Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

There is one word I would use to describe the contribution from the other side: ‘delusional’. They say that they have rolled out a humanitarian program. What is humanitarian about replacing those people on the Horn of Africa in the most desperate need, as identified by the UNHCR, with those people who can afford $15,000 for everybody in their family? I do not know what is humanitarian about that. I think it is absolutely and utterly delusional. If they are accusing this side of parliament of doing nothing about illegal foreign fishing when we were in government, I can show you that there is absolutely no truth to that at all.

I would like to commend my colleague Senator Colbeck for the wonderful contribution he made about identifying how we are moving and using strategic assets in a way that is not in the national interest. What could possibly be the point of taking our primary fishing and enforcement vessel and tying it up in Indonesia and embarrassing Australia? What is the fundamental point of that? These people are completely delusional if they think they are doing this well. This is a con job. They are not only trying to con the Australian people; they are also conning some of the Sri Lankan people aboard Oceanic Viking.

In Senator Evans’s answer to my question today, he confirmed that the detention facility on Tanjung Pinang is in fact an Indonesian facility. He said it was under Indonesian control and therefore he could not dictate how or when the asylum seekers would be processed. I hope the asylum seekers do not have television and I hope we are not broadcasting to them. If I were one of them I would be on full alert, because, if the minister cannot dictate how or when asylum seekers are processed, I do not know how he can possibly make this fundamental promise to those people currently on Oceanic Viking that they will be dealt with in a certain amount of time.

The minister gave lovely criteria. He said there was a 90-day time frame. The reports reveal that the average processing time of asylum seekers on Christmas Island has now blown out to six months. We have just had a number of Sri Lankans repatriated from Christmas Island. They arrived in April. So you can imagine why I am a little bit stunned when those on the other side say, ‘No, in Australia we take only six months to process and repatriate someone on Australian soil’—with all the processes and resources of government, in Australia, under our law and under our governorship! But of course that is all out the window. We cannot do it in six months. But the minister has said to us today that we can promise a 90-day time frame and a four-week resettlement on the basis that it is happening in a place we have absolutely no control over.

If their intent is to make Indonesia look more appealing than Christmas Island, I have to say that they are really delusional on the other side. Next to an Indonesian facility, Christmas Island must seem like a Club Med resort. As we heard in the news the other day, tragically, part of the processing is that if you arrive onshore unsure about yourself or if you make a bit of a bolt, you will get shot at or in fact shot. So I think the process they are going through on the other side is completely delusional.

The problem really is that the government intend to tell Australians that it is not doing any special deal. It is okay for the hundreds and hundreds of people who have been languishing for years—not months or weeks but for years—in Indonesia either in a detention facility or on some other arrangement in the community. For those hundreds of people who did not flee to Australia recently when they changed the pull factors—the suck factors from Australia—why would you suddenly say that the 56 people remaining on the Oceanic Viking somehow have more rights to some sort of resettlement process than the UNHCR refugees who have already been processed and mandated and are ready for resettlement? This makes a mockery of Australia being a signatory to the refugee convention and this makes a mockery of the Australian people. The government are completely delusional if they think the Australian public will swallow this one.