houston panel report or in its commentary does it sanction the use of temporary protection visas, and there is very good reason for that. Indeed its comments on TPVs are confined to referring to them as merely historical measures at page 91 of the report. It is worth while noting that the report refers to the rules associated with the Howard government's TPV arrangements being 'difficult to interpret and apply'. It concludes by saying that 95 per cent of asylum seekers arriving by boat who are granted temporary protection visas were ultimately granted a permanent visa in Australia—these are the facts.

The opposition has long claimed that TPVs act as a deterrent to asylum seekers travelling by boat to Australia. The facts simply do not bear that out. Around 11,200 temporary protection visas were issued between 1999 and 2008 and, of that number, around 380 people actually left Australia—that is around 3½ per cent. In addition, following the introduction of TPVs, there was a rise in the proportion of women and children on those vessels which arrived in Australia carrying asylum seekers since the new visas did not permit family reunions.

On practical grounds, TPVs simply fail, but the crux of this evening's debate is that refuge is not refuge and cannot be refuge if it is permanently qualified, forever able to be taken away. How can people ever be expected to feel safe when their claim for asylum, though accepted at one point in time as a well-founded fear of persecution, is only ever treated as a temporary stay?

The cruelty of TPVs is that, even if an asylum seeker is found to be owed protection under the convention and our laws, they would face the entire assessment process again before the expiry of the three-year period for which they are applicable. The bill would then put the onus on refugees to demonstrate that their well-founded fear of persecution prevailed.

Under the bill before us a person in genuine need of protection who has travelled through a country that is a refugee convention country will be permanently barred from applying for a permanent protection. There are many reasons why people move between countries, and this provision is simply a penalty. It means that those people could remain without any kind of certainty for an unknown period of time.

The Liberals' previous version of this was that a TPV holder would be ineligible for permanent protection if, in their travel to Australia, they resided in a country for a minimum of seven days where they could have sought protection. And as the Houston report said, and as I remarked earlier, this was difficult to interpret and apply because of what was meant by 'could have sought and obtained effective protection'. The bill before us this evening uses precisely the same language as the original—in other words, the Liberals have learnt absolutely nothing from the failure of their original attempt at TPVs. So it fails on practical grounds and it fails in its drafting.

But the most important issue for me, and for many others on this side of the chamber, is the question of the hardship faced by those who were placed on TPVs during the Howard government's term. And they ought to be remembered in this place. I refer particularly to the findings of some research done by researchers at UNSW in 2004 which ultimately found that TPVs increased the risk of their holders developing post-traumatic stress and depression. I quote one of the co-authors of the study, Zachary Steel, who has said:

Unless somebody has the sense of safety, all of the basic survival mechanisms that tell a person that they need to escape from danger don't get turned off, they stay on, and so the individual stays locked into this perpetual state of alarm that at any time in the future they're facing immediate life threat. So they're living with basically executioner’s axe over their head, and it just doesn't provide an environment that allows them to recover and begin to rebuild their lives.

So we have TPVs failing as a practical measure to dissuade people from coming to Australia. We have TPVs in fact prompting more women and children to get on boats and come to Australia. We have TPVs failing when those people arrive in Australia. We have 95 per cent plus of the people who have been issued TPVs ultimately arriving here and staying here. And then we have the extraordinary hardship and the mental anguish—the real mental health impacts, verified by researchers—that arise from TPVs. What a wonderful policy move! What a well-thought-through initiative! What a humanitarian approach to take! What an extraordinary approach, and what a feeble response.

I really must say that this is a disgraceful debate that has been brought on by those opposite. Ours is a nation that is engaged in conflict for humanitarian reasons. We are engaged in peacekeeping. We have been a participant in international peacekeeping missions. We have been involved in post-conflict state building. So it is surely not too great a leap for us to realise that conflict has implications for the large-scale movement of refugees. To my mind, if we have the will to engage in conflict then we really must have an equivalent will to provide refuge for those who seek it.

What the debate this evening has revealed to me about those opposite is that they have no intention of honouring the convention obligations. So I invite them to reflect on why they think it is important for Australia to sign up to conventions, because you simply cannot pretend to be an internationalist, a responsible international participant, and yet resile entirely from your convention obligations when you are back at home. But this continues to be the approach taken by those opposite.

This is an extremely troubling debate from the point of view of the mental health circumstances of asylum seekers. It is an extremely troubling debate because it provides no practical response to the circumstances of asylum seekers arising here. It is at odds with the Houston panel's report, and it is at odds entirely with all of the facts that were borne out during that period of time that the Howard government had TPVs in place. Indeed, this is a callous debate brought on by those opposite, and I think it will be revealed to be so by the very many people who will remark on it, I suspect, in the days which follow.

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

I rise to follow the member for La Trobe's extraordinary contribution to this debate on the Migration Amendment (Reinstatement of Temporary Protection Visas) Bill 2013. I think perhaps the member for La Trobe has spent too long in Canberra. If she went outside to her electorate and asked them, 'What is one of the top concerns you have in relation to federal politics at the moment?' then she would hear from the people that they are most concerned about the complete mismanagement of the borders of our country.

It is a fact that in the last six years of the Howard government, just 272 people arrived illegally on 16 boats. Since 2007 we know that under Labor's watch 32,600 people have arrived illegally on more than 555 boats. It is appalling that government members lecture us on humanity. How is it more humane under the Labor Party's system that more people, who arrive illegally, take the positions of people and places in the refugee and humanitarian program reserved for offshore applicants?. That is what has happened under this government.

That is why this bill is before us today. The coalition is going to reserve a minimum of 11,000 places in the 13,750 places under the refugee and humanitarian program for offshore applicants. The real story, the story that Labor will not tell you, the story that in their lamenting about humanity they will not get down to is: what about the mental health of people waiting in those refugee camps whose applications have been reversed because they have not got a place? The trend under Labor where the number of places available for offshore refugee and humanitarian entrants fell to 6,718 places in 2011-12. That is the first point I would make.

Mismanagement has serious consequences. The member for La Trobe and all of the Labor members who have participated in this debate ought to reflect on this. They abolished the Pacific solution and replaced it with a system that has caused this problem. That is what the government did when they came to office. The then minister, Chris Evans, said it was one of his proudest moments in parliament, yet all we have seen in the five years since is complete mismanagement, the dismantling of the regime that was able to effectively ensure people did not get on those boats, that people smugglers did not have a product to sell to those people looking to get on the boats. All we have seen since is a rush to get back to the Howard government era.

The member for La Trobe, who laments at how we should reflect on this hideous evil of TPVs, ought to reflect that she has adopted about 95 per cent of a policy from the Howard government—there is five per cent missing. What is that five per cent? That five per cent is temporary protection visas, a critical component—not the solution by itself as Labor members have disingenuously suggested. We are not saying that this is the entire answer but it is yet another component and a plank of a system that worked.

Why do temporary protection visas work? Because under our proposal, the refugee status of a temporary protection visa holder will be reassessed on the expiration of the visa. It is a humane system. You get a three-year temporary protection visa and then, if circumstances allow for your return to a country, that is a reasonable basis for people to make a decision, denying people smugglers the trade in which they so evilly conduct themselves. That is why it is a sensible suggestion. That is why we have put it up two or three times in this place, because we know it is part of a system that can stop these boats from coming, stop these illegal arrivals, stop these people taking the places of legitimate offshore arrival applicants.

If you were concerned about the humanity of the situation, that ought to be one of your primary concerns. I do not hear Labor members saying, like the coalition has guaranteed, that a minimum of 11,000 places out of the 13,750 will be reserved for offshore applicants. I have not heard that. Where is the humanity in that? In fact, all we have heard about is their focus on this five per cent of the policy. They are holding out on the very big hope that this is the end of the Howard era.

When the Labor Party picked up the Howard government era policies in a rush to fix the problems they had created and put them into a xerox machine, they missed the final page, which was temporary protection visas. You re-adopted 95 per cent of the Howard government era policies—that is the reality—but you missed a page. The page was temporary protection visas, a component of a system that worked, a reasonable and humane system that treated people with rights and allowed for them to be returned if it was acceptable. It denied people smugglers the product that has caused this whole problem. The member for La Trobe should reflect that it is not in her policy now but it probably will be in a few months.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A page was left out by the expert panel as well because it is well and truly an abomination. It was in the Howard years and, if it is ever introduced again, it will be again. We are, of course, talking about a very complicated matter here. I know that the member for Berowra has a great deal of experience with this. For a start, we should understand that of any 100 people that the UN assesses as being suitable for resettlement in a third country, only one is actually resettled. For every one we settle, there are 99 that we do not. So the idea that somehow picking this one or that one creates fairness is just nonsense.

We have an incredibly difficult situation to deal with. Temporary protection visas did not work in the Howard years and they will not work now. They did not stop the boats—in fact, the boats increased—and they were not temporary. The vast majority of these people stayed permanently. The visas were cruel beyond belief, and they led to an increase in the number of women and children on boats. So at every level they simply did not work.

The visas were introduced in 1999 by the Howard government in response to a surge in unauthorised maritime arrivals. In that year, there were 3,722 unauthorised boat arrivals. In the two years following the introduction of temporary protection visas, there were 8,459 unauthorised arrivals. There were 3,700 in 1999, when temporary protection visas were introduced, and more in 2000 and then more in 2001. Again, they did not work. The number of refugees in the world in the years following the introduction of this visa actually decreased. To say that the result in Australia was due to temporary protection visas is as irrational as saying that the number of people fleeing to the US or Canada was because of Australia's temporary protection visas. The numbers around the world dropped, and they dropped here as well.

Following the introduction of temporary protection visas, the number of unauthorised boat arrivals actually increased to 8,459 and then there were 5,500 in 2001—and they were also not temporary. Of the TPVs issued between 1999, when they were introduced, and 2008, when they were abolished by Labor, 88 per cent of arrivals had already been granted permanent status, and of the 1,000 left, 815 were granted permanent status. In fact, only 3.4 per cent, or 379 people, actually went home. So they were not temporary. They did not work. The boats increased. They were not temporary: people were given permanent residence.

But on the way to permanent residence there was this incredible cruelty—and we are talking here about people like those in my electorate. They are children who, if you asked them to line up at school, crawl under the desk and wet themselves because the last time they did that terrible things happened. They are the parents whose two-year-old child was forcibly taken from their arms as they fled, and they have no idea where they are. I know a young woman who has been raped so many times in her life that she did not even know it was wrong until she came to this country. I have a man whose sister was arrested at the age of 16 for reading a book and whose eyes were gouged out. A month later, after her torture, he was allowed to collect her body if he paid to do so. People who have lived these kinds of lives were asked to live here in uncertainty and reapply every three years. The cruelty of that—particularly when, at the end of it, you gave them permanent residence, after you damaged these broken people incredibly with this abomination of a policy—is quite astonishing.

That we would talk about reintroducing something under which the boats increased anyway, under which people became permanent, not temporary, and under which they were treated so cruelly is astonishing. It is astonishing that we are talking about this. But the worst thing for me was the change in the range of people who sought to get on boats after temporary protection visas were introduced, because they denied family reunion. You could not leave Australia to visit your family and you could not attempt to bring your family over here. People were separated from their children and their partners for eight years under this policy. So what happened? They put their families on boats.

In 1999, over 12 per cent of asylum applications from people from Iraq and Afghanistan who had come by boat were for women and children. Just two years later it was 42 per cent—from 12 per cent to 42 per cent in two years. Three-quarters of the passengers on the SIEVX, which sank tragically in October 2001—there were 353 on board and 288 were women and children—had family members who were TPV holders in Australia. This is an abomination. At every level this policy failed and at every level it was cruel beyond belief.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak briefly on the motion for the second reading of the Migration Amendment (Reinstatement of Temporary Protection Visas) Bill 2013, which I support. I do speak on these issues from the background of somebody who has taken a very considerable interest, over a long period of time, in the plight of refugees. In fact, if you go back and look at my earlier career, I was involved with the Khmer, the Afghans and the Romanians out of Europe. When I became minister, I was involved with the programs that bought Sudanese and others to Australia. I do not come to any debate about these discussions with any hostility to refugees.

I do have a commitment to running immigration programs with integrity. I think one of the problems that the government has at the moment is that people around Australia no longer believe that the programs are being conducted with integrity. I could have a long debate about what that means; but when you have lost control of your borders you find that the support for immigration and even the support for resettling refugees diminish. I think that is a great tragedy.

I am one who believes that we can target our resources most carefully, for those who are most in need, if we are able to manage our borders effectively. The member for Parramatta ran this argument that there is no queue. I have a mischievous sense of humour and I am sure my colleagues will understand when I say this: if the approach that we are taking now is that those people who have enough money to pay people smugglers get priority of place as refugees, because of the refugee convention, then I would suggest that the government ought to—in relation to the remaining places—go to refugee camps around the world and say, 'Who has got $10,000 to pay?' We could give it to those who have the money. I imagine you would look at me with horror and say, 'No government would do that.' Yet, at the moment, the people who get the priority are those who have the money to pay. They may be driven by what they think are their needs, but it is money that is the determining factor.

If you come to a view that it is better to have an orderly process in which you can make an objective assessment about who needs help the most then you have to address the issue of how you manage your borders. It is not easy; I have had to do it. But what I can say is that those who suggest that there is one miracle cure available do not understand the dynamics. I say, with great personal confidence, that we needed all of the measures that we put in place to be able to bring this trafficking to an end.

It is argued that the trafficking came to an end because the push factors were not as great. I tell you, the push factors were just as great from Afghanistan and Iraq when we were in government as they are now. The main determinant factors that have changed have been the pull factors. The Indonesians recognise it. You have Indonesian ministers and public officials saying, 'What have you done about the sugar?' Their willingness to cooperate and work with us, which is an important factor that we need, is determined by whether they think we have done everything that we can to deal with this issue—and they do not. They saw the unwinding of the policy in relation to TPVs as unwinding our willingness to address these issues.

TPVs are very simple: they give people the protection which they are guaranteed under the refugee convention, but the refugee convention says nothing about giving people permanent residency. Opposition members say—and I heard it again tonight—that, when we would take away TPVs and give people permanent residencies, no women and children would be getting on boats. Yet all the evidence is that women and children are still getting on boats even today. In my view, all of the measures that the Howard government pursued need to be implemented. TPVs are one of those and that is why I support the bill that is before the chamber.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are a nation of migrants as the Prime Minister has outlined on numerous occasions: the Chinese, the Irish, the ten-pound Poms, even the Germans like me, the Greeks, the Italians—we came from all over the world. After World War II we saw seven million people come to this country—4.4 million of them have become Australian citizens. We took 35,000 Jewish people after the Holocaust at the end of World War II.

Eighty-five per cent of people who come to this country become Australians within 10 years, so we have a long history of being a compassionate country. Our country has been diminished by those opposite in the last 10 years in the way they have dog whistled their way for political advantage in terms of the number of people across the world who are refugees or displaced persons.

Back in 1951 when the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established, there were 1.5 million refugees internationally. At the end of 2011, there were 42.5 million forcibly displaced persons, including 15.2 million refugees under what we call the definitions in relation to that. There are 895,000 asylum seekers and 26.4 million internally displaced persons.

This is a massive problem and, in global terms, the number of people who have come to this country is relatively small. In America there are approximately more than 500,000 unauthorised arrivals each year. In Italy alone there were 61,000 irregular arrivals by sea from North Africa, Greece and Turkey, and yet those opposite seem bent on exploiting this issue for base political purposes and have done election after election.

The member for Berowra and others opposite talk about deterrence. I say to them: if they were interested in proper deterrence, they would agree to the Malaysia solution. The UNHCR was involved in that process—agree to it. But, no, they do not and, as speaker after speaker on the government side has outlined, the TPVs did not work and there was subsequently an increase in the number of people who came. The expert panel did not recommend TPVs be reintroduced. It recommended a number of the policies akin to the Howard government's policies be recommended to be reintroduced but not TPVs.

I would have more respect for those opposite if there were fewer sound bites and more substance, and fewer slogans and more solutions. We see the word 'illegal' used again and again and again. They would not use that word unless they focus-grouped it. They use that again and again and again for the very purpose of political advantage: to scare people and make them frightened. That is why they use it. They use a whole host of phrases, like 'turning back the boats'—when 2003 was the last time any boats were turned back. They know the model has changed.

They talk about the fact that they would tow the boats back. They talk about the facts that they have all these great policies. They do not have the courage to even mention it to the Indonesians. When the Leader of the Opposition in October last year met with the President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he did not even mention the policy—he forgot about it. The reality is they are courageous here but when they go to meet with the leaders of countries in the region, they seem to forget about their policies. It is one voice here, one voice back in their electorate for base political purposes and another voice when they meet with international leaders.

They know their policies will not work and the truth is all about slogans—and the member for Berowra has form on this. The Leader of the Opposition screams and shouts in front of the media, in front of the cameras, but when he comes in front of other countries, he forgets about his own policies because he knows they will not work. He knows they did not work when it came to the TPVs and he knows they will not work again. That is the truth of the matter. Guess what? They are lions here but mice back in Indonesia when they go and meet with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

They know that TPVs did not work and they talk about humanitarian programs. We have seen a number of speakers—the member for Mitchell mentioned this: we are raising through the humanitarian program up to 20,000 people being taken, brought into this country, given its wealth and opportunity, given opportunity in a great land. Guess what? They supported it then opposed it; then they opposed it and supported it. They flip-flopped all over the place— (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.