Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Feeney asked why it was that the coalition would say nothing about what it would do. I investigated this question only to learn that this government flatly refused to give any briefings at all to senior members of the coalition on this matter. So, being new to this place, I inquired as to what the Hon. Philip Ruddock did when in government. I have learned that he invited and took the then shadow minister for population and immigration, Julia Gillard, to the island of Nauru and Manus Island so that she could observe for herself what was going on. How different it is when this government, bereft itself of any solutions, calls upon the opposition and refuses to brief it on what is going on!

There is little wonder: why would he draw attention to Philip Ruddock when we all know there is not a person in this parliament who has spent more time in refugee camps trying to assist the case of refugees? When asked why he introduced the policies he did—and I will come back to this later in my speech—Philip Ruddock said that he realised the only way he could engage and guarantee the safety of these people was to ensure that they did not go to sea in the first place. It is duplicitous for anybody in this chamber to say, as unfortunately our colleague Senator Feeney said, that in some way the coalition was taking pleasure out of the demise of these people and the regrettable circumstances they were in. Nobody in recent times has done more than former Minister Philip Ruddock in this area.

I wish to focus on a number of areas: people smugglers, our relations with our Asian neighbours and the bias in favour of Sri Lankans, with some comments on asylum seekers. Let me tell you a little bit about people smuggling. This is no ad hoc activity. These people are highly trained and highly organised. They are members of criminal gangs, and the beauty of it is that they are wonderful businesspeople, because for very, very low inputs they make enormous profits. Their networks and their parasitising of these poor people who are trying to leave their circumstances are lamentable and regrettable. Consider for a moment how they would get people from Afghanistan or Sri Lanka into Asia and through Asia towards Australia. Do people think this is some ad hoc activity? It is a well-organised logistical exercise. It is cash up front, so it is fantastic—and there is plenty of cash indeed. They must organise road and land transport; they must sometimes organise papers for these people; they must organise accommodation and three meals a day; and, naturally enough, at the other end they must organise the leaking vessels for the one-way voyage. These are good, hard, rogue businessmen. They are good at what they do; they are bad for the asylum seekers who they are exploiting.

But it does not stop there. You should know a little bit about what our people face when they are on vessels, because the people smugglers give the crews instructions on what to do. They give them instructions on how to sabotage the vessel. Our people are trained to do three things if they go on board these vessels: firstly, to have firefighting equipment ready; secondly, to take possession of the wheelhouse; and, thirdly, to take possession of the engine room quickly. I will leave it to the imagination of the group as to why. Our people are trained to have their pockets sewn up so they cannot accept a document. This is how well trained some of the people are.

Unfortunately, earlier this year we saw a fire on a vessel in the Timor Sea. We still do not know the outcome of the coroner’s report. We do know that all those involved have already been fast tracked into Australia long before the facts have been established. But that tragedy, in which I believe five people were killed, could have killed more had the Front Puffin FPSO not been on station in the Timor Sea. These people smugglers are well organised; they are ruthless; they do not care about the fate of the people they put to sea in leaking boats and we must stop them from doing it.

My next point is about our relations with our Asian neighbours, and this is tragic. We saw the best visual image of it on the weekend at the APEC conference in Singapore. We did not see President Yudhoyono say anything; we did not see what he said to our Prime Minister representing our country. What we did see was no eye contact; we saw him turn away from our Prime Minister and seek the company of somebody else. Why did he do that? Those of us who have dealt with Asia, India and the Middle East for many years know the sensitivity of liaising with and the diplomacy between ourselves and our Asian, Indian and Middle East neighbours. They are courteous, they are polite, they do not say what Europeans say and they are deeply offended by what has been said to them—what we refer to as megaphone diplomacy.

For those of you who do not believe it, simply take the statement of Dr Sujatmiko, the senior Indonesian negotiator with the Oceanic Viking through this whole exercise. His statement was that he hoped that Australia would ‘keep its promise to resettle’ those on the Oceanic Viking in Australia. The response by our minister, Senator Evans, was:

There’s no guarantee they will come to Australia, that was never part of the offer.

That is a statement to this Indonesian senior negotiator that he is a liar. They are not liars. Whether or not they agree with our policies—whether they want to bend to Mr Rudd’s policies and directives—is one thing, but we are not going to get cooperation out of them if we treat them in that fashion. We have seen the same in recent times with the Stern Hu exercise with Mr Rudd and the Chinese. He might speak Mandarin, but he does not understand the Chinese. There is no question about that. Our relations with our Asian neighbours have been damaged over this—and they need to be good because, as we know, in the main people coming overland come through Malaysia. An Islamic country welcomes them, but it welcomes them to travel through, not to stay. They then make their way to Indonesia, another country which must be supported and assisted but not through the type of diplomacy that we, regrettably, have seen.

We have continually heard that there are no biases, deals or favours for these Sri Lankans. Let us take the statements of a young Afghani man in only the last few days in the same camp as that which these people now occupy. He gave the journalist a pseudonym ‘for fear of violent reprisals from the Australian trained guards at the centre’. How pathetic! This is his statement:

We’ve been here seven months, and some of the boys have only now been registered (with the UNHCR), and half of the people have not been interviewed, but in less than one week (the Oceanic Viking Sri Lankans) have been interviewed and registration is going on. So everyone is feeling jealous.

Is it any wonder, in fact, that these Sri Lankans are being segregated in that particular camp? He goes on to ask why ‘those already there could not receive the same treatment as the new arrivals’.

Some of the Afghans have been accepted by the UNHCR for more than a month but they are still inside of detention—what will happen to them?

His final request:

I want to request to the Australian government that please if you have a policy that you accept these refugees, so what about us? We are also refugees who want to go to Australia—the only difference is that they were arrested a little nearer to Australia, and we were arrested a little bit farther from Australia.

I would like Senator Evans to explain to that man how it is that no special deal has been struck on behalf of these Sri Lankans. Of course it has. Surely it is better to stand up, say that it has and deal with it accordingly than to stand in this chamber day after day and deny it. It is nonsensical. It is an insult to the Australian people that he would go on in that way.

I make the point about safety, for which Senator Feeney earlier kindly gave me the opportunity. I have made this point two or three times recently. These waters are cyclone prone from this time of the year until Easter. In a previous life I travelled on large ships through those waters between October-November and March-April, and I can tell you that a force 7 gale when you are on a 40,000-tonne ship is not a pleasant experience. I imagine that on one of these small, leaking fishing boats it would be absolutely horrific. It causes me to make the point that if ever there were a time that we had to stop these people smugglers and stop these people being put to sea it is this period of the year between now and Easter time. It is horrific and must be stopped.

I come also to the question of the asylum seekers themselves. There is the whole question of where we need to be devoting attention. We know that, regrettably, here are still two million Afghanis apparently in camps outside Afghanistan, wanting and waiting to get back into Afghanistan. What a shocking statistic—and yet not many years ago there were six million Afghanis in that position. Four million have now been returned to their country. The ultimate objective surely has to be to create conditions in those countries whereby people can return to safety. We look at the statistics associated with the Sri Lankans—a terrible circumstance over the last hundred years. More than 70,000 have been killed; more than a quarter of a million are in government camps. They are absolutely horrific circumstances, but the solution surely lies in reversing that circumstance so that they do not feel compelled to leave.

But you must ask yourself the question. With the proximity of the Middle East, India and Asia to Sri Lanka, the numbers wanting to go to India are very, very low. For those who are risking money and life to come to Australia there has to be a reason why. The reason is, of course, that the people smugglers understand clearly that the rules have changed in Australia. They know that in taxis in Pakistan, they know that on the streets in Asia and we must reverse that situation. We must send a clear message that this is not an acceptable circumstance.

I conclude my comments with reference to the circumstances of Sri Lankans in Indonesian waters. It has escaped the attention of people that there is another vessel with Sri Lankan asylum seekers. They are known as the Merak protesters and, as we know, their spokesman is this ‘Alex’ fellow. Only some time later did we learn that Alex, in fact, has a criminal record from his time in Canada. Is his brother or is his brother not Alex himself? Was he or was he not a people smuggler? We do not know. But that vessel was picked up by the Australian Navy in Indonesian waters, again in response to a distress plea. They are now asking why they are not the subject of the same deal that is being allowed to the Oceanic Viking personnel. It can be best summarised thus: the Howard government had a problem associated with asylum seekers and they found a solution. On the other hand, the Rudd government inherited that solution; they dismantled the solution. They now have a problem not only for asylum seekers but for the government and for the people of Australia. We must stop this trade. I support the motion of Senator Fierravanti-Wells.