Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

As the senator would have learnt from all the discussions on these issues in recent times, we are experiencing a surge in people-smuggling activities as a result of the displacement of persons from countries in turmoil and war. Since the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated, we have seen tens of thousands of people fleeing Afghanistan, and we have seen many Afghanis who were residing in Pakistan fleeing Pakistan because of the deteriorating security circumstances there. And, of course, we have seen the war in Sri Lanka lead to an increased movement of people there.

At the recent Bali conference, all of our regional neighbours committed to a joint approach to try to tackle the problem of increased unlawful people movement in our region. We are going to be working with our neighbours to try to solve this growing problem. (Time expired)