Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

This bill will ensure that asylum seekers who unlawfully arrive anywhere in Australia by boat without a visa will be subject to the same regional processing arrangements as asylum seekers who arrive at an excised offshore place, such as Christmas Island. The government's amendments to the bill, which address the recommendations made by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, will further build on these mechanisms to ensure transparency for regional processing arrangements.

The amendments moved today will require the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to cause to be laid before each house of the parliament, within 15 sitting days of that house after the end of the financial year, a report on the following: arrangements made by regional processing countries during the financial year for unauthorised maritime arrivals who make claims for protection under the refugees convention as amended by the refugees protocol, including arrangements for assessing those claims in those countries and for the accommodation, health care and education of those unauthorised maritime arrivals in those countries; the number of those claims assessed in those countries in the financial year; and the number of unauthorised maritime arrivals determined in those countries in the financial year to be covered by the definition of refugee in article 1A of the refugees convention as amended by the refugees protocol.

The reporting requirements recognise that a regional processing country is a sovereign country and that the minister will be able to include information in the report as is provided by the regional processing country. For this reason, a proposed amendment obliges the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to report on the arrangements only so far as information provided by the regional processing countries makes it reasonably practicable to do so.

In addition, an amendment will prevent that report from including the name of a person who is or was an unauthorised maritime arrival, or any information that may identify such a person, or the name of any person connected in any way with any person who is or was an unauthorised maritime arrival or any information that may identify that other person. The first report to be tabled in each house of the parliament will be for the period commencing 13 August 2012 and ending on the first 30 June after the commencement of the bill.

I thank all those who have contributed to this debate. This of course is the realisation, in effect, of recommendation 14 of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers. I do indeed commend the amendments and the bill to the House.

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

I welcome the fact that we have finally arrived at this point. I welcome the fact that a bill that was passed by this House in November last year and had the full support of the coalition all through the process and that sat in the Senate unattended to since February while boats arrived on the mainland, has finally been addressed on the last day of this sitting week. That required the coalition's support in the Senate for the suspension of standing orders for the matter to be dealt with, otherwise it would not be here today and we would have gone through another few weeks before it was actually dealt with.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

I respond to the minister's interjection by simply saying this: this minister let this bill sit unattended to for absolute months. If it was not for the coalition hounding the government to bring it back into this place, who knows if it would have even come back this month. Last time the government had the opportunity to consider this matter in the Senate they thought it was more important to deal with their gag media laws. As a result, it sat by the wayside. What this has demonstrated to me is that there are many failings of this government when it comes to border protection but the one they are becoming most guilty of now is their lack of any sense of urgency on this matter.

This matter had full bipartisan support and it went nowhere for months and months and months, demonstrating the situation with regard to policy issues. The government likes to make all sorts of claims about the coalition's position on this. There is one outstanding matter, and that relates to the Malaysia people swap. But, as the minister full well knows, not even that matter is in a position where it could be considered by the parliament because he has not proceeded with it at all in terms of the recommendations of the Houston panel to put more effective protections in place. That policy remains red-lighted by the Houston panel. As a result, all the other matters in that report, to my understanding, are being progressed and, finally, this one has been progressed here this afternoon. It would not have been progressed were it not for the coalition's sense of urgency on this matter and forcing the government's hand to get this matter dealt with today.

I welcome the bill coming back into this place. The coalition are happy to accept the amendments, as we did in the Senate. When this bill finally receives royal assent we would hope there would then be a deterrent for people seeking to target the mainland, as they have been doing while this government has again sat on its hands and sought to blame the opposition for its own border failures. The $10 billion blow-out, the record levels of arrivals—more than 2,000 per month—fit squarely and surely on the shoulders of this government's failed border policies. If you want a sense of this government's lack of urgency, then just look at the passage of this bill while it is dragging its feet once again.

That can change at the next election, because the coalition will bring a sense of urgency to this matter that it has been demanding for absolute years. That will be an opportunity for the Australian people to settle this matter once and for all. My hope would be, if we were elected later this year, that never again would a government abolish measures that worked. In this area, this government abolished the measures that worked. The cost and chaos and tragedy that has followed sit fairly and squarely on the shoulders of this government. We are pleased, as we always have been, to support the bill.

Question agreed to.