Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Hansard source

Listen to the facts, Senator. Temporary protection visas were introduced in October 1999. There were 3,722 unauthorised boat arrivals that year. During the next two years there were 8,459 unauthorised arrivals, including 5,520 arrivals in 2001 alone. Not only was there an increase, people granted TPVs did not leave Australia. By the time TPVs were abolished last year, nearly 90 per cent of people initially granted a TPV had been granted a permanent protection visa or another visa to remain in Australia. Even the previous government realised TPVs were failing. The coalition’s 2007 election policy manifesto dealing with unauthorised boat arrivals made no reference, senators, to TPVs because they knew TPVs were not working.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells also made some claims about two asylum seekers who, apparently in news reports, had mentioned that Australia was a great place to come because of changed policies. Senator Fierravanti-Wells based that statement on two comments in a newspaper. Senators, there has actually been a report and a study done on this by Dr Roslyn Richardson of Charles Sturt University. She interviewed asylum seekers—not two, but many—and she did it in a systematic way. Let me offer a few quotes from her paper:

... none of the respondents who were interviewed for this study arrived in Australia with a detailed understanding of Australia’s immigration policies.

... some Afghan respondents reported that they had not even heard of a place called Australia prior to arriving on Australia’s shores.

While a number of the respondents said that they knew prior to their spontaneous arrival, that they might be detained in an Australian detention centre, only one of the respondents said that before he came to Australia, he knew that he might be subjected to the temporary protection visa.

... the apparent lack of importance of Australia to refugees prior to their arrival in Australia is worth noting. Australia to the respondents, pre arrival, was perhaps only as important to them as any other country which was outside of their region and with which they had little contact.

Most of the people interviewed actually came to Australia during the excesses of the Howard government asylum seeker policies, yet they were not even aware of the policies that were supposed to deter them. The argument that somehow there was a cause and effect relationship between the movement of asylum seekers and our domestic immigration policies was false then and it is false now.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells really did not go into the global factors that are driving the immigration, asylum seeker spike either. She just glossed over it like it is not happening. She did not mention Pakistan or the turmoil there. She did not mention the turmoil in Sri Lanka and she did not mention the turmoil in Iraq. She did not mention these issues or the conflicts that are causing people across the world to migrate and flee unsafe environments and look for safe havens.

The UN has described the situation in Sri Lanka as an intensifying emergency as tens of thousands of civilians continue to make their way out of the conflict zone. Among the major countries of origin of asylum seekers, the biggest increase in 2008 was registered by Afghanistan—numbers were up 85 per cent. Of course, Australia is going to be an area that is viewed as a safe haven. The UNHCR mentioned a 12 per cent spike in asylum seeker traffic across the globe. Senator Fierravanti-Wells never even mentioned these facts. What is happening globally is irrelevant to the Liberal Party. In the end this is a scare campaign not based on fact but based on opportunism.

Fortunately, though, there are some good people within the Liberal Party not motivated on this issue by political opportunism who have decided to take a stand. They have talked about the push and pull factors. Mr Barnett, the Western Australian Premier, said this about global factors:

I think what we are seeing is serious unrest in areas like Sri Lanka, Afghanistan … and there are desperate people trying to find a better life for themselves.

That was reported by AAP. The member for Pearce, Mrs Moylan, supported the government’s current policies and does not believe they are responsible for the rise in boat people. She said:

I don’t think that it is domestic policy driving this latest flood. I think you will see, like it was previously, that it is events in Afghanistan.

They are the facts. This is what is happening overseas and this is why there is a spike. It has absolutely nothing to do with government policy.

In its policy the government has maintained the strongest of border protection. If you look at the figures, funding has gone up for border security and border surveillance. Immigration and border protection policy for the Rudd government is based on six pillars: the excision of offshore islands; mandatory detention of all unauthorised boat arrivals; offshore processing of unauthorised boat arrivals on Christmas Island; extensive air, land and sea patrols; the prosecution of people smugglers; and working with our regional allies.

This is what the government is doing. We are working with Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka to ensure that these countries have the support and the resources they need to stop the people smugglers. We all know that in the end these are the people who are helping to drive unauthorised arrivals, and this is what the Rudd government is concerned about. We have heard what the Prime Minister has said about people smugglers, and we will continue the fight. The government has the strongest of border protections in place but is at the same time processing asylum seekers humanely. So I say to Senator Fierravanti-Wells and those senators on the other side of the chamber: when you are addressing the Liberal Party policy, do not talk to or look at John Howard; talk to former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. (Time expired)