Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier on, Senator Moore criticised the use of the term ‘illegals’. I am sure there is someone back in an office in this building who will be reporting her to the Prime Minister, because it was the term he used, and we all know how well he takes criticism!

What really bewilders me is how the people on the other side of this chamber always seek to justify their policy in terms of a higher moral ground. It must get dizzy that high up on the soapbox. This side of the chamber has not said that you are supporting people smugglers. What we have said is that your changes in policy have given them a product to sell. No-one here has suggested that people in northern Sri Lanka are jumping on the internet to read the latest press release from Minister Evans, but we do allege that the people-smugglers are—the people-smugglers who sell the product, who walk around the villages, who go to camps and who say to people, ‘Give us $20,000 and we will put you on a boat.’ Your government has made that a better product to sell. Your government has given those people something they did not have two years ago. They could not say two years ago, ‘Come to Australia and you will be out in 90 days.’ They could not say, ‘You will have the right to bring your family.’ They could not say, ‘You will have the right to access benefits and work.’ But they can say that now because of what the Labor government has done.

We warned you what the consequences would be of watering down the measures and policies of the previous government. We warned you it would lead to an increase in the number of boats. We warned you that it would increase the number of unlawful arrivals, that it would increase the number of people putting their lives at risk. And tragically that is exactly what has happened. We warned you this would give people-smugglers a better product to sell. We know that is the case because the AFP has said so. The AFP has said that people-smugglers have got a better product to sell.

Over the last 24 hours, members of this government have wanted to deny that there is some sort of special deal. So I looked up the dictionary definition of the term ‘special’. It could be ‘distinct’, ‘exceptional’, ‘different’ or ‘out of the ordinary’. Whatever we say, the people who were on the Oceanic Viking and who got off several days ago were offered a deal that was different to people waiting in camps all around the world. They were offered a deal that was different to everyone else who has sought to be an unlawful entrant into Australia or Australian territory. That is a special deal. You may try to run away from it, you may try to obfuscate, you may try to say that it is all part of a global problem. This is the first government in Australian history that actually does not want to own up to any problem. Every problem is the result of someone else, something else or an external event. You do not want to take responsibility for the challenges that face government. But on this occasion the government cannot avoid it, because it is their own actions that have brought it about.

This is a special deal. We have seen 52 boats since they changed the law. There is no end in sight. What is truly tragic about this is that the people who are the most vulnerable, the people who truly deserve prioritised protection, the people who desperately need protection are the people who do not have $20,000. They are the people who do not have the means to jump on a boat. They are the people caught in camps without family members, without the means to support themselves and without the means to jump on a boat and seek to use a people-smuggler to get to Australia. I am surprised, because this country is proud of its humanitarian intake, as it should be. But this government’s policies are weakening public faith in that because the trade-off for a substantial humanitarian intake has always been control over our borders. The implication that people who oppose this government’s policy and the implication that somehow people on this side of the chamber are not as concerned with the most vulnerable people in the world is offensive. But the other side of the chamber just like to jump up on their soapbox.

Australians know that we cannot solve the world’s problems. But Australians also know that the government changed the laws, despite being warned by us and the by Federal Police, and after the changes in those laws we have seen a massive, unprecedented spike, given where we were immediately beforehand, in the number of boats and unlawful entrants and people placing their lives at risk—they know what that means and that will rest on this government’s head.