Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question. I would remind him, though, not to just believe the shadow spokesman’s press releases but to actually go to the original sources before he quotes information. Then he would not be so badly misled. The senator, if he actually had the UNHCR document, would realise that the figures were not complete for 2009, that the figures used by the shadow spokesman were incomplete, only had three-quarters of the year for most of the major receiving countries and basically were totally dodgy. If you want to come into this place, Senator, and make claims, wait until you have got the annual figures. But, no, you want to make claims based on incomplete figures. So the assumptions in the senator’s question are wrong, dead wrong, because he was not able to rely on full figures for the year and sought to believe the dodgy figures provided by the shadow spokesperson in order to try and get a media run.

The first point is that the figures are not the annual figures. It looks like, on present indications, that the rate of asylum seeking around the world will be approximately the same as it was the previous year, based on forward projection of those figures that were available for only the first three-quarters, which are for some of the larger countries. So first of all the figures are dodgy. Second of all the argument that somehow the application rates are the same around the world of course is a nonsense. They vary according to the populations fleeing and their normal countries. As the senator would know, when the Howard government was dealing with a large increase in arrivals in 1999-2001, it was dealing largely with people from two source countries, Afghanistan and Iraq. Those countries, at the time, were seeing a lot of people leave. Those are the sorts of things that influence application rates. But the key point is: the figures the senator quotes are not complete and he misrepresents the position in the claims he makes. (Time expired)