Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Could the minister inform the House on action being taken to introduce temporary protection visas for illegal boat arrivals?

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

Thank you to the member for Bowman for his question. I am pleased to advise the House that after an absence of more than five years this government has restored temporary protection visas. Temporary protection visas were abolished by those on that side of the House—along with the Greens—when they came to government over five years ago. What followed in the wake of that everyone in this place will remember: over 50,000 people turned up on over 800 illegal boats to Australia. There was a budget blow-out of over $11 billion, and over 1,100 people perished at sea. That is what followed from the decision of the previous government to abolish temporary protection visas and the many other measures that had been introduced by the Howard government that had stopped the boats. The previous government had found a solution. They turned it into a problem of catastrophic levels, and they should hang their heads in shame.

What they are doing in the Senate right now is to join up with the Greens, yet again, to defer the consideration of the Greens motion, which is to disallow the introduction of temporary protection visas. They are teaming up with the Greens to defer the decision for some weeks yet. This portrays the problem that those on the Labor side have always had on this issue. They are double minded, they are divided on this issue, and they always defer to the Greens. that is what they are doing here.

So I am pleased to say that temporary protection visas are back, and they are back because those on that side of the House left behind a legacy caseload of 33,000 people that they had not processed. This government has a big job to stop the boats and we are making a good start, with a reduction of 75 per cent in illegal arrivals by boat since Operation Sovereign Borders commenced. But we have another big task, and that task is to clear the backlog of Labor's lethargy when it comes to how they dealt with people who they allowed to come into this country. Had they been re-elected, those people would all be getting permanent visas—but not under this government, because this government believes what it says. We have conviction on this issue. Those on that side were double minded. They flipped and they flopped and they went with every wind that passed through that debate. As a result, they could not be believed. But, now, under this government, every measure is backed by resolve, because the people-smugglers know that this government means business. That government, when it was in power, could not hold a position from one day to the next.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. I refer to reported statements by the Indonesian search and rescue agency Basarnas concerning the Australian interception of an asylum seeker vessel and subsequent actions and events on or around 7 November. Are these reports accurate?

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

Last night I issued a statement about that matter. I made it very clear in that statement that the place of rescue, where the passengers were rescued, was closer to Indonesia than it was to Australia. We therefore sought to take those rescued passengers, in accordance with international search and rescue protocols, to the nearest place of safety, which was Indonesia, not Australia. That is the practice we have been following and that is the practice that has proved effective on many occasions.

But these are matters which we continue to work through with the Indonesian government, who are a strong partner. I want to stress how strong a partner they are. The cooperation that we receive from Indonesia and the strong leadership they show, particularly on on-land disruptions in Indonesia, has been extraordinary, because it has been that leadership from Indonesia, working together through our government and through the Bali process that has meant that we now know that more people are being stopped from coming to Australia under sovereign borders than are arriving. That is why we are having success.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I know those on the other side are sensitive on this issue, and they should be. They should be very sensitive on this issue, because under that side of the House they ran a taxi service. They ran a water taxi service and they were open for business for that water taxi service. Under that side of the House we measured illegal arrivals by boat in the thousands per month. Under this government, they are measured in the hundreds.

Where these people will be processed is on Nauru and Manus Island, because they are being processed offshore. That was one of the many policies that were put in place by the previous Howard government that were abolished by those on that side of the House along with temporary protection visas. They had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to restore offshore processing, and they restored it under protest. When they restored it, it was underfunded, it was incompetently put together, it did not send the signal and it did not provide the effective implementation that makes the policy work. Any and every measure to deter boat arrivals, regardless of who the author is, will always be more effective in the hands of a coalition government that believes in a border protection policy and a border protection initiative than in the hands of Labor, who are double minded, divided and always deferring to the Greens.