David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted indeed to speak on this subject on such an auspicious day. Today is an auspicious day because in the Catholic calendar of saints today is St Godwin’s day, a day which I know is of great spiritual significance to senators opposite. I know that those opposite have long been devotees of the cult of St Godwin because a few months ago they gave evidence of their faith by displaying in this Senate a holy relic of the saint, a miraculous email of Saint Godwin, which had apparently come to Senator Abetz in a vision. So, in keeping with this auspicious day, I thought I would start my contribution today with a text from Holy Scripture. In the Book of Proverbs, at Proverbs 26:11 in fact, we read:

As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly.

I am sure those opposite will see at once the relevance of this text to today’s debate. Today in this matter of public importance motion we are seeing the opposition repeating the folly of its MPI on Monday. Like the dog that returns to its vomit, the opposition comes back to the folly of this divisive, inflammatory debate about asylum seekers. Of all the issues which face this great nation today, the only issue which those opposite think is urgent is the appearance of a few dozen Sri Lankans in boats in the seas to our north-west—in fact technically one might say a few dozen Sri Lankans appearing in the Indonesian zone for rescue and safety. At a time when Australia is facing the challenge of the greatest global economic crisis since the 1930s, when we are embarking upon the greatest modernisation program for Australian schools in our history and when the world is facing the challenge of dangerous climate change, what do those opposite want to debate? Of course they want to debate asylum seekers.

Senator Brandis a few moments ago had the gall, dare I say it, the ‘courage’, to try to lecture this government about policy courage. How Senator Brandis could do that when opposition senators have yet to come to terms with any of the great debates which are taking place in this parliament is a matter of wonderment. I do not know who coalition senators think they are fooling with this barrage of motions and speeches on asylum seekers. Everyone knows what is going on here. This is an opposition that do not and cannot debate the economy. This an opposition that cannot and will not debate action on climate change. They do not want to have a debate about schools or workplace relations. All of those are subjects that those opposite cannot debate because they are divided and because they do not have a policy—because they are spending their energy fighting with one another on those matters rather than bringing a position to this parliament. On all of these subjects they have no policies, no leadership and no credibility. So this debate is the last resort of a scoundrel.

The debate on asylum seekers is a debate they want to have but, consistently, the opposition continue to not have a policy on this matter either. They have rhetoric; they do not have a policy. Tony Abbott demonstrated this graphically during his appearance on ABC television just last night. When Tony Jones repeatedly asked him what his policy was concerning the recent Sri Lankan boat arrivals, his only response was, ‘Well, I’m not the government, Tony.’ Strangely enough, that is also what the shadow minister for immigration, Sharman Stone, says every time she is asked what the opposition policy is. So you can bemoan the fact that John Howard is no longer your Prime Minister and you can weep for the fact that his harsh policies on boat people are no longer in place, but consider this: you are not advocating their return either.

The reason the opposition want to talk about asylum seekers is desperation politics—desperation politics from a desperate, divided and demoralised opposition which have now reached the very bottom of the political trough, right down there with One Nation and a whole other band of brothers, trying to appeal to the lowest political instincts of xenophobia and racism, which they hope are still lurking in sections of the electorate. They are trying to pull, from opposition, the trick that they so fondly remember from 2001. But in 2001 they were in office, and in 2001 they were led by John Howard. The trick will not be able to be repeated when they have no credibility on any of the other great issues facing this country and a leader who could not sell ice to Eskimos.

The core proposition underpinning the opposition argument on this matter is that since the Rudd government introduced a more humane and widely accepted regime it has attracted refugees to our shores. That is their core proposition. But they know it to be a falsehood, because those pull factors are as if nothing when one considers the push factors that are taking place across the world at the moment. Literally millions of people are on the move. Conflicts throughout Africa, Central Asia and, most recently, Sri Lanka have driven literally hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes to become internally or internationally displaced persons. A tiny fraction of these folk make their way to Australia’s shores, and upon them the opposition pin their hopes for election.

Before the current beat-up about Sri Lankan boat arrivals, the government’s support was running at 59 per cent of the two-party vote, and now the opposition’s strategists must ponder the fact that it is still running at 59 per cent. They have to ponder the fact that their argument does not have the facts to underpin it. For 25 of the last 33 years there have been unauthorised boat arrivals in this country. The fact is that those years Senator Brandis tried to paint as representing years of success for Howard’s policies were in fact nothing more than the logical ramifications of the fall of the Taliban in the final months of 2001 in Afghanistan. The opposition, in this area as in so many others, have ignored the facts and the evidence and are relying on a farrago of rhetoric.

The central thesis of the opposition’s case on asylum seekers is, as I said, that the changes in policy which the Rudd government carried out in 2008—principally the abolition of TPVs and the dumping grounds of the Pacific solution—have led to the current increase in unauthorised boat arrivals. But we know—we can prove—that this does not stand up to scrutiny or examination. The simplest way to demonstrate that is to look at the number of arrivals. In 2005 there were 11 people who arrived in this way; in 2006 there were 60; in 2007 there were 148; and in 2008 there were 161. So we can see quite clearly that the abolition of TPVs and the closing of the Nauru and Manus facilities had nothing whatever to do with the trend of arrivals. This trend began in 2005, when those opposite were in government, and it has continued ever since. And, of course, it has continued ever since, irrespective of regulation in this country, because of the crises happening around the world.

The second way to demonstrate the falsity of the opposition thesis is to compare Australia’s experience with that of other countries. I gave senators opposite this information on Monday but, since they were obviously not listening carefully, I will do them the justice of repeating it. In 2008 there were 36,000 unauthorised maritime arrivals to Italy, 15,300 to Greece and 13,400 to Spain. All of these figures have risen sharply over the past few years, and the reasons for this are well documented. In 2008 there was an 85 per cent increase in the number of Afghani asylum seekers worldwide and a 24 per cent increase in the number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers.

The third refutation of the opposition’s thesis on asylum seekers is the preferred destination of these people—because those opposite work very hard to try and convince Australians that our borders are in crisis, that they are permeable and that we risk an influx of hordes of strangers. But of course nothing could be further from the truth. Our borders and our border-management policies are not only intact, they are working. The recent hubbub has been built up over a vessel which was in distress—a vessel which was in distress in international waters; a vessel which was in distress in international waters but in the zone for which Indonesia is responsible for safety and rescue.

The Indonesians, being our close allies and our partners in managing our borders in our region, contacted us and said, ‘Notwithstanding the fact that this vessel is in our area, and notwithstanding the fact that it is our responsibility to conduct rescue operations in these waters, could you please do it on this occasion as your assets are closer?’ On that basis, Australia responded. We did not simply respond because we are a good ally of Indonesia; we responded because it is the decent thing to do when vessels on the high seas are in distress. On the back of that story, and on the back of those facts, those opposite now like to preach to us about an Indonesian solution. Those opposite like to talk about how we are dumping people in Indonesia. They like to talk about the fact that our borders and our vessels are challenged as they have never been challenged before. That is a nonsense, and a careful study of the facts reveals it to be so.

If asylum seekers really thought Australia was a ‘soft touch’ in terms of granting asylum, as the opposition allege, we would be seeing a significant proportion of these asylum seekers trying to come to Australia who otherwise seem to be searching the Mediterranean and elsewhere. But that is not what we are seeing. We are not seeing a changing composition in the persons seeking asylum in this country. Among industrialised countries, in 2008, 96 per cent of Afghan, 97 per cent of Iraqi and 82 per cent of Sri Lankan asylum seekers sought asylum in Europe. Australia is much closer to Sri Lanka than Europe is, yet 82 per cent of the Sri Lankan asylum seekers were trying to get to Europe rather than Australia.

Those opposite would have you believe that in these war-torn villages, in these desperate communities, in these places that have been ravaged by war, by famine and by conflict, people gather and do a quick regulatory impact study based on what law changes have occurred here in Australia and perhaps other jurisdictions too. The opposition would have you believe that these people sit around the beaches of Sri Lanka and the war-torn hills of Afghanistan and carefully look through the policies of this government and our border protection regime. Mercifully, they are not reading your press releases. The truth is, of course, that these are desperate people who will take what escape they can. The proposition that they are motivated to come to Australia on leaky boats because word has reached the distant hills of the Pashtun tribes that Senator Evans has changed the laws here in Australia is a fantasy, a nonsense—and a nonsense that will not survive serious debate or serious discussion.

So much for the opposition’s thesis. To be fair to them, putting together a rational argument based on facts was never their challenge. They have not tried it and they are not starting today. This is a desperate political stratagem borne of desperation. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Liberal Party is a panicked strategy group, a panicked leader surrounded by panicked staffers who has pulled the last lever in the conservative toolbox—a xenophobic debate in Australia about immigration. This is not, and it has unfortunately never been, an argument about facts, because those opposite do not care about the facts. They do not care about the fate of asylum seekers and they certainly do not care about Australia’s national interest.

All they care about is saving their own skins from the political tsunami that they have worked so hard—and, God bless them, with St Godwin’s help—to bring to their own destruction. That is what this is all about: an opposition’s vain hope that by appealing to a Hansonite instinct they will get the same response they believe they got in 2001. But, as I said, this is not 2001 and you ain’t got anybody like John Howard. This is a tactic of the desperate and the doomed but, worse than that, it is a tactic of the discredited and the dishonoured. It is the tactic of a parliamentary party that can no longer come to this place with an argument. There are worse things than losing elections. One is losing respect, and that is what this opposition have well and truly embarked upon.